Eliza Acton's Chapter 6: Cereal Grains
CHAPTER VI.
DIFFERENT VARIETIES OF BREAD-CORN (KNOWN AS THE CEREALIA, OR CEREAL GRAINS).
Wheat.—Rye.—Barley.—Oats.—Maize.—Rice.—Their relative Importance, and Adaptation to different Climates.
Under the article "Gluten" some explanation has already been given of the reasons which render wheat of so much higher value to us than any other variety of corn. It is so not only on account of the greater facility with which it may be made into bread, but because it supplies us likewise with excellent and wholesome food in a multitude of other forms. One of the most delicate and most nutritious of these is the macaroni which is now largely imported here from Italy, and which is manufactured from the choicest part of large hard-grained wheat, called there grano duro. This macaroni is in a great measure a substitute for bread to the people of Naples and other parts of the Italian States; and it is well suited to their climate, being extremely light and easy of digestion, yet containing so much nourishment of a very pure quality, as to constitute most valuable diet. Invalids who cannot digest bread, can almost live on the macaroni, when most thoroughly boiled, and it is for that reason it is mentioned here.
Enough has been said already in the previous pages of the hard-grained wheats, to prove their nutritious value; and the comparative prices of those grown here, or imported from foreign countries, will show the estimation in which all varieties brought into our great corn-marts are held. Most of our leading public journals furnish regular lists of these, which will afford the reader all needful information on the subject, as thus:—It will be seen that the supplies from Kent and Essex are reported always as bearing a superior price to all other English wheat; and those from Dantzic stand much higher than any other: which may be received as proof that they are the best.
"If we except the Russian, which is inferior,* the wheat of the Continent is in general superior to English wheat by five per cent.: hence it is said that the London flour is inferior to that of most large towns on the Continent.
"The best wheat is grown in Poland and Pomerania, and is conveyed down by the rivers on large barges or rafts from the interior of the country. The grain is beautifully white, hard, and thin-skinned; and in consequence of its small quantity of bran, it yields a large proportion of excellent flour. French wheat is in general superior to that of England. The Italians have the superiority over the French in their wheat crops; and perhaps the best wheat of all is raised in Barbary and Egypt. The Sicilian is the finest in Europe. It is of two kinds; one is a long grain, much larger than English, and is generally boiled whole as a substitute for barley or rice; the other is an oval soft wheat, yielding a flour that is remarkably white, and employed only in making the best sort of bread, biscuits, and pastry: but, from government restrictions, very little is imported."
"In every climate where wheat can be cultivated it is raised in preference to all other kinds of corn. It contains the greatest quantity of starch, and likewise by far the most gluten; from which it derives the quality that fits it for bread above every other grain. The expense of its cultivation is indeed somewhat greater; but from its superiority as a bread-corn it is always chosen where the climate permits, or the poverty of the country has not constrained the inhabitants to be content with cheaper food.
"Wheaten bread is now almost universally used in England; and in Scotland it is becoming much more general; but in the reign of Henry VIII. it was confined to the gentry, and the poorer classes ate only rye, barley, or oaten bread. About the middle of the last century very little wheat was cultivated in the northern parts of England, and the crust of the Christmas goose-pies of Cumberland was composed of barley-meal.
"Wheat grown in different countries varies considerably. The climate of the northern parts of Europe is not favourable to its production. It has, however, been slowly making its way in this part of the world; but in Sweden* to this day nothing is met with usually, except rye-cakes almost as hard as flint, as they bake only twice a year. Wheaten rolls may be seen occasionally in some of the towns, but never loaves. In 1812 a baker at Gottenburgh received an order from the captain of a vessel to bake wheaten bread to the value of one pound sterling; but the baker, alarmed at the risk, required security for payment, since, had the bread been left upon his hands, he could not have disposed of so large a quantity in that town, notwithstanding it had a population of twenty-three thousand inhabitants !"
Mr. Webster, from whom the preceding passages are quoted, informs us that "the soft wheats grow in the northern parts of Europe, as in Belgium, England, Denmark, and Sweden, and the hard in warmer climates. The grain of these last have," he says, "a compact seed, nearly transparent, which, when beaten through, breaks short, and shows a very white flour within. The soft wheats have an opaque coat or skin, which, when first reaped, gives way readily to the pressure of the finger and thumb; these require to be well dried and hardened before they can be ground into flour."
