The Colfax chronicle. [volume] (Colfax, Grant Parish, La.) 1877-1981, 1885-12-19
THE BREAD WE EAT.
Some Points Relating to It's
Wholesale Manufacture.
Interesting Secrets Of the Worlds Cook
Ing Rooms-Des cription of Bread
Baking-How Crackers arc
Evolved, Etc.

A reporter made a very thoroup
tour OF an extensive and well-know
Minneapolis bakery and cracker factory
The bakers are all men. 1.-The fact is,
explained one of the firm, "that tn
trade is hard one. requiring not onl
skill. judgment, and activity, but a ia
greater physical strength than womel
usually possess. l think housewives
as rule. regard breadmaking as abou
the hardest kind of work they have t.
do. The making of bread in lare,
quantities would prove far moro taxing
on the strength"
show about pies and cakes?"
"Oh, they might do that. However
there is not the same inducement TO,
them to learn a small part of a trade
like that At any rate. know of very
few women Bakers
An inspection of the actual process OF
bread-making. from the setting of the
sponge to the time it goes into the oven
under the sidewalk, convinced the Wis
itor that the occupation is one which
demands great amount of muscle and
the eminent ability to '.hustle" as we'll
A trough full of dough under the influ-
ence OF "a little leaven" shows no more
inclination to wait for mans conyen-
fence than do time, tide or the tailor.
The sponge for bread or rolls is made
IN one end OF a stationary wooden
trough, about three feet wide by the
same depth. and from fifteen to twenty
feet long. Likely as not, another sponge
Is setting in the other end. and the
space between is conveniently damned
with flour. Either the compressed Yeast
lbought in five-pound packages) or a
liquid yeast made by the firm IS used as
leaven. Sometimes the two are COM
bined. There is very little machine
work about breadmaking. After it has
proved" or risen, two able-bodied
men go to the bottom and haul up the
lower stratum to the surface, and ever
lastingly agitate the mass for fifteen or
twenty minutes. Because of the deptb
OF the trough and the mass of dough.
usually sufficient for two or three hun.
dred loaves, and the dispatch with
which the work must be done to get it
out OF the way before another batch
comes on, the process does not appear
In the light OF recreation exactly. The
reporter thought he knew of nothing
but base ball that would demand SO
much concentrated strength combined
With activity. The bread is left in the |
rough to rise after this kneading. II |
lies there perhaps an hour and a half.
and is then lifted out upon Toured table |
md tackled by four men. The first cuts
)ff lump of dough about as large as his |
wo hands. The second laws it on a
,alr OF scales and pinches off a bit or |
dds q morsel, so as to make the
pound nominated on the bond" A
ingle addition or subtraction makes il
iight 1--WE times in six, and the opera
ION does not take two seconds. A
nan stands on each side of the table
'eyond him, and. seizing a pound of
ough in each hand. rolls them round
nth quick, deft motions. Then the
ais are placed regularly upon the
lrthcr end of the table, where thew
land fifteen or twenty minutes before
hey are worked out in the oblonp.
ointed shape in which most loayes.
Vienna and Eureka bread.
ppear. The loaves. having now
stained their final form, are placed I
tins and encouraged to rise {
coating of egg and sugar. 1
hich excludes the air and imprisons {
10 gas. Then they are placed on a q
ng-handled wooden shovel and slid {
to an oven which has an area of prob S
ply four hundred feet, and tempera-
re far above that to be attained in the q
binary range oven. a
Ihe reporter had always heard and Il
lplcitiy trusted the tradition that the Fl
ason that women are less successful p
5 :. IL is alleged they are) than men in d
linary operations lies in the fact that a
ey have not head for weights and a
they will guess and take d
pinch OF this and lump of that, and. t.
nee that the results attained at differ. h
times are as variable as the propor. Il
ms OF the ingredients are liable to be.
nee the expectation that these prac- q;
Gu scientific bakers would stick close tn
their weights and measures and d,
'rHometers-which expectation was tb
y far from the facts. a.
oh, no." said the head bread baker n,
mixing We just keep adding flour n
! water until the dough is of the ar
ut consistency, you know. Then. ne IN
the temperature of the oven, / can an
that by running my hand in. So A,
nut the time of rising. That varies br
b the temperature of the room, and or
re can be no rule about it. We use 6o
Judgment, and so does any woman. m,
lie has any. There is no such thine flo
aking by an exact rule any more ca
!, there is about bringing up q wa
Ily,' "