The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1885-10-10
THE BREAD WE EAT.
Some Points Relating to It's
Wholesale Manufacture.
Interesting Secrets of the Worlds Cook
ing Rooms-Dfs cfipttt6n of Isread
Baking-How Crackers are
Evolved, Etc.

A reporter made very thorough
tour of an extensive and well-known
Minneapolis bakery and cracker factory.
The bakers are all men. The fact is, :"
explained one of the firm, that the
trade is a hard one, requiring not only
skill, Judgment, and activity, but a far
greater physical strength than women
usually possess. | think housewives,
as a rule, regard breadmaking as about
the hardest kind of work they have to
do The making of bread in large
quantities would prove far more taxing
on the strength.
"How about pies and cakes?'
ooh, they might do that However,
there is not the same inducement for
them to learn a small part of 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 a great amount of muscle and
the eminent ability to "huStleN as well.
A trough full of dough under the infu-
ence of "a little leayen" shows no more
inclination to wait for man s cOnven-
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
(bought in tive-pound packages) or
liquid yeast made by the firm is used as
leayen. Sometimes the two are COM
bined. There is ,ery little machine
work about breadmaklng. After it has
'prOved." or risen, two able-bodied
men 90 to the bottom and haul up the
lower stratum to the surface and ever
lastingly agtate the mass for fifteen or
twenty minutes. Because of the depth
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 arecreatiOn 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
trough to rise after this kneading. 1t
lies there perhaps an hour and half,
and is then lifted out upon Toured table
and tackled by four men. The first cuts
off a lump of dough about as large as his
two hands. The second lays it on a
pair of scales and pinches off bit or
adds a morsel, so as to make the
pound nominated on the bond" A
single addition or subtraction makes it
right five times in six, and the opera
ton does not take two seconds. A
man stands on each side of the table
beyond him, and Selling a pound Of
dough in each hand, rolls them round
with quick, delft motions. Then the
balls are placed regularly upon the
further end of the table, where they
stand fifteen or twenty minutes before
they are worked out in the oblOng,
pointed shape in which most loaves,
especially Vienna and Eureka bread,
appear. The loaves, having now
attained their final form, are placed
in tins and encouraged to rise
by a coating Of egg and sugar,
which excludes the air and imprsons
the gas. Then they are placed on a
long handled wooden shovel and slid
into an oven which has an area of prob
ably four hundred feet, and tempera-
ture far above that to be attained in the
ordinary range oven.
The reporter had always heard and
implicitly trusted the tradition that the
reason that women are less successful
Gas it is alleged they are) than men in
culinary operations lies in the fact that
they have not a head for weights and
measures-that they will guess and take
pinch Of this and Il lump of that, and,
hence that the results attained at differ
ent times are as variable as the proper
tons of the ingredients are liable to be-.
Hence the expectation that these prac-
iced scientific bakers would stick close
by their weights and measures and
thermometers which expectation was
very far from the facts.
''Oh, no, " said the head ead-baker,
sin mixing we just keep adding flour
and water until the dough is of the
right consistency, you know. Then, as
TO the temperature of the oven, | can
tell that by running my hand in. So
about the time of rising. That varies
with the temperature of the room, and
there can be no rule about it. We use
our judgment, and so does any woman,
if she has any. There is no such thing
as baking by an exact rule any more
than there is about bringing up a
family"