Man has not always eaten fine wheaten bread, biscuits, or sponge cakes; and, for many centuries, the inexperience of his palate prevented his imagining or understanding those magiric combinations, that science of good living,[IV-1] which requires time and serious study. Nature makes us hungry; art creates, modifies, and directs the appetite--these are incontestable truths, which this work will serve to unfold, and, if necessary, to prove, should any of our readers unfortunately not be already convinced of the depth of these wise axioms. Let us go no further back than the year 2000 before the Christian era, and enter together the tent of the father of nations--_Abraham_. We might lead you to the fire-side of each of the nineteen patriarchs who preceded him, but that would take us too far. In the interior of this nomad dwelling, Sarah, the venerable companion of the Pastor-King, has just prepared, with flour and water, round pieces of flattened paste, which she places on the hearth, and covers afterwards with hot ashes.[IV-2] It was thus that princes and servants made bread in the East. The Jewish people who inhabited the Desert ate no other kind;[IV-3] and the Prophet Elijah, reposing under the shade of a juniper tree, appeased his hunger with this simple and primitive food.[IV-4] Sometimes, however, at certain periods of solemnity, the Hebrews used a gridiron, placed on the coals, or a frying-pan, into which they put the paste;[IV-5] but these various modes of cooking produced a kind of cake, dry, thin, and brittle,[IV-6] somewhat like the Jewish Passover cake, which was broken by the hand without the aid of a knife;[IV-7] they were called _lechem_, choice and chief food,[IV-8] and the mother of the family generally renewed them each day.[IV-9] The inhabitants of the East thought so much of bread, that it was considered a special mark of regard and hospitality to the person to whom it was offered.[IV-10] Boaz says to Ruth: “At meal time come thou hither and eat of the bread, and dip thy morsel in the vinegar.”[IV-11] Although the use of bread without leaven and baked under the ashes was common among the Jews,[IV-12] it is nevertheless evident that they knew and employed, at an early period, some substance to raise the dough, which they designated by the name of _seor_. It was, perhaps, flour diluted with water left to get sour. Pliny assures us that of all means employed by the ancients to render bread savoury and light, this is the most simple and easy.[IV-13]