In the adulteration of flour, mealmen and bakers have been known to use bean-meal, chalk, whiting, slacked lime, alum, and even ashes of bones. The first, bean-flour, is perfectly innocent, and affords a nourishment equal to that of wheat; but there is a roughness in bean-flour, and its colour is dusky. To remove these defects, chalk is added to whiten it; alum to give the whole compound that consistence which is necessary to make it knead well with the dough; and jalap to take off the astringency. Some people may suppose, that these horrid iniquities are only imaginary, or at least exaggerated, and that such mixtures must be discoverable even by the most ordinary taste; but, as some adulterations of this nature, have certainly been practised, the following experiments may serve to gratify curiosity, or discover frauds, where any such have been committed.

To detect the adulteration of flour with whiting or chalk, mix it with some juice of lemon or good vinegar. If the flour be pure, they will remain together at rest; but if there be a mixture of whiting or chalk, a fermentation, like the working of yeast, will ensue. The adulterated meal is whiter and heavier than the good; the quantity that an ordinary tea-dish will contain, has been found to weigh more than the same quantity of genuine flour, by four drachms and nineteen grains Troy.

The regular method of detecting these frauds in bread is thus: cut the crumb of a loaf into very thin slices; break them, but not into very small pieces, and put them into a glass cucurbit, with a large quantity of water. Set this, without shaking, in a sand furnace, and let it stand, with a moderate warmth, twenty-four hours. The crumb of the bread will, in this time, soften in all its parts, and the ingredients will sepa-rate from it. The alum will dissolve in the water, and may be extracted from it in the usual way. The jalap, if any has been used, will swim upon the top in a coarse film ; and the other ingredients, being heavy, will sink to the bottom. This is the best and most regular method of finding the deceit; but as cucurbites and sand furnaces are not at hand ill private families, the following is a more familiar method: Slice the crumb of a loaf as before directed, and put it with a great deal of water into a large earthen pipkin. Set this over a gentle fire, and keep it a long time moderately hot. Then pour off the pap, and the bone ashes, or other ingredients, will be found at the bottom.

Having spoken thus much of the adulteration of wheat and bread, and as the business of baking often falls under the inspection of the housekeeper, particularly in country residences, we shall here give instructions for that purpose.

To Make White Bread In The London Manner

Put a bushel of the finest well-dressed flour in at one end of the kneading trough; then take a gallon of water, which bakers call liquor, and some yeast: stir it into the liquor till it looks of a good brown colour, and begins to curdle. Strain and mix it with the flour till it is about the thickness of a seed cake, then cover it with the lid of the trough, and let it stand three hours. As soon as it begins to fall, take a gallon more of liquor, weigh three quarters of a pound of salt, and with the hand mix it well with water. Strain it, and with this liquor make the dough of a moderate thickness, fit to make up into loaves. Then cover it again with the lid, and let it stand three hours more. In the mean time put the wood into the oven, which will require two hours heating. Then clear the oven, and begin to make the bread; put it in, close up the oven, and three hours will bake it. When once the bread is put in, the oven must not be opened till the bread is baked; and take care in summer that the water is milk warm, and in winter as hot as the finger will bear. All flour does not require the same quantity of water; but that experience will teach in two or three times making.