THE question is often asked, “What is the most important branch of
culinary knowledge? What the chief requisite in supplying the table
well and healthfully?”
The experienced housewife cannot hesitate as to the reply.
Beyond doubt, the ability to make _good_ bread. No one need rise hungry
from a table on which is plenty of light, sweet bread, white or brown,
and good butter. For the latter item many of us are dependent upon
market and grocery. It is hardly just to hold the cook responsible for
imperfections in this regard when she has bought the best articles
these supply. She is culpable if she fails to see that her board
furnishes three times a day a bountiful allowance of what I hope
none of my friends in council will ever call “_healthy_ bread.” The
eater may be made or kept healthy by the consumption of nutritious,
wholesome, healthful or healthsome food; but the most careful
philologists do not speak of edibles as subject to such diseases as may
afflict living creatures.
While it is always wise to use none except the best flour in
bread-making, it is true that skilful management of an inferior brand
will often produce better loaves and biscuits than careless treatment
of fine family flour. I say this that none may be discouraged. So
far as my observation and experience extend, nothing can remedy the
disadvantage of indifferent yeast.
Let me earnestly advise, therefore, as the foundation of successful
baking, the manufacture of