The Birmingham age-herald., 1918-11-17
BAKING BREAD FOR AMERICAN ARMY IS
 HUGE UNDERTAKING
White Bread is So Fine That There is None Like it on
 Sale in France

American Advance Zone, France, Oc- tober Correspondence of the Asso ciated Press. )-Bread for the Yankees soldier in France is baked, not in the dainty one-pound loaves used at home, but in loaves that weigh 12 pounds each. They are so big as to be incon venient and the size now is beinS Changed to a uniform square loaf of four pounds.
 All the baking is done on a huge scale. Asked for the receipt by which American bread has attained it's super ioaity among the allied armies, the chief baker gave it as follows:
 K Flour. 160 pounds, sugar, salt, yeast lard and water, 56 pounds; total PIG pounds He did not define the amount of the various ingredients, possibly from fear of giving information to the bakers of the German army.
 The huge quantities of dough always on hand aging" or rising under the influence of the yeast look like a giant Battery of snowballs. Each dough is g huge mass weighing 4S0 pounds which two men handle with difficulty. Over it the soldiers bend, naked to the waist kneeding and mixing. Then the huge mass rolls along to the next table, where it Is drawn into long thick strings. which the soldiers deftly chop off in 12-pound loaves, never varying an ounce. ready for the ovens
 There is but one standard of army bread. for officers and men alike, and General Pershing eats exactly the same kind of 4-pound loaf as the soldier in the ranks. In fact, the American army bread is so superior to the civilian bread commonly on sale in France, that it Is regarded as great luxury, of- ficers and men are besieged by civil- fans to get them some of the fine, white American bread, and American officers at hotels are the envy of other guests for the army bread they are able to eat.
 It was suggested to the head baker that tradition gave women the first place as bread makers, and he was ask ed if women could not be utilized in making this army bread, thus relieving 2000 men for service on the fighting lines
 'eWomen wouldn't last one day in this kind of hard work" he said" This is bread making by the ton, and by mil lions of loaves, and it takes physical strength to handle the huge quantities of material. It would be impossible for women and 1t is the hardest kind of work for me-"
 At the ovens baking had just start ed. There are seven of these bakinEs each day, and seven each night, for the work goes on night and day. with two \ shifts of men, one going on at a. m. and the other at D. m. There are 20 companies. and each company of 100 men has 15 ovens. Each baking takes about an hour and 35 minutes, which yields an average of IA bakings through the A hours.
 Thousands of loaves of hot bread, fresh from the ovens were being stack ed in the tent warehouses, where for two days the bread is being allowed to cool, dry and season, before being ship ped to the front Hot bread the escort explained, cannot be shipped, as it steams in the cars and begins to get musty and mouldy. There has been some complaint of this from the front of late. due to the shipping the bread Soon after baking so the soldiers could have it crisp and fresh, and so the reg ulation has been fixed of holding i; two days before shipment
 # It Is huge process, this bread mak ling for whole army and like all the American undertakings, it Is an object ssof admiration and wonder to the for seigners for the smoothness and perfec- 1tion with which the gigantic field es- Establishment is carried on.