Rye does not seem to be regarded with much favour in England, as little is grown here, and the imported supplies are very scanty, compared with those of all other grain; yet, from the positive amount of nutriment which it affords, it stands next in value to wheat, and makes excellent bread in combination with wheat-meal or flour. It ferments easily; is considered by many persons as of peculiarly agreeable flavour; (to others its sweetness is sometimes an objection;) keeps well; is wholesome, and economical also. The black bread of Germany and other parts of Europe is composed of rye only, ground into coarse meal, and fermented often by means of leaven (or dough left from a previous baking, and become slightly sour), which is an unfavourable mode of fabricating it, because rye has a tendency to pass quickly into what is termed the acetous state of fermentation; and requires to be carefully watched and skilfully managed, to prevent the bread made of it from acquiring an acid taste. When the flour of rye is mixed with half or two-thirds as much of wheat flour, the dough may be prepared in the ordinary manner, rather less time in warm weather being allowed for its rising. One part in three of rye-flour may be used for paste also, which will answer excellently for plain puddings or common pies.
Mr. Webster says of this grain, that "it is next in importance to wheat, and has one advantage over it; it can be propagated through a greater range of climate, bearing heat, cold, and drought better, growing upon lighter soil, and coming so quickly to maturity, that the short summers of northern countries, which are not sufficient to ripen wheat, are yet long enough to bring barley to maturity. In Lapland it is sown and reaped within six weeks. In Spain they have two crops in one year. It was much in use amongst the Romans, and formerly, also, as a bread-corn in England, as it still is in Westmoreland, Cumberland, Wales, and Scotland; but in the south of Britain it is now chiefly raised for malt."
The bread made from barley-meal or flour is of a coarser quality than that of rye, though not of so dark a colour; and, from containing much less gluten, this grain is not so easily converted into a light dough. The most valuable form in which it is now used amongst us as food is that of pearl barley, which is very delicate and easy of digestion.
"Pot barley is barley of which the outer husk has been removed by mill-stones; it is used for making broth. Pearl barley is the small round kernel which remains after the skin and a considerable portion of the barley have been ground off. For this purpose spring-barley is chosen: it is steamed to soften the skin, dried, and passed between mill-stones of a peculiar kind to take off the husk, all except what lies in the deep furrow of the seed, and which is the cause of the short dark line to be seen on pearl-barley. The Scotch pearl-barley is quite round, and is made from the sort called bere, or bigg. A decoction of pearl-barley was the 'ptisan' of ancient medicine, now better known by the name of barley-water. Besides its use in broth, it is. sometimes boiled in water, and eaten as rice with milk.
"In Holland, pot-barley boiled in butter-milk, and sweetened with treacle, is a common mess for children and servants.
"As pot and pearl-barley are extremely wholesome and nutritious, it is to be regretted that they are not more used as food by the labouring classes in England, as they are in Scotland, Germany, and Holland."
One reason perhaps has not occurred to Mr. Webster of the comparatively small consumption of these excellent preparations of barley amongst our working people: they require long cooking,—two or three hours at least,—and fuel is often so expensive here that this is a serious objection with the poor to many articles of food to which they might otherwise have recourse with exceeding advantage. For these, as for much else, the public ovens, so strongly recommended in this volume, would be infinitely helpful to them.
"This grain prefers a cold climate, and is one of the hardiest of the cereal plants. It cannot be cultivated in the southern parts of Europe, and is scarcely seen south of Paris. Even in England its produce in the southern districts is inferior to that of the northern, and still more to that of Scotland. It has this advantage, that it will grow where neither wheat nor barley will flourish, and, indeed, on any land, from the stiffest clay to crude mossy soils, if sufficiently dry: it is also the most easily cultivated. Indeed, if it can be ripened before the frost sets in, the meal is superior when the climate is rather bleak and the soil not very rich.
"It contains more gluten than barley, though less than wheat; and experience shows that it is very nutritive, since the labouring classes in Scotland, Lancashire, Derbyshire, and some other parts of England and Wales, subsist and keep up their strength perfectly upon bread and other preparations of it. Many, indeed, who are used to oaten bread prefer it to every other kind. In the south of England oats are not employed for bread, but only for feeding horses, with whom they are supposed to agree better than any other species of grain.
"Oatmeal is cooked for human food in several ways. In Scotland it forms the dish called pottage, or porridge, the universal breakfast in many parts of labouring people and children. Deprived of the husk, it constitutes grits, or groats, much used for making oatmeal-gruel, used both as food and medicinally. The advantage of grits over oatmeal is, that the fecula or starch, of which the meal or farina of the oats chiefly consists, is alone extracted by the boiling water, and that thus none of the cuticle which covers it is mixed with the gruel; but in the oatmeal this thin cuticle, which encloses it (not the husk of the oat), is ground up with the meal, and gives to it a rough and harsh taste; for, although the gruel made of oatmeal may be strained, still a quantity of the minute fragments of the cuticle escape through the strainer; whereas, in the case of grits, this cuticle is entirely kept back, which accounts for the smoothness of grit-gruel, as it is termed. Scotch oatmeal is superior to English, which is partly owing to the superiority of the grain, and partly to the climate; but is, in part, owing to the greater care employed in its cultivation. In Scotland, also, the oats are dried in a kiln previous to grinding, which gives it an agreeable flavour."
