This section is from the book "A Handbook Of Invalid Cooking", by Mary A. Boland. Also available from Amazon: Handbook of Invalid Cooking.
(home-made with grated potato)
1 Medium-sized potato.
1 Tablespoon of sugar.
1 Tablespoon of flour.
1 Teaspoon of salt.
1 1/2 Pints of boiling water.
1/5 of a two-cent cake of Fleischmann's yeast.
First see that there is a supply of boiling water. Then put the salt, sugar, and flour together in a mixing-bowl. Wash and peel the potato, and grate it quickly into the bowl, covering it now and then with the flour to prevent discoloring. As soon as the potato is all grated, pour in the boiling water and stir. It will form into a somewhat thick paste at once. Set it aside to cool. Then dissolve the yeast in a little cold water, add it, and set the mixture to rise in a temperature of 70° to 80° Fahr.
In a short time bubbles will begin to appear; these are carbonic acid, showing that the alcoholic stage of the fermentation has begun. In six or eight hours the whole will be a mass of yeast cells, which have grown in the nutrient liquid. It is then ready for use. It should be bottled in wide-mouthed glass or earthen jars, and kept in a cool place. It will remain good for two weeks. At the end of that time make a fresh supply.
Yeast is an organism - a microscopic form of plant life - which grows by a species of budding with great rapidity when it finds lodgment in material suitable for its food. The dissolved compressed yeast is like seed, which, when put into a fruitful soil, grows so long as sustenance lasts.
 
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