A treatise on the art of making good wholesome bread of wheat, oats, rye, barley and other farinaceous grains: Exhibiting the alimentary properties and chemical constitution of different kinds of bread corn, and of the various substitutes used for bread, in different parts of the worldAccum, Friedrich Christian
History
A treatise on the art of making good wholesome bread of wheat, oats, rye, barley and other farinaceous grains: Exhibiting the alimentary properties and chemical constitution of different kinds of bread corn, and of the various substitutes used for bread, in different parts of the world
Accum, Friedrich Christian
Bread
Malt liquors, after they are delivered by the brewer to the
retail-dealer, are still destined to undergo various mutations before
they reach the consumer. It is a common practice with the retailers of
beer, though it be contrary to law, to mix table-beer with strong beer;
and, to disguise this fraud, recourse is had to various expedients. It
is a well known property of genuine beer, that when poured from one
vessel into another, it bears a strong white froth, without which
professed judges would not pronounce the liquor good. This property is
lost, however, when table-beer is mixed with strong beer; and to restore
it, a mixture of what is called _beer-heading_ is added, composed of
common green vitriol, alum, and salt. To give a pungent taste to weak
insipid beer, capsicum and grains of paradise, two highly acrid
substances, are employed; and, of date, a concentrated tincture of these
articles has appeared for sale in the prices-current of
brewers’-druggists. To bring beer forward, as it is technically called,
or to make it hard, a portion of sulphuric acid is mixed with it, which,
in an instant, produces an imitation of the age of eighteen months; and
stale, half-spoiled, or sour beer, is converted into mild beer, by the
simple admixture of an alkali or an alkaline earth; oyster-shell powder,
and subcarbonate of potash, or soda, being usually employed for that
purpose. In order to show that these deceptions are not imaginary, Mr.
Accum refers to the frequent convictions of brewers for those fraudulent
practices, and to the seizures which have been made at different
breweries of illegal ingredients—a list of which, and of the proprietors
of the breweries where they were seized, he has extracted from the
Minutes of the Committee of the House of Commons, appointed to Inquire
into the Price and Quality of Beer. It may be observed, that while some
of the sophistications of beer appear to be perfectly harmless, other
substances are frequently employed for this purpose which are highly
deleterious, and which must gradually undermine the health of those by
whom they are used.
Many other of the most ordinary articles of consumption are mentioned by
our author as being the object of the most disgusting and pernicious
frauds. Tea, it is well known, from the numerous convictions which have
lately taken place, has been counterfeited to an enormous extent; and
copper, in one form or another, is the chief ingredient made use of for
effecting the imitation.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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