Grand Forks herald. [volume] (Grand Forks, N.D.) 1916-1955, 1918-11-14
BREAD LOAYE]|S
WEIGH ABOUT
TWELVE POUNDS

American Advance Zone, France,
OCT: Observation-Disclosures of the AS
ISOLATED Press.)-Bread for the
Yankee soldier In France is baked,
not IN the dainty yone-pound loaves
used At home. but In ioaves that
weigh twelve pounds each. They are
SO Dig as to be inconvenient and the
SIZE now Is being changed to q uni
form square loaf OF four pounds.
All the baking Is on a huge scale,
Asked for the recipe by which Am
erican bread has attained its superb
ority amohg all the Allied armies, the
chief baker gave it as follows:
Flour, 100 pounds; sugar, salt,
yeast, lard and water, Sc pounds; to-
tai, 216 pounds. He did not define
the amount Of the various ingredients,
possibly from fear Of giving 1nforma.
ton to the bakers Of the German
army.
The huge quantities Of dough al
ways on hand aging or rising under
the Of the yeast look like q
giant. battery Of snowballs. Each
dough is a hugs mass weighing 48O
pounds which two men handle with
dlthculty. Over 1t the soldiers bend,
naked to the waist, :kneeding and mix
ing. 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
!oaves, never varying an ounce, ready
for the ovens.I :
There is Sbut one standard Of army
bread, Tor officers and men. alike. and
General Pershing a t exactly the
same kind of 4-pound loaf as the
soldier in the ranks. In fact. tile
American army bread is SO superior
to the civilian bread commonly on
sale in France that it is regarded as
a. great luxury. officers and men are
besleged by civilians 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.
II was suggested to the head baker
that tradition gave women the first
place as bread makers, and he was
asked if women could not be utilized
IN making this army bread, thus re-
l1eving 1000 men for service on the
fighting lines.
Women wouldn't last one day in
this kind of hard work." he said.
This is bread making by the ton. and
by millions of loaves, and it takes
physical strength to handle the huge
quantities of material. 1t would be
impossible for women and it is the
iAa!uest klno OF work Tor men,"
Al the ovens a baking had Just
started. There are seven of these
paklngs each day, and seven each
night, for the work goes on night and
day, with two shifts of men, n go
ing a1 6 a. m. and the other at 6 D.
m. There are 20 companies. and each
company of 100 men has Is ovens,
Each baking takes about an hour and
So minutes, which yields an average
of IA bakings though the "a hours.
thousands of loaves Of hot bread,
fresh from the ovens were being
stacked in the tent warehouses.
where for two days the bread is be-
ing allowed to- cool. dry and season,
before being shipped to the front. Hot
bread, the expert explained, cannot
be shipped as it steanls in the cars
and begins to get musty and mouldy.
There has been some complaint Of
this from the front of late, due to
shipping the bread soon after bak-
ing SO the soldiers could have it crisp
and fresh, and so the regulation has
been fixed of holding it two days be.
fore shipment.
1t is a huge process this bread
making for a whole army and like all
the American undertakings. it is an
object of admiration and wonder to
the foreigners for the smoothness and
perfection with which the gigantic
Held establishment is carried on.