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 VARIETES OF BREAD; WITH NOTICES OF THE PRESENT SYSTEM OF ADULTERATION, AND ITS CONSEQUENCES; AND OF THE IMPROVED BAKING PROCESSES AND INSTITUTIONS ESTABLISHED ABROAD. BY ELIZA ACTON. AUTHOR OF “MODERN COOKERY.” LONDON; LONGMAN, BROWN, GREEN, LONGMANS & ROBERTS. 1857. All right of translation is reserved.
FIRST AND SOLE EDITION. 8vo. 178 X 115mm. 1fep. Half title illustration of wheat sheaves with text and quote - "In no way, perhaps, is the progress of a nation in civilisation more unequivocally shown, than in the improvement which it realises in the food of the community." [1] (1)vi Preface. (1)viii – xii Contents. (1)2 – 204. (1)2 – 24 Advertisements. 1fep. Bound in original brown cloth with bright gilt design of wheat sheaves and text on cover. The back has a few water stains. The original spine expertly re-laid with the original gilt writing intact, slightly browned. Clean, tight and bright, with even very light age-browning through out. A fine original copy.
- This was the last of Eliza Acton's books. It is not only a collection of bread recipes of all sorts, from household bread to Sally Lunns, but also encompasses Acton's strong opinions about adulterated and processed food. It is also a polemic on unhealthy eating which is still relevant 150 years later. Although she was a firm believer in home baking, she also advocated machine dough; mixed in clean commercial bakeries, compared with the filthy conditions and hard lives of the English bakers of the time; But would she have been quite so pleased, had she foreseen the over-processed, chemically stabilised, glyphosate riddled supermarket breads of today.? The book also has chapters on different flours, yeasts, ovens and baking tips for beginners. Although it created a sensation when it first came out in 1857, unfortunately, as it was published two years before her death in 1859, it was never reprinted, and subsequently is now a rare book .
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Antiquarian category
ref number:
11204