The Middlebury register. [volume] (Middlebury, Vt.) 1850-1882, 1869-05-11
Food Follies.
ny REV. AUSTIN T., PARK.

multltuueS eat Their bread fresh from
the oven, instead of storing il for day or
two and suffering il to ripen. Swallowed
in the form of tough paste, it battles both
saliva and gastric fluid and, sooner or
later, is the parent of thousand dyspeptic
pangs. Innumerable lectures and treaties
should have had the effect, long ago, to in
form the public mind that old bread is more
nutritious, wholesome, and to well-regu
lated appetite palatable. A distinguished
American, who was spending some months
in Berlin, stepped into bakery and asked
for bread, we have none,' was the re-
ply, You do not understand me, per
sisted the customer. Il want loaf of
bread, pointing to the huge piles display
ed on the shelves. 20, that Is just baked
answered the dealer, 'and is not for sale
The .paternal Prussian Government com.
pels bakers to keep their stock on hand at
least one day before selling. Perhaps if
Frederick William had charge of our
ovens we should need fewer pills and have
more color in our cheeks. / lately heard
two men apply to baker for hot bread.
They were told that it would be out of
the oven in about five minutes. They
sat down and waited for their crude sup
per- while before their eyes. and 30 much
more to be desired, were the loaves of
yesterday.
We as a nation will make our bread,
too, from the impalpablc dust of wheat,
thrice bolted, bolted TO death. The life
having been crushed out, the best part of
the food must be sifted out, or we will not
touch it, We carefully reject that portion
of the grain from which the enamel Of our
teeth is made, and expect Nature to make
bricks without straw, But she does not
and our wretched teeth, friable and chalky,
must be dug out before we reach middle
age, and replaced with porcelain. No
where else do men live 80 exclusively upon
flour from which the silicious particles
have been expelled; and, as conse.
quence, foreigners wonder at our great
army of dentists-one or two in every
Misunderstanding the aches that arise
from our double extra superfine,' and fill.
ing our offending mouths with gold and
pottery ware, The horses eat our enamel,
and from the want of the mechanical aid
afforded by injurious food our own dges-
tion suffers.
How seldom is seen on our tables that
glorious golden maize that hourished in
this country before the days of Columbus
that noble gain, that offers so many
luxurious dishes at SO trihing cost. Per
haps we do now and then furtively taste
corncake or hasty pudding, when no
strangers are at our table but, for the
most part. our hogs know where the meal
goes. The cheaper kinds of breadstuff's
seem 10 be peculiarly Stunned by persons
Of limited means. Was ever domestic
servant who had not unutterable contempt
for coarse bread, ,samp, mush, and the like =
he IRISH, IN this country, are particularly
attached 10 the finest -four 1t was said
too, ofthe Freedman, year or two since,
when lot Of yellow corn was sent them
| from The North to relieve their distress,
that they refused it as fit only for swine,
and mourncd for the sweeter white meal
Of the South. hope it was slanJer
but. II not, little more hunger would not
have injured those dainty beneiiciaries
On the other band, have seen sensible
millionaire courageous enough to like that
which is unfashionably cheap. After
helping his guests at dinner to all possible
delicaces, he Jared sumptously for his
own part upon plate Of mush and molas-
SOS. But not even he was brave enough
to offer the same fare tC others, or to pro
vide for his table bread made only from
unbolted meal. will not call it 'Gra
ham iicur, because that name improperly
associated in the public mind with bran
and meager diet, has some responsibility
fer discouraging its general use.
Besides all this, our flour must he white,
and we will pay ionr or five dollars more
a barrel for certain brands merely because
Of color. Canada sells US all her whtest
wheat at fabulous prices, and grows rich
and fat eating the equally good but darker
varieties. We drain Missoari of flour
winter than that New England fields can
raise.
1t avail' little with many purchaser.
that their flour i sweet and rises well, it
| it is dark; they will pay more, rather
than eat any but the whitest Germany
lives On black brcad-nobility and peasan
try eat it, and are none the worse, but We
Americans have oar whims. Will some
one introduce the fashion of eating coarser
bread and paying less regard to the color :
For as it is sald hungry stomachs have
no ears 50 ought they TO have 10 eyes.