Excerpt from Practical Housekeeping: A Careful Compilation of Tried and Approved Recipes

The old saying, bread is the staff of life, has sound reason in it. Flour made from wheat, and meal from oats and Indian corn, are rich in the waste-repairing elements, starch and albumen, and head the list of articles of food for man. Good bread makes the homeliest meal acceptable, and the coarsest fare appetizing, while the most luxurious table is not even tolerable without it. Light, crisp rolls for breakfast, spongy, sweet bread for dinner, and flaky biscuit for supper, cover a multitude of culinary sins; and there 18 no one thing on which the health and comfort of a family so much' depends as the quality of its home made loaves.

Opinions as to what constitutes good bread differ, perhaps, as much as tastes and opinions concerning any thing else, but all will agree that bread, to be good, ought to be light, sweet - that is, free from any perceptible acid or yeasty taste - flaky, granular or not liable to become a doughy mass, and as white as the grade of flour used will allow. If members of the family have delicate digestive powers, they will not use new bread, and therefore must have such as will keep with little change of texture and none of quality or taste, for several days. To obtain these qualities in bread, use the best flour, as in families where no bread is wasted, the best is cheap est. The good old Genesee Valley white winter wheat, of Western New York, makes a flour unsurpassed in quality. The Michigan, Ohio, Indiana and Missouri white winter wheat grades are much the same, but the Minnesota hard spring wheat new process flour is the equal of the best, and is so much superior in strength that one-eighth less is used in all recipes for bread and cake. The common or straight brands are used by the great majority of families, and from all of them good, uniform and palatable bread may be made.

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