Sago is procured from the sago palm. The meal is extracted from the pith by rubbing it to powder, and then washing it with water in a sieve.

It makes alone a kind of bread or hard cake, and is the chief food of the inhabitants of New Guinea, and parts of the African coast. It is stated that two and a half pounds of sago bread will suffice for daily food for a healthy man.

For numerous recipes for bread, cake, and biscuit making we refer the reader to Warne's "Model Cookery Book".

Flour should be kept in a chest or bin in a dry place. A good tin bin is better than a wooden one ; it is drier, and is proof against vermin.

Grown flour, as it is called, is the flour of wheat which, in consequence of much rain, has germinated in the field before it could be harvested. Our readers will understand from what we have before said on the subject (seep. 118), that the effect of germination is to change the gluten into diastase, which converts the starch of the flour into sugar. Now flour deprived of gluten cannot retain carbonic acid gas, and yeast consequently cannot act on it; therefore grown flour makes only heavy and indigestible bread. We should, of course, never purchase it; but supposing that we are in a wild land where we sow and reap, harvest and grind for ourselves, it is well to know that our grown wheat may be used. It must be kiln-dried before grinding ; the flour should have forty grains of carbonate of magnesia to the pound of flour added to it, if very bad. Bread made of of carbonate of soda, and six ounces of tartaric acid : this last ingredient must be beaten in a mortar, or crushed with a rolling-pin, to make it as fine and smooth as possible before adding it to the rest. The whole is to be passed through a sieve, and kept in a dry place for use, in a glass bottle with a wide mouth. In using mix with cold water, and put the dough made instantly into the oven.

Or, Two ounces of tartaric acid, three ounces of bicarbonate of soda, and three ounces of potato flour. Mix, by passing them through a dry sieve altogether.