DO YOU HAVE YOUR BREAD WEIGHED?

Globe, Volume VIII, Issue 926, 13 June 1877, Page 2

DO YOU HAVE YOUR BREAD WEIGHED?

To the Editor of the Gfobe Sir, —In your issue of Friday last I note a letter from '* One who Knows his Trade." I am glad to find there is one who knows his trade, for if he is truthful he will be able fully to substantiate my statements with regard to the different ingredients used in bread-making. He confines himself naturally (we don't expect him to devulge the secrets of the trade) to those employed in making pure unadulterated bread, for it stands to reason that so small a quantity as seven pounds of potatoes in so large a quantity of flour cannot certainly be used for the purpose of adulteration ; but as I stated in my first letter, the quantity is enormously in creased for the purpose of nefariously increasing profits, and however much innocence " ODe who Knows his Trade" may assume, he knows this to be a fact as well as I know it myself. To proceed, besides potatoes, boiled rice is frequently used, this article by its property of absorbing and re taining water will, when added to flour in bread-making, permit of the number of loaves being increased to the amount of nearly fifty per cent, above the yield, when merely yeast and water are added. Slack baking is also another method of deriving a little profit from the water. This process, by allowing the bread to retain considerably more than the orthodox proportion of water, increases the weight of the product, and thereby furnishes the means of augmenting the number of loaves. Again, the mixing of seconds, or inferior or damaged flour with good is another opening from whence profits may be derived. And the "One who Knows his Trade " should be well aware that by certain manipulations and additions bread made from seconds, inferior, or damaged flour (which is usually very plentiful after a wet harvest, and which is always to be obtained cheap) may be made not only to compare favorably with, but actually to pass current for, bread made of the best materials only. These adulterations are comparatively harmless ; of those which are not harmless, 1 think it would be as well, Mr Editor, not to speak, and 1 excuse myself to the public by an old and hackneyed quotation, '' Where ignorance is bliss 'tis folly to be wise."

Upon the subject of short weight, mentioned in my letter, I find " One who Knows his Trade" is discreetly silent, ominously silent, I may say. It struck me so forcibly, this absence of refutation, that I obtained three 21b loaves, purchased at three different :-hops, and weighed them, one rather slack bnked was 2\ ounces short weight, another ig ounces, and the third If ounces short

weight, making an average deficiency of o» ounce in the pound of bread, equal to fou ounces in the 41b loaf, equivalent in money to a loss to the consumer and gain to the baker of one half penny per loaf, when bread is at 8d the 41b loaf—the baker thus delivering only sevenpence halfpenny worth of bread for which he charges eightpence, or, to put it another way, the consumer's loss is one loaf out of every sixteen. A baker may, by judicious manipulation, pass off bread made from inferior flour as the best, or he may, by skilful management of his oven, sell water to an unsuspecting public in the place of bread, or he may replace a considerable portion of his Hour with potatoes, or rice, or both mixed, &c, &c, without running much risk of being exposed; but when it comes also to invariable short weight, which appears to be fast becoming a recognised custom of the trade, it is time the public made a stand (if only to emu'ate the proverbial worm), and the pertinent (to the bakei'3 no doubt impertinent) question—do you have your bread weighed should be continually asked by one thirfty housewife of another, until it becomes the established rule to deliver full weight. No one would accept of 3ilb of tea, or sugar, or tobacco, on the payment of the price charged for four pound*. Why then should bread be the exception to the rule ? The remedy lies in the hands of the public, and there I leave it. By the way, I was nearly forgetting about the baking powder, of which I am supposed to be the embryo agent. I should wish "One who Knows his Trade" clearly to understand that, when baking powder ia used, there is not the slightest occasion or excuse to adulterate the bread in any way to make it work, or to serve other purposes, not even with seven pounds or more of potatoes. This may be a wrinkle.

Yours, &c, CRUSTY.