Why is Bread so Important?
The history of bread as a food reads like a romance. It has played an
important part in the destinies of mankind and its struggles through
the ages to perfection. The progress of nations through their different
periods of development can be traced by the quality and quantity of
bread they have used.
No other food has taken such an important part in the civilization of
man.
To a large extent it has been the means of changing his habits from
those of a savage to those of a civilized being. It has supplied the
peaceful pursuits of agriculture and turned him from war and the chase.
It is an interesting fact that the civilized and the semi-civilized
people of the earth can be divided into two classes, based upon their
principal cereal foods: the rice eaters and the bread eaters.
Every one admits that rice eaters are less progressive, while bread
eaters have always been the leaders of civilization.
It is an interesting fact that just as Japan is changing from a
rice-eating nation to a bread-eating nation she is asserting her power.
Any one who stops to consider the history of nations will see that this
matter of what we eat is the one question of vital importance.
Bread is one of the earliest, the most generally used and one of the
most important foods used by man. Without bread the world would not
exist without great hardship. On bread alone a nation of people can
exist, and to sit down to a meal without it causes us to feel at once
that something is missing.
What Was the Origin and Meaning of Bread?
Bread is baked from many substances, although when we think of bread,
we usually think of wheat bread. It is sometimes made from roots,
fruits and the bark of trees, but generally only from grains such as
wheat, rye, corn, etc. The word bread comes from an old word _bray_,
meaning to pound. This came from the method used in preparing the food.
Food which was pounded was said to be brayed and later this spelling
was changed to bread. Properly speaking, however, these brayed or
ground materials are not really bread in our sense of using the term
until they are moistened with water, when it becomes dough. The word
_dough_ is an old one meaning to “moisten.” This dough was in olden
times immediately baked in hot ashes and a hard indigestible lump of
bread was the result. Accidentally it was discovered that if the dough
was left for a time before baking, allowing it to ferment, it would
when mixed with more dough, swell up and become porous. Thus we got our
word loaf from an old word _lifian_, which meant to raise up or to lift
up.
When Was Wheat First Used in Making Bread?
It is not clearly known when or by whom wheat was discovered, but it
seems to have been known from the earliest times. It is mentioned in
the Bible, can be traced to ancient Egypt and there are records showing
that the Chinese cultivated wheat as early as 2700 B.C. To-day it
supplies the principal article for making bread to all the civilized
nations of the world.
The origin of the wheat plant is said to have been a kind of grass
which is given a Latin name _Ægilops ovata_ by the botanists.
Will Wheat Grow Wild?
This is a question that has puzzled the world’s scientists for more
than two thousand years. From time to time it has been reported by
investigators in various parts of the world that here and there wheat
has been found growing wild and doing well, but every time a further
investigation is made, it develops that the wheat has been cultivated
by some one. There is as yet no evidence for believing that wheat will
grow in a wild state.
What is the Difference between Graham Flour and Whole Wheat?
Graham flour from which Graham bread is baked is made from unbolted
flour. The process of bolting flour, which is described in one of the
following pages, consists briefly in taking out of it all but the
inside of the grain of wheat. When this has been done, we have pure
white flour.
In making Graham flour every part of the grain of wheat is left in the
flour, and ground up finely. Many people think that Graham flour is
made from a special grain called Graham, but this is not true. It is
said that Graham bread is not so good for you because it contains the
outside covering of the wheat grain or bran which is composed of almost
pure silica, the same substance of which glass is made, and cannot
therefore be good for us.
Whole wheat flour is made from the whole grain of wheat from which the
outside covering or bran has been separated. It contains everything but
the bran and is therefore the most nutritious flour made.
The grain of wheat has several coverings of bran coats, the outer one
of which is the one composed of silica, and which is not valuable
as food. Underneath this husk--are found the inner bran coats,
which contain the gluten. Gluten is a dark substance containing the
flesh-forming or nitrogenous elements, which are valuable in muscle
building. The inside or heart of the grain of wheat consists of cells
filled with starch, a fine white mealy powder which has little value
as food, but is a great heat producer. Sometimes in making whole wheat
flour, the heart of the grain is also removed, making a pure gluten
flour. The name whole wheat for flour is not accurate, therefore, for
Graham flour is made of the whole wheat grain, while “whole wheat”
flour is made of only certain parts of the grain of wheat.
