In every part of the world, from the beginning of recorded time, bread has been a synonym of food. The cry of the starving in India, the mob in France, and the poor in Italy has ever been for bread. The reason for this is obvious, when we consider that very many even of the earlier and cruder forms of bread were made from cereals or corn plants, as millet, oats, barley, and rye, and that these in themselves contain all the elements necessary for the growth and repair of the body, and in very nearly the proportion demanded in an ideal dietary. At the present day, throughout the civilized world, wheat is known to be the grain that contains gluten in proportion and quality necessary to the making of the most perfect bread.

A loaf of bread at least four thousand years old, a part of which was in such a state of preservation that it was possible to identify barley as the grain from which it was made, was lately found in Egypt. From records and monuments in that ancient land we learn that the grain for bread was broken by pounding, and that it was probably baked between or upon hot stones. The children of Israel ate leavened bread in Egypt, though the Chinese had used leavened bread long years before the time of Moses and the exodus from Egypt. The ancient Greeks cultivated the yeast plant, and in excavations at Pompeii an oven was found containing eighty-one loaves of bread not unlike our own. The older and higher the civilization, the more advanced the art of bread making. Four hundred years ago the American Indian was just in the infancy of the art, and the wild tribes of South Africa to-day have progressed no further.

The bread of the ancients was made fiat and thin, as thus the heat could better penetrate the heavy, compact dough; and the expression "to break bread" was from the actual mode of division. Bordeau notes that our rule of politeness, which exacts that bread be broken at table, instead of cutting it, is only the tradition of a very ancient custom.

Though the art of bread making is of such ancient origin and the opportunity for a general diffusion of knowledge has been so great, good bread is not an article in common use. In cities abroad bread is not baked at home; and in this country, as more and more work is carried on outside the home kitchen, the baking of bread is sure to follow. At the present time one cannot secure from bakeries bread and rolls made from quite as good materials, or baked and cooled quite as carefully, as it is possible to provide at home. In general, the bread made abroad, on account of the size and shape of the loaf, contains less starch in a crude form than that which we may call the American loaf. While the foreign loaf is not acceptable to the average American, it probably approaches more nearly the dietetic conditions required by our modern mode of life. Just how far the conversion of starch into dextrose, or allied substances, has proceeded in the crusty loaf has not been exactly determined; and, in the bread of the future, chemical processes may be found by which the excess of starch that ordinary bread contains may be transformed or presented in a form less taxing to the digestive organs.

The process of making bread with yeast is one of the most fascinating of studies for the chemist or the cook. And the more the cook knows of the chemistry of bread making, and the greater the skill with which she applies her knowledge to the practical working out of the process, the greater are her chances of securing a perfect loaf. Four of the simplest ingredients in the culinary laboratory enter into the composition of a loaf of bread; yet the changes through which these materials pass before a finished loaf is evolved are the most complicated in all cookery.

What Is Good Bread

Opinions differ as to just what properties good bread should possess. Some wish a moist crumb and tender crust, others a dry crumb and a flinty crust. But there are certain points upon which all agree; namely, bread should be agreeable in smell and taste, while it should be light and porous to be easily penetrated by the digestive fluids. The bubbles of the crumb should be uniform in size and small. The surface should rebound when compressed, and the loaf should keep in good condition several days.