And speaking of bread...

"If you like to settle down to read cookbooks,

 we invite you to this fascinating story of bread."

Homemade Bread. By the Food Editors of Farm Journal. 1969.

(Click to enlarge & read. It's worth it.)

Earlier I was saying that I'd begun to think about bread baking. It's that time of year.  I posted a recipe. And I remembered my Homemade Bread book. Thanks, Max. 

After this one-page introduction to the volume as a whole, we have seven pages covering the following:

• Bread History. "When the Christian era began, bread continued as the staff of life. Jesus, teaching his followers to pray, said: 'Give us this day our daily bread.'"

• Original American Bread. During Pioneer times, "[w]hen people traveled, they went on foot or horseback, sleeping and eating in the forests. They carried bread for sustenance. That's why it was called journeycake."

• Southern Beaten Biscuits. "No discussion of our original breads is complete without a salute to beaten biscuits, perhaps the South's greatest contribution."

Ha ha. I looked forward to see that the only other region that is singled out is Boston, for its brown bread. 

It's interesting to see how history and culture were transmitted in crappy old books.

• Sour Dough. "... ... ... If bubbling occurs, ... . ... repeated attempts... That is why few women make it now." "We give you  in this cookbook Farm Journal's modified and easier method... ." Whew.

• Boston Brown Bread. One tiny little paragraph compared to four for the South.

 Then there is a discussion of flour and yeast. Pretty interesting if you like biology. Yeast are small plants, don't you know?

• Flour for "the Staff of Life." Here we learn that flour absorbs moisture from the air, which is why measurements for it are approximate. Bread baked on humid days will need more flour.

I have seen the following in all old cookbooks. 

• Yeast Makes Dough Rise. "Yeast consists of living plants, ... ." [My emphasis.]

So I just made a claim. And now I will back it up. I take it that if you assert something in a cookbook, you should have good evidence for asserting it. The assertion is that yeast = plants. I consulted my Textbook of Botany published in 1940 by Harper & Brothers Publishers with offices in New York and London.

The science is settled.

(Click for an example of how to fit what we know into the story of what we think we know.)

Nearing the end of the seven introductory pages we have 

• Ways to Make Bread. Oh brother. I can't possibly summarize this in one or two sentences. 

• Recipes You'll Find in This Cookbook. As above, but for better reasons.

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I do like to settle down to read cookbooks. Don't you?