Maize, which until recently was little known in England, and which requires a much warmer climate to mature it, is not well adapted to panification; as, from its want of gluten, probably, the flour is not sufficiently adhesive to form a compact paste; and it absorbs a large proportion of water, which creates a further difficulty in baking it, the surface becoming dry and hard before the heat has penetrated the entire mass, the interior of which will often remain quite moist, however long it may be left in the oven. Still, in America and other countries where it is largely cultivated and much eaten, bread is made, and well made too, it may be presumed, entirely of maize; but, though considered very nutritious, and supporting well, apparently, the strength of those who live on it, it can never be comparable to that which is made of wheat. Indian-corn seems altogether better adapted to such preparations as admit of its being combined with plenty of liquid, and rendered digestible by long boiling, as it is in Italy and in the south of France. Small proportions of it mixed with the flour of wheat, produce extremely good bread, biscuits, and paste. Cakes, excellent puddings, and savoury dishes are also made of it without the addition of flour.
Wholesome and profitable bread will be produced by blending one third of maize-flour with two of wheaten-flour or meal. These proportions are easily converted into a light, pliable dough, in which the peculiar flavour of the maize will prevail after it is baked, only so far as to be pleasant.
The ears of Indian-corn boiled whole, while the grain is still green and young, are exceedingly good and delicate served as a vegetable. The corn is scraped from the stems with a knife after it is cooked, and in appearance and flavour somewhat resembles fresh peas.
Hominy is a preparation of the whole ripe grain, which, after being very long stewed or baked, and having absorbed a large quantity of liquid in the process, is considered very nutritious food, and it is also remarkably cheap; the hominy being sold at a low price, and one pound of it producing several when it is cooked.
Mush is a sort of porridge of maize-meal, made like the oatmeal-porridge of Scotland: it requires, however, to be much longer boiled.
Rice, by itself, can scarcely be converted into bread; but it may be so when mixed with a tolerable proportion of wheat-flour or meal. It is the least nutritious of the cereal grains, containing little or no gluten; yet it constitutes almost the entire food of whole races of people in the East, where it is abundantly grown. Those, however, who live on it to the entire exclusion of animal food,— as the Hindoos for example,—take with it so much of the stimulating condiments in which their climate abounds, as well as of fresh green vegetables, and liquefied butter called ghee, that the properties in which it is deficient, and the want of which would render it inadequate to the support of human life, are supplied to the eaters by their means. When its preparation is thoroughly understood, rice may be converted into a larger variety of excellent dishes than almost any other article of food that we possess; and it has also the advantage of being comparatively cheap. The highest in price, and the best for general purposes, is that which we derive from America,—the Carolina—which is large-grained and very white. The small-grained Indian variety, called Patna, is preferred to it for serving dry with curries, &c.
There are inferior kinds, as well as damaged and broken samples, which are sold at a low cost; but they are not really economical. That which is merely crushed, if separated from the powder with which it is generally mingled, might answer for bread perhaps as well or better than the entire grain, if first cleared by repeated and copious washings from the powder with which it is mingled. All rice before it is cooked should be washed until the water poured to it remains unclouded. To convert this grain into quite solid food, without any mixture of flour, it is merely necessary to mix it well with three times its bulk of liquid*, which it will entirely absorb; to prevent the evaporation of any portion of this; to subject it to a gentle, but well sustained degree of heat, for between two and three hours; and to press it closely, while still warm, into any kind of mould. A well secured jar, placed in a slow oven, is best adapted to the success of this rice-bread, if it may be so called. In times of dearth it would be a valuable substitute for wheaten bread in part.
Another variety of the corn-plants is millet, "the smallest-seeded of them all;" which, however, is little known in England, though it is cultivated in the East, in parts of Africa, and in some parts of Europe.
Buckwheat also is used for bread on the Continent; but as it is not considered of value for that purpose here, and many other cheap ingredients which we can more readily command are better suited probably to the general taste, it does not appear needful to give an extended notice of it.
Notes:
[*] A new, and exceedingly fine variety of Russian wheat has recently been imported and sold in London at a very high price indeed; and I have been informed by the manufacturer, that the excellent preparation called soujee is made from a peculiarly hard wheat grown in Russia: it would, therefore, appear that the climate of some parts of that country is not unfavourable to the production of a superior quality of the grain.
[*] This probably does not apply to Stockholm and other large towns or cities.
[*] If this fact were generally known by cooks, the wholesome preparation of rice would be much facilitated. From a long series of experiments with different varieties of the grain, I have obtained always the same result.