English Bread-Book, for Domestic use, adapted to families of every grade…
A Culinary Landmark
[Cookbooks]. Acton, Eliza. The English Bread-Book for Domestic Use, Adapted to Families of Every Grade: Containing the Plainest and Most Minute Instructions to the Learner; Practical Receipts for Many Varieties of Bread; with Notices of the Present System of Adulteration, and its Consequences; and of the Improved Baking Processes and Institutions Established Abroad. London: Longman, Brown, Green, Longmans, & Roberts, 1857.
8vo.; ownership signature on half-title; hinges starting; brown endpapers; bookplate affixed to front endpaper; binder’s label affixed to rear pastedown; brown cloth, decoratively stamped in gilt and blind; corners bumped; edgeworn. In a specially made quarter-morocco slipcase.
Together with:
Four handwritten recipes, and one printed recipe loosely inserted, by a modern reader.
First edition of Acton’s third book, with twenty-four pages of publisher’s advertisements in the rear, and advertisements printed on the front and rear pastedowns. Bitting; Gastronomic Bibliography, p. 3. Cagle; A Matter of Taste, p. 537. Quayle; Old Cooks Books, p. 174. This book is a veritable history of bread and bread-making, with emphasis on educating consumers and extolling the virtues of home baked loaves.
In two parts; Part I has six chapters, and Part II has four sections, in which Acton provides readers with an extended analysis about bread: its necessity and nutritional value; the consequences of its adulteration; the results of baking bread dough in different ovens; homemade versus factory made bread; varieties of bread; and bread recipes.
She explains in her Preface:
Bread is a first necessity of life to the great mass of English people; being in part the food of all – the chief food of many – and almost the sole food of many more. Everything, therefore, which relates to its consumption or economy is of real importance to us…and complete acquaintance with its details would be considered absolutely indispensable in the practical domestic education of all classes to whom it is likely ever to prove useful. (p. iii)
She hoped that her book would inspire consumers to be proactive in making or procuring “really good bread” (p. vi), and would illustrate the simplicity of the process.
Acton’s book is considered a landmark English cookbook, as much for her political motives in writing it as for its form and style.
Part of her motivation for writing was to educate the lower classes in how to make good bread properly in their own homes, which often were not equipped with modern ovens, and the economic awareness she has about the necessity to “reform the bread trade” (p. 4). She explains, “such true practical education must be given to the female children, and to the women of the working orders, and such domestic appliances furnished to their dwellings, as shall suffice for the purpose” (p. 4). She also wanted to alert the public to the nature of adulterated commercial breads which used alum and other unhealthful ingredients.
In a clear and engaging style, she writes the recipe instructions in paragraph form first, which she follows with a list of ingredients, their amounts, the approximate cooking time, and tips for inexperienced cooks. This became a standard method in recipe writing, though the list of ingredients is now commonly printed ahead of the instructions.
A good example of this style is illustrated in Acton’s recipe for Ginger Loaf, or Rolls.
Mix intimately two ounces of good powdered ginger, – called in the shops prepared ginger, – and a little salt, with two pounds of flour, and make it into a firm but perfectly light dough with German or brewer’s yeast, in the usual manner. Bake it either in one loaf, or divide it into six or eight small ones.
Flour, 2 lbs.; prepared ginger, 2 oz.; little salt; German yeast, ½ oz., or fresh brewer’s yeast 1 large dessert-spoonful; milk, or milk and water, 1 pint: to rise one hour or until quite
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