Page:Mrs Beeton's Book of Household Management.djvu/1557

Rh were elements, but this was unleavened. Every family used to prepare the bread for its own consumption, the trade of baking not having then taken shape. It is said that somewhere about the beginning of the both Olympiad, the slave of an archon at Athens, made leavened bread by accident. He had left some wheaten dough in an earthen pan, and had forgotten it; some days afterwards he lighted upon it again, and found it turning sour. His first thought was to throw it away; but, his master coming up, he mixed this now acescent dough with some fresh dough, which he was working at. The bread thus produced, by the introduction of dough in which alcoholic fermentation had begun, was found delicious by the archon and his friends, and the slave, being summoned and catechised, told the secret. It spread all over Athens, and everybody wanting leavened bread at once, certain persons set up as bread-makers, or bakers. In a short time breadmaking became quite an art, and "Athenian Bread" was quoted all over Greece as the best bread, just as the honey of Hymettus was celebrated as the best of its kind.

In our own times, and among civilised peoples, bread has become an article of food of the first necessity; and rightly so, for it constitutes of itself a complete lite-sustainer—the gluten, fibrin, fat, phosphates, starch and sugar. which it contains, representing all the necessary classes of food; and when the question of cost arises, it is one of the cheapest foods supplied to man. In towns and large centres of population, bread is cheapest, and if not of the highest quality, as a life sustainer it is more valuable than the whitest of flour. But, comparatively speaking, bread by itself contains too little fat, and too little flesh-forming material to be used as a sole article of diet.

Different kinds of Flours.—The finest, wholesomest, and most savoury bread is made from wheaten flour. Rye bread comes next to wheaten bread; it is not so rich in gluten, but is said to keep fresh longer, and to possess some laxative qualities.

Barley bread, Indian-corn bread, etc., made from barley, maize, oats, rice, potatoes, etc., "rise badly," because the grains in question contain but little gluten, so that the bread is heavy, close in texture, and difficult of digestion; in fact, wheat flour has to be added before panification can take place. In countries where wheat is scarce and maize abundant, the people make the latter a chief article of sustenance, prepared in different forms.

Yeast is a living plant, consisting of a vast number of minute cells, which multiply by budding off other cells, and sometimes by spores, and most of the mistakes in its use would be avoided if this were understood. Extremes of heat and cold kill it, and a temperature that it does not like prevents it from growing actively at the time, even though it may not be hot or cold enough to put an end to its growing in future under more favourable conditions. Under a microscope each plant can be readily defined. If a few be put into flour and water, potatoes