Bread

(bred.) [Ger. brod.] A preparation of flour and water, mixed with something, such as yeast, or a solution of carbonic acid, to make the ma spongy on being baked. It is the gluten which, by its viscidity, retains in the bread the gases which give it lightne by filling it with pores. Hence, only the flour of grains containing gluten will make spongy B; and wheat flour, which contains it in so large a quantity, is usually mixed with every other kind in the making of B. In the earliest antiquity, we find the flour or meal of grain used as food; and by degrees the artificial preparation of B. by proper fermentation was discovered; but it would appear that for many ages the meal derived from the bruised grain was merely mixed with milk and water, and the tough paste was made into balls. The superiority of wheat to all other farinaceous plants in the manufacture of B. is so very great, that, wherever it is succe fully cultivated, wheatenB. is now used to the nearly total exclusion of others. But, in the 16th cent., rye B. and oatmeal constituted the chief part of the diet of servants, even in great families. The proce of making B. is nearly the same throughout Europe and in this country, though the materials of which it is composed vary with the farinaceous productions of different climates and soils. The French, who particularly excel in the art of baking, have a great many different kinds of bread, from the pain bis, which is the coarsest of all, to the pain mollet, or soft bread, made of the purest flour, without any admixture. In the U. States, B. is made with wheat, and also, very extensively, with Indian corn, which is little different from wheat in the proportion of its ingredients. Under the name ofAeratedB., loaves have been made in late years, in which an aqueous solution of carbonic acid,prepared under great pre ure, is mixed with the flour ina proper apparatus so as to produce a vesicular dough when the pre ure is removed. The proce is rapid, and prevents such deteriorations of the flour as are said to be attendant on fermentation in the usual way. [s. 114]