The national era. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1847-1860, 1857-09-10
WASHINGTON, d. c..
For the National Era.
BROWN BREAD CAKES.
BY GAIL HAMILTON

trstion, extensive acquaintance with the best
authors, and retentive memory, have combined
70 remedy this deficiency, and am now con-
sdered by my friends sufficiently original for
all practical purposes. Mark, now, the applica-
ton. Scintillant genius and insipid common
place-dom would alike have Stunned a remark
so trite so worn, so unquestioned, as the one /
have used; but my mediocre and hardly-earned
originality lifts it above its pebeian associations,
and coins its very commences.
| think / have not succeeded very we'll in
precipitating the idea that existed, in some
what solvent state, in my mind; but, o in
lulgent reader, the weather is Tremendous, and
| am as unable as Mrs. Dombey to make an
effort"
As | was renarking, tastes differ. The
Freachmsn rolls as sweet morsel under his
tongue the hind legs of frog. To the patriotic
Chinese, no savor is so savory as hat which
arises from roasted mouse or broiled puppy.
the Esquimaux, plunged into the pots and
kettles Of civilization, means for the delicious
blubber and whale-oil which once gladdened
his heart. Connecticut delights in the frying
pan. Meat, bread, rice, turn-overs, apples,
potatoes, hasty-puddipgs, whatever goods the
gods provide her and every dweller in her
valleys will attest they are neither few nor
small-she casts incontinently into the suffering
fat, till Connecticut joints, from constant lubri-
cation acquire suppleness which neither age,
nor time, nor travel, nor the burden of her ira.
dictionary nutmegs, clocks, and hams, can over
come.
Bat thou, o, Massachusetts, land of my birth,
and thrice and four times land of my love
queen mother of men, reverent children, who
turn to thee from every shore, and bind on thy
brow the laurels they learned from thee to win,
will any wsnderer from thy sturdy soil ever
Forget the sky that bent above
HIS childhood. ike n dream oflove?
The stream beneath the green hill flowing,
The broad armed trees about il growing
The smoke from thousand fires ascending with fragrant
oders sweey blending, of thousand pans bright zed
and red, a thousand pans of hot brown bread.
Nori thy fame confined to thy children alone.
From the numbering and fishing East, to the
mlssmatic and sgue- attic West, an unfortunate
race, whose veins have never throbbed with
Bay State blood, who have not sufficient inpe-
nuity to step out of the even tenor of their
wheat bread way, but whose stomachs have been
endowed with sensibility denied to their brains,
weekly distend their plant throats with Bos-
ton Brown Bread"
Can such generation be supposed, in the
highest fights of its imagination, ever to have
scared to brown bread cakess Is not the at
tempt to rouse, in these sluggish minds. an en-
thusiasm for the ambrosial food, Quixotic to the
last degree? Nay, is it possible to introduce
into their siolid souls any conception of the
ethereal flavor which penetrates my Utmost
frame when / sit down to a repast of brown
bread cakes? Yet, in the great multitude
gathered from every nation under heaven, the
mighty throng that are making the wilderness
of this New World to bud and blossom as the
rose. there must needs be few who have an eye
TOR the curve that swells the luxuriant sides of
sweet potato, a nose to discern the fumes that
rise, incenselike, from a fair, young beef steak,
floating in its own sapient juices. soul to
mount upwards on the wings of smoking Mocha !;
and since
Bonnet Head
Shoe Foot
Bay > Soul
Cap w vaGe' Brown bread, brown bread cakes;
Dew Rose
Noon Evening
Earth Heaven
Or less mechanically, as a beautiful bonnet to
the beautiful head that bears it, or a delicate
satin shoe to the delicate foot that wears it, as
the green of the deathless bay to the lofty brow
that won it, as the canvass is to the faces that
startngly glow upon it. as the grace of the gold
en- cup 10 the mantling wine that fills it, as the
quivering globe of dew to the regal rose that
distils it, as the glare of the midsummer noon
to the scented breath of Eden, as the homely
and kindly earth to the grand and star lit heaven
SO is the " home-felt bliss" which loaf of brown
bread ms To he Ill of liz l..
arising from brown bread cakes because of all
this, | will make the attempt.
Let me give the mOdus Operdndi: OF fine
maize flour, yellow as the locks of the lovely
LenOre, take-well, tske enough cannot tell
exactly how much it depends upon circum-
stances. OF fresh new milk, white as the brow
OF the charming Arabella, take-well, don't
know exactly how much Of that, either; it de-
perds upon circumstances, particularly on the
quantity of meal. If you have not new milk,
take blue milk, provided it be sweet or if you
have none that is sweet, sour milk will answer;
or II your folks don't keep eow," take water
clear and sparkling as the eyes of the peerless
Amanda but whether it be milk or water, let
1t be scalding as the tears of the outraged lisa.
DEL Ot moasses, sweet as the tones of the
tunetu Lisette, take-a great deal, if it is sum-
mer, In the winter not quite 80 much, flor the
reasons therefor, see Neutons Treatise on the
ESpansire POtcer Of Fluids, vol. /, D. l75.)
w various other substances, animal, vegetable,
ana mineral, which 1T becomes not me to men,
uon-frst because / have forgotten what they
are secondly, because / never knew; and,
tnlroy, because, as the immortal Toots remarks
Is OF no consequence" Take whatever seems
gooo IN your sight, and cast them together into
Inc kneading-trough, and knead with all your
might ard main. Provide yourself, then, with
un plate, not bright and new, for 80 will your
caAes De heavy, your crust cracked, aud your
soul Sorrowful, but one blsckened by fire, and
venerable ven with time, and rough with service.
win your own roseate fingers scoop out por
aon OF the pulpy mass. Fear not to touch it !;
Is soft, yielding, and plastic, as the heart of
ne afectonate Clara. Turn it lovingly over
- your hands. Round it. Mould it. Caress
:. soften down Its asperities. Smooth off its
9Tugularlties. Repress its bold protuberances.
Encourage Its timid shrinkings; and when it is
o~oo'n as the velvet cheek Of Ida, and oval
Hs me classic face of Helen, give one "last,
long, lingering look" and Law it tenderly in the
s"art arms of its tutelar plate. Repeat the
process until your cakes shall equal the sands
" Inc sea shore or the stars in the sky for multi
IN LIE, or as long as your meal holds out, or
81 you are tired. j am prescribing for one
40 uno disco onnes"
~ Ihe otyglan cave that yawns dismally
me Kitchen stove, consign it without a
AZ: mur. Item: said stove must have a pro-
iI'soGs crack up and down the front. A phi.
Tpncal reason for this am unable to give.
eier the curious in cause and effect to Ga.
o. eeservediy celebrated Disposition ON the
D eI"S OF Ftre and Metals, passins also
kn nU u.t on Dough, p. IS, Appendix. only
Brown 'n n me only stove whence ever saw