[Illustration: Wheat conditioners for tempering the wheat before being
ground by the corrugated roller mills.]
How is Flour Made?
In great factories the raw material is frequently taken in at one end
and comes out of the opposite end as a finished locomotive, a Pullman
palace car, or a pair of shoes. There is no such progression in making
flour. The wheat comes in at one place as a plain Spring or Winter
wheat and at another goes out as flour, but in the process parts of
it may go from top to bottom of the big mill 30 times. Instead of a
factory where everything moves along from hand to hand or machine to
machine, the flour mill is like a human body--a huge framework like the
bones, with thousands of carrying devices, “elevators,” “spouts” and
“conveyors,” like the veins and arteries of the blood-carrying system.
Stop up a vein of wheat, the mill becomes clogged, and finally must
shut down if it cannot be mechanically relieved. It is an intricate and
intensely interesting process, the result of year-to-year experience.
[Illustration: SEPARATING THE WHEAT FIBER AND GERMS
Purifier for separating the fiber, germ, and other impurities from the
semolina (grits) before it is finally crushed or ground into flour by
smooth roller mills.]
Scouring that Suggests a Dutch Kitchen.
From the storage bins the wheat is drawn off through conveyors to the
first of several cleaning processes, the “separators,” where the coarse
grain which naturally comes with the wheat, such as corn and oats, and
imperfect kernels of wheat, is taken out. After this general cleaning
the grain goes to the “scouring machine,” which is an interesting
device--a rapidly revolving cylinder with what are called “beaters”
attached. The grain is thrown against perforated iron screens. Any
clinging dirt is loosened, and a strong current of air passing through
the cylinder is constantly “calling for dust,” as the miller aptly
expresses it, and carries the impurities away as dust and dirt. Indeed,
the cleaning process seems to be a constant one from the time the
wheat enters the mill until the flour is made. Having been cleansed,
the wheat is now ready for the rolls except for a “tempering” process,
which is to prepare the grain, so that the outside of the wheat may be
taken off without injury to the inside or kernel.
Then as the grain passes to the rolls there begins a gradual reduction
of wheat to flour which is most intricate.
The first sets of rolls are corrugated and so adjusted as to “break”
each grain of wheat into 12 to 15 parts. The “breaking” process goes on
through five different sets of rolls.
[Illustration: GRINDING THE WHEAT FOR MAKING FLOUR
Corrugated roller mills for grinding the wheat after it has been
cleaned.]
[Illustration: Wooden spouts for conveying the different products, bran
and partly ground wheat, from one machine to another.]
[Illustration: THE FLOUR IS READY FOR BAKING
Gyrating sifter for separating the bran particles from the flour and
semolina.]
The Big Bolters with Silken Sieves.
Closely allied with the rolling process is the bolting process,
which, working hand in hand with it has made modern flour making so
perfect. The bolting process consists of a series of sieves--a sifting
of the broken grain so that it is finally, after repeated breaking
and sifting, a flour. The bolter machine contains a number of sieves
covered with silk bolting cloth with varying mesh or number of threads
to the square inch. This bolting machine, moving rapidly, makes from
8 to 10 different separations of the material. From rolls to bolters,
from bolters to purifiers, from purifiers to rolls, over and over, the
process continues, until five different grades of “middlings” have
been selected by the mechanical hands of the millers. The purifier is
still another step to the process. It is a machine having eight sieves
of different mesh. The “middlings” flow down over the different sieves
in a thin sheet, a current of air meantime drawing all impurities out.
With this purifying process completed, the material is ready for the
smooth rolls.
The Mill Tries to Catch Up with the Bins.
When the flour is made it is conveyed to large round bins--five sheets
of hard wood pressed together. These bins are being filled all the time
and being emptied all the time, the mill being about seven hours behind
the capacity of the bins, so that from start to finish the modern flour
mill is a tremendously busy place.
Underneath the bins and connecting with them are the flour
packers--automatic devices which pack a 3¹⁄₂-pound paper sack as
accurately as a 196-pound barrel. The filled packages are sent down
“chutes” to the shipping floor. There they go to wagons or through
other chutes to boats.