And the I'm going to be. Welcome to Snuscast, the podcast designed to help you fall asleep.

Tonight, we'll read about the basics of breadmaking from Volume 1 of 1925's Women's Institute Library of Cookery, written by the Women's Institute

of Domestic Arts and Sciences.

This Institute was founded by Mary Brooks Picken in Scranton, Pennsylvania.

An expert on fashion, Picken also wrote the first dictionary to be published by a woman in the English language. Let's get cozy. Close your eyes. Relax your body into the softness of your bed.

Now, take a few deep breaths.

The importance of bread as food.

Bread is sometimes defined as any form of baked flour,

but as the word is commonly understood, it means only those forms of baked flour, which

contain some leavening substance, that produces fermentation. The making of bread has come down through the

ages from the simplest methods practice by the most primitive peoples to the more elaborate processes of the present day.

In truth, to study the history of bread-making