The Chemistry of Cookery

of alum whitens the bread. In this, as in so many other cases of adulteration, there are two guilty parties—the buyer who demands impossible or unnatural appearances, and the manufacturer or vendor who supplies the foolish demand. The judging of bread by its whiteness is a mistake which has led to much mischief, against which the recent agitation for ‘whole meal’ is, I think, an extreme reaction. If the husk, which is demanded by the whole-meal agitators, were as digestible as the inner flour, they would unquestionably be right, but it is easy to show that it is not, and that in some cases the passage of the undigested particles may produce mischievous irritation in the intestinal canal. My own opinion on this subject (it still remains in the region of opinion rather than of science) is that a middle course is the right one, viz. that bread should be made of moderately-dressed or ‘seconds’ flour rather than over-dressed ‘firsts’ or undressed ‘thirds’—_i.e._ unsifted whole-meal flour. Such seconds flour does not fairly produce white bread, and consumers are unwise in demanding whiteness. In my household we make our own bread, but occasionally, when the demand exceeds ordinary supply, a loaf or two is bought from the baker. I find that, with corresponding or identical flour, the baker’s bread is whiter than the home-made, and proportionally inferior. I may describe it as colourless in flavour, it lacks the characteristic of wheaten sweetness. There are, however, exceptions to this, as certain bakers are now doing a great business in supplying what they call ‘home-made’ or ‘farmhouse’ bread. It is darker in colour than ordinary bread, but is sold nevertheless at a higher price, and I find that it has the flavour of the bread made in my own kitchen. When their customers become more intelligent, all the bakers will doubtless cease to incur the expense of buying packets of ‘stuff’ or ‘rocky,’ or any other bleaching abomination. Liebig asserts that in certain cases the use of lime-water improves the quality of bread. Tomlinson says that ‘in the time of bad harvests, when