The Complete Confectioner, Pastry-Cook, and Baker; Plain and Practical Directions for Making Confectionary and Pastry, and for Baking With Upwards of ... Sorts of Preserves, Sugar-Boiling, Comfits, - Tapa blanda

This historic book may have numerous typos, missing text or index. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. 1844. Not illustrated. Excerpt: ... Bread made of Roots.--M. Parmentier, late chief Apothecary in the Hotel des Invalidea, whose authority we have before quoted, has published numerous and very curious experiments on the vegetables, which in times of scarcity might bo used in the subsistence of animals, as substitutes for those usually employed for that purpose. The result of these experiments in the mind of M. Parmentier was, that starch is the nutritive part of farinaceous vegetables, and that the farina of plants was identical with the starch of wheat. The plants from which he extracted this farina are the bryony, the iris, gladiolus, ranunculus, fumaria, arum, dracunculus, niandragora, colchicum, filipendula, helleborus, and the roots of the gramen caniuuna arvense, or dog grass of the fields. The mode employed by M. Parmentier to extract the starch, or farina, from these vegetables, was merely bruising and boiling. The roots were cleansed and scraped, then reduced to a pulp, which being soaked in a considerable quantity of water, a white sediment is deposited, which when properly washed and dried will be found to be pure starch. M. Parmentier converted this starch into bread by mingling it with an equal quantity of potatoes reduced to a pulp, and employing the usual quantity of yeast or other leaven. The bread, we are informed, had no bad taste, and was of excellent quality. From these experiments of M. Parmentier, it appears, that it is chiefly the amylaceous matter or starch of grain that is nutritious; and, that the nutritive quality of other vegetable substances depends in a great measure on the quantity of that matter which they contain. Starch formed into a jelly, and diffused in water, will keep a long time without change. Ragwort.--Bread has been made in times of scarcity from the roo...