Page:Foods and their adulteration; origin, manufacture, and composition of food products; description of common adulterations, food standards, and national food laws and regulations (IA foodstheiradulte02wile).pdf/298

 or dough. Boiling water is added to the semola and the dough is mixed for about seven minutes. The mass is then put on a flat, circular kneading board and kneaded by two sharp-edged parallel beams which rise and fall as the table turns and press into the dough as they descend. A few minutes of kneading are sufficient and the homogeneous dough is then put into the cylinder and the piston descends upon the mass, forcing it in strings slowly through the perforated plate at the bottom. Fifteen minutes are required to convert the gallons of dough into thousands of feet of yellow macaroni. The yellow color is produced by the use of saffron or of a coal tar dye of which a very small quantity is put into each batch of dough. This is a reprehensible practice.

As soon as the strings of fresh paste which issue continually from the die are of the proper length they are cut and thrown over a reed pole and carried into the sunlight, if the weather is fair, or into sheltered terraces, protected by curtains from the rain, if the weather is unfavorable. On bright days the strings of macaroni are exposed to the sunlight only two hours. They must be dried out only slightly before being cellared for the night in dungeon-like underground vaults similar to the Bavarian beer cellars.

For twelve hours or more the poles of macaroni are kept in these damp places, until the dough has become moist and pliable again and the strings have lost the brittleness that the exposure to the sunlight has given them. From the cellars the poles are carried to shaded storehouses open on all sides to the air but not lighted from above. Here, in great masses of millions of strings, they hang for several days, from eight to twenty being required, depending upon the dryness of the atmosphere. According to the statements of a manager of a factory this process of drying is necessary to give to the brittle paste a horn-like toughness and fit it to withstand the rough handling to which it will be subjected without breaking into small pieces.

In all this simple process the one point at which bacteria might have a chance to play a rôle is in the first drying, cellaring, and subsequent slow drying in the shade. The theory that the water is responsible for the flavor must rest, it seems to the writer, on other than bacterial grounds, for from the appearance of the tank which supplied the hot water the inference is easy that the water is chalybeate, for the tank was incrusted with iron.

ROLLS.

The term rolls is given to bread usually leavened with yeast or baking powder, and usually eaten warm, or hot. The term biscuit is generally but improperly used in this country for hot bread made with baking powder. The composition of rolls varies greatly with their method of preparation. Those made with yeast have practically the same composition as ordinary