boiled. When yeast is added (Fig. 7) the flour ferments and becomes light and spongy. Yeast dumplings are made. with this dough boiled in water, but they should not be boiled too long, or they will become less light and not so digestible.

a

Flour mixed with fat, baking-powder, or egg-powder, is rolled into thin layers and made into piecrust, but it is not easily digested if too much fat be used. When mixed with suet chopped into small portions it may be boiled or baked as suet pudding, or made into the crust of boiled meat or fruit pies, or it may be rolled into layers and wrapped up with treacle or preserves in roley-poley puddings. The pieces of suet should not be too large, nor so small that when cooked they cannot be seen. Pastry made with butter or fat may be eaten when both hot and cold, but when with suet it should be eaten hot.

Fig. 7.

YEAST CELLS.

They are little bags which are filled with granules, and multiply by division as in c, each

perfect cell.

Wheaten flour is often adulterated part becoming a separate and with cheaper foods, as rice flour, or with stronger foods, as pea-meal, or with useless substances, as Paris plaster; but more commonly an inferior kind of wheat flour, as that of wheat which has sprouted, is added to it, when it is said to be unsound.

DRIED PEAS, BEANS, AND LENTILS.

These are said to be the strongest of all vegetable foods, because they contain the greatest proportion of that substance (nitrogen) which repairs the body, and in this respect they are

They are,

very like skimmed milk cheese in animal foods. no doubt, very nourishing and sustaining, but the flavour is somewhat harsh and strong; and children, particularly, do not like them so well as potatoes or bread. Those who are very poor should use them in proportion to their cheapness on account of the nourishment which they give.

A few observations should be borne in mind when they are cooked and eaten.

1. The shells should be taken out, since they are not digestible, and will be very likely to disturb the bowels.

2. They should be well boiled, but not to a perfect pulp, lest when they are strained their form cannot be distinguished.

3. They should be cooked or eaten with fat or bacon liquor, since they are very deficient in fat.

4. They should be properly seasoned, and if onions, turnips, or similar fresh vegetables, be cooked and eaten with them, their flavour will be disguised.

5. Do not eat food made of peas too frequently.

Pease-pudding is a very good food when eaten with fat. Broad beans are not eaten when they are dried, but a small kind like the kidney-bean (haricots) are much used in other countries, and have a more agreeable flavour than peas.

When fresh vegetables are scarce, as in the winter, this kind of food is more generally eaten. The German soldiers, in their late war with France, were fed chiefly on sausages made of peas, bacon, and dried meat.

Lentils, or pulse, are much eaten in other countries, and are equally good food with peas and beans.

BREAD.

Bread is generally made into loaves or cakes of some inches in thickness, as in ordinary wheaten, rye, and barley bread;

but oatmeal can be made into thin cakes only. It is prepared by adding water, yeast (Fig. 7), and salt, to flour, and when the dough begins to rise it is put into the oven and baked. Sometimes baking-powder is used instead of yeast, and makes the bread light; but it is not so good. The yeast may be either fluid, as brewer's barm; or almost dry, as German yeast; and both, if good, cause fermentation equally well.

When bread is to be made, the flour is thrown into a vessel, and well mixed with a proper quantity of salt. A space is then made in the middle, in which warm water and yeast are placed, and the flour is gradually mixed with them until the whole is made into dough, when it is well kneaded, and placed before the fire until it begins to rise. It should be lightly covered, and not made too hot, and it should not be allowed to rise too much. When it is ready, it is taken out and quickly made into cakes, or placed in tins, and is ready for the oven.

The heat of the oven should not be too little, or the bread will be close and sodden, nor too great, or it will be too much dried, or even burnt; and when the cake will ring on being struck with the knuckles, it is sufficiently baked.

About two ounces of salt and three pints of water are required for each fourteen pounds of flour.

The water makes the starch cells swell, and perhaps burst. The yeast, or baking-powder, mixes air or a gas with the dough, and by separating it, makes the dough light and spongy, but in doing so, the yeast (not the bakingpowder) wastes some of the flour. The heat in the baking helps to burst the starch cells, and drives off so much of the water as to make the bread agreeably dry. If too much water is left the bread is too moist, and is disagreeable; and if too little, the bread is dry and hard, and has lost much of

its flavour, and some of its nutriment. The more water is left the heavier is the bread made from a stone of flour, and the less water the lighter is the weight of bread. 14 lb. of flour should make 19 lb. to 20 lb. of bread. When bread is bought it should not be too moist, as it becomes drier by keeping. It should be a day old, but when home made, it may be kept several days with advantage.

When it is baked or bought it should be kept in a dry place where the air is fresh and good, for it absorbs air and might become unwholesome.

Bread made from good seconds wheat flour gives the most nourishment for the money expended, but in many places rye-flour or barley-meal costs much less and is added to it. There is less nourishment in such a mixture than in wheat flour alone, but it is often very agreeable as a change of food, and rye keeps the bread moist.

Brown bread, rye bread, or barley bread do not agree so well with children as white wheaten bread.

Bread is very frequently adulterated with alum to make it take up more water, and by green copperas to make it whiter. The alum is easily shown by dipping a slice of bread into a weak watery solution of logwood, when it becomes of a purplish tint. The logwood infusion is made by putting a few pieces of logwood into boiling water, and allowing it to stand for three or four hours by the fire. The colour of the infusion must not be deep.

Oatmeal is not made into loaves because the starch cells do not easily burst, and it is not possible to cook it well in a thick mass; but it is made into thin cakes from a quarter to half an inch thick. The oatmeal is mixed with water, yeast, and salt, as in making loaves of bread, and the dough is then spread out into a thin layer and baked on a hot iron plate or stone. If the water has not well soaked into the

meal the cakes will be hard, gritty, and dry, and if too much water be left the cakes will become sour. When properly made they may be kept good for months.

When neither yeast nor baking-powder is added to the flour or meal the bread or cake is unleavened, and must be made thin and baked so as to be crisp. This kind of cake is eaten by the Jews at the period of the Passover.

Pearl barley and Scotch barley are creed by being soaked in water, and are then boiled in milk or made into puddings.

Wheat which has been steeped in water and then boiled in milk, and spiced, is called frumenty or frumity, and was in use a thousand years ago.

It may interest the young reader to know how it was made in 1350, and to read the English words of that time

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Nym (take) clene, wete and bray (bruise) it in a morter wel, that the holys (hulls or shells) gon al of, and seethe (soak or simmer) yt til it breste (burst), and nym yt up and lat it kele (cool), and nym fayre fresh broth and swete mylk of almandys (almonds) or swete mylk of kyne (cous), and temper (mix) it al, and nym the yolkys of eyryn (eggs); boyle it a lityl, and set yt ad on and messe yt forthe wyth fat venyson and fresh moton (mutton)."

They are very good and agreeable foods.

RICE, SAGO, ARROWROOT, AND TAPIOCA.

These foods are not grown in England, and are therefore brought here in a dry state, and are almost exclusively used in making puddings.

Rice (Fig. 6) grows and is thrashed and winnowed as we grow and prepare wheat, and is eaten, instaad of wheat, by hundreds of millions of people in hot countries, where wheat is