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crumbs and stale bits. It should be carefully washed in boiling soapsuds, scalded, and dried, every two or three days. If cloths are used to wrap or cover the bread, they too should be washed and scalded every week, and oftener if at any time the loaf about which they are wrapped becomes moldy or musty. TEST OF GOOD FERMENTED BREAD.--A loaf of good bread, well risen and perfectly baked, may be taken in the hands, and, with the thumb on the top crust and fingers upon the bottom of the loaf, pressed to less than half its thickness, and when the pressure is removed, it will immediately expand like a sponge, to its former proportions. Good yeast bread, while it should be firm and preserve a certain amount of moisture, will, when cold, crumble easily when rubbed between the fingers. If, instead, it forms a close, soggy mass, it may be regarded as indigestible. This is one reason why hot, new yeast bread and biscuit are so indigestible. In demonstration of this, take a small lump of new bread, gently roll it into a ball, and put into a glass of water, adding a similar quantity of stale bread of the same kind also. The latter will crumble away very soon, while the former will retain its form for hours, reminding one of its condition in the stomach, "as hard as a bullet," for a long time resisting the action of the gastric juice, although, meanwhile, the yeast germs which have not been killed in the oven are converting the mass into a lump of yeast, by which the whole contents of the stomach are soured. A soluble article like salt or sugar in fine powdered form is much more easily and quickly dissolved than the same article in solid lumps, and so it is with food. The apparent dryness of stale bread is not caused by its loss of moisture; for if carefully weighed, stale bread will be found to contain almost exactly the same proportion of water as new bread that has become cold. The moisture has only passed into a state of concealment, as may be demonstrated by subjecting a stale loaf inclosed in a tightly-sealed receptacle to a temperature equal to boiling heat in an oven for half an hour, when it will again have the appearance of new bread. Hot bread eaten with butter is still more unwholesome, for the reason that the melted grease fills up the pores of the bread, and further interferes with the action of the digestive fluids. WHOLE-WHEAT AND GRAHAM BREADS.--The same general principles are involved in the making of brea
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