Lyon County times. [volume] (Silver City, Nev.) 1874-1907, 1875-07-04
HOUSEHOLD.
That miserable Bread"

Good wheat bread is said to be the staff
of life, which is as emphatically true as
the saying that poor bread, sour bread,
soggy bread, and bread of any other
quality in which the element of "good'
docs not prcponderate is one of deaths
surely fatal weapons. Sour and unheal-
thy bread of any sort sends to premature
graves more victims who have dragged
out miserable existence than war, pesti-
lence and famine. We can look To the
days Of boyhood, to the period of youth,
early manhood, and maturity, and call up
immense numbers of friends and associ-
ates who sickened from no other cause
than the slowly operating and fatal influ-
ence of unwholesome bread, and who
died for the want of good bread. Untold
numbers of our most estimable citizens
scarcely know what good bread is, and a
much larger number still, who esteem
themselves as makers of good bread, never
have known how to make good bread,
even when they are supplied with the best
of flour.
Wife and the writer once went to visit
a distinguished author and authoress, his
wife, who had written book on domestic
economy. Notwithstanding all the ex-
cellencies of the book it lacked the simple
direction to enable one to make good
bread. This authoress supervised her
own domestic affairs and always made
her own bread, which her friends and
neighbors averred was always sour. When
we paid them visit the bread was so I'M
wholesome that it was exceedingly difficult
to eat small piece. Soon after we COM
menced keeping house, lady cousin,
who was noted for making soggy and
sour bread, reproved wife for ''fussing so
much with her dough-" She averred that
she couldn't afford to spend so much
time fussing with dough. She worked at
her dough only when no other duties re-
quired her attention. We were wont to
visit them periodically for twenty years,
and we were always treated with that
same sour, soggy, and unwholesome bread.
Those friends were laid in their graves
long, long ago. They were built to live
hundred years, and had it not been for
this insidious influence of bad bread
they might have been alive to-day.
If the -four is of prime quality, every
thing will depend on manipulation and
management. For thirty years past wife
has made our own bread. and during all
that period not a single loaf of poor
bread has been produced Our servant
cook will take flour of the choicest brand
and produce bread that will give an alli-
gator the dyspepsia. Wife will take the
same sort of -four, the same domestic APP
pliances, and bring out the beautiful,
almost snowy white and spongy wheaton
loaf which is a delightful luxury. Our
kitchen servant will manage the golden
cream from the milk of our one thousand
dollar COW, and produce butter that APP
pears more like lard than any thing else.
Wife will manage the cream the next
week, and in the same pans, the same
churn, butter-bowl and ladle, bring out
as gilt-edged butter as can be found in
the market. These facts go to prove that
certain stereotypcd practices in making
bread will spoil flour, of the best quality,
for human food.
The best recipe for making good bread
is to find some person who never makes
a poor loaf. Let the learner go to his or
her place and take lessons in the peculiar,
careful and discreet manipulations and
management Of the -four and dough until
she can produce bread that is fit to be
called the "staff Of life." If it requires
six months to learn the lesson, let the task
be completely. Y. Herald.