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CHAPTER IV.

GLUTEN.

The Super-excellence of Wheat as Bread-Corn, derived from the nature of the Gluten it contains.—Curious Particulars of Algerian Wheat entirely devoid of this Principle.—Superiority of the hard-grained Wheats to the soft.—Agriculture in France and in England.—Our more abundant Crops, for our higher Cultivation.—Difficulties of French Agriculturists.—Method of separating the Gluten from the Farina or Starch of Wheaten Flour, by Professor Johnston and Professor Donovan

It is the substance called gluten, of which it is in part composed, that gives to wheat its superior value to every other kind of grain as bread-corn, and renders the flour derived from it easily convertible into light, elastic dough. It does not contain a large proportion of this element—not more, on an average, than ten parts in a hundred, but this is in the highest degree nutritious; and its nature is such, that bread cannot readily be made from corn in which it is wanting. A singular proof of this fact was shown in France some four or five years since, and reported to the Académie des Sciences.
    A Monsieur Millon was deputed to examine some samples of wheat—specimens of the principal varieties cultivated in the environs of Algiers. Amongst them was one remarkable for the size of the grain. It was a soft, white wheat, of the most beautiful appearance, which was found, nevertheless, to be entirely devoid of gluten. Repeated experiments with it, conducted with the utmost care, led always to the same result. The paste made with it broke and crumbled (so that it could by no means be converted into bread); and when it was placed on a sieve, and subjected to the action of water poured on it in a small stream, instead of gluten, it left only a dry, brittle substance, in the proportion of two or three per cent.
    Led by this circumstance to inspect the wheat with renewed and close attention, Monsieur Millon discovered that the sample consisted of two distinct forms of grain, a small number of which were transparent on the surface, and proved half hard when broken; from these gluten, to the amount of from ten to twelve per cent, was easily obtained; but, on the contrary, the whitest and most feculent of the grains, which constituted the main part of the sample, were proved to contain not the slightest trace of gluten.
    During two years in succession, the wheat of Guyotville presented the same peculiarity, proving that flour of the best appearance, and free from adulteration, may be deficient in the proportion of gluten which is generally supposed to exist in all wheaten flour in its natural state.
    The above-mentioned particulars were communicated by Monsieur Millon to the public in 1852; and in the notice of a pamphlet published by him in 1856 (Journal des Débats, July 30th), he is cited as strongly recommending the more general consumption of hard wheat, which contains a far larger amount of gluten, and is therefore more nutritious than the white; though the bread made from it is somewhat inferior in appearance. At the present moment, when much anxiety on the subject of food naturally exists in France, all prejudices or abuses which tend to maintain its oppressive price deserve serious consideration; and as some of them are common with us, it may not be out of place to give them a few words of notice here. "If we overcome a senseless prejudice, and adopt for consumption the hard-grained wheats, let us go a step further, and renounce the deplorable and ruinous custom of having thirty-five per cent. deducted by bolting* from the flour destined to the population of Paris, instead of confining it to twenty-five per cent., which would render the bread made with it less white, but of better flavour, and more nourishing: we should thus preserve ten additional pounds of wholesome food in every hundred." The more general use of rice* and maize is also strongly recommended. The latter is both cultivated and much eaten in the South of France, but is almost unknown in the North. One other passage from the article already quoted deserves attention; for though not strictly appertaining to the subject of "gluten," it bears indirectly on that of bread. "Most important results may be anticipated from the improvement of our agriculture; for the soil of France is far from yielding all that it might be made to produce of the cereal grains; and without allotting to their cultivation a larger area than they have hitherto occupied, with the aid of time—which is indispensable to all progress in this world—we may obtain an increase of perhaps one-half more of corn of every kind, and especially of wheat. The average produce of a hundred acres of land is in England the double of what it is in France; yet, in natural fertility, the soil of the British Islands is not half equal to our own; and the climate of England is far less favourable than ours. The difference arises solely from the English being better cultivators than we are.
    "Our agriculture, and consequently our cereal products, would derive infinite advantage from the free admission into the French territory of all the improved implements and machines with which foreigners could supply us. . . . Much has been gained, it is true, by a reduction of the duty upon them to fifteen per cent.; but even with this reduction, the forms which have still to be observed render the existing difficulties in the way of the cultivators so excessive, that they shrink from encountering them. What they require is, to have, in lieu of all the elaborate formalities, which now consume so much precious time as to drive them to despair, simply and purely a fixed duty, regulated by the weight of the object on which it is levied, and which could be settled in an instant, until the time shall arrive (which cannot come too quickly) when all agricultural implements, with other instruments of industry, shall be altogether exempt from duty."*
    It is not gluten only which constitutes the nutritious properties of wheat, but the farina or starch also, which enters much more largely into its composition. A hundred pounds of the flour of good sound wheat contain from ten to twelve parts of gluten, and seventy of starch; and though the starch affords less nourishment than the gluten, it yields a very valuable amount of it.
    By the following simple process, the two may be separated, and the precise nature of each may be ascertained, by persons who have no knowledge of chemistry:—"Let a little good wheat flour be made into a paste with a little water; let the paste be worked up in one's closed hand under water, and let the water be frequently changed so long as it continues to be whitened by the flour. The portion which remains in the hand will now be found very different from the original flour. It will be a tasteless, fibrous, tenacious, tough, elastic, gray mass, stretching, when drawn out, to a great extent, and collapsing again like India rubber. It dries into a brown, hard, semi-transparent mass, which is brittle, and breaks with a glassy fracture. This is the gluten, which derives its name from its glutinous quality; and this it possesses to such an extent, that it acts as a cement for broken glass and porcelain. It is scarcely, if at all, soluble in water; but it dissolves readily in acids. It is asserted by Taddei that gluten—and flour as containing it—possesses the important property of acting as an antidote to corrosive sublimate."— Professor Donovan's "Domestic Economy."
    The water which has been whitened in washing the flour, contains the starch or farina, which, if allowed to stand for some time, will subside, when the water may be poured from it, and the starch may be collected on a filter and dried.
    Professor Johnston's more recent and highly interesting work, entitled, "The Chemistry of Common Life," directs the gluten to be obtained in an almost similar manner. He says—" If flour be mixed with sufficient water to moisten it thoroughly, the particles cohere and form a smooth, elastic, and tenacious dough, which admits of being drawn out to some extent, and of being moulded into a variety of forms. If this dough be placed upon a sieve, or on a piece of muslin, and worked with the hand under a stream of water as long as the water passes through milky, there will remain at last upon the sieve a white, sticky substance, very much resembling bird-lime. This is the substance which gives its tenacity to the dough. From its glutinous nature, it has obtained amongst chemists the name of gluten. When the milky water has become clear by standing, a white powder will be at the bottom of the vessel, which is common wheaten starch."
    The proportion of gluten contained in wheat varies with the quality of the grain. As much as twenty-five per cent. of it have been obtained from some varieties; and, from what has been stated, the reader will perceive that the richer the corn is in this substance, the greater must be its value. That grown in warm climates abounds in it more than any which is produced in England; and the hard-grained, as already shown, more than the soft-kernelled white wheat. It enters into the composition of rye and other of the cereal grains, but is not precisely of the same nature; therefore, none of them are so perfectly adapted for bread. The gluten of rye—which stands next to wheat as a bread-corn—is described as "moist gluten;" and it appears to be deficient in some quality inherent in that of the wheat, as the same process of fabrication does not answer equally for both species of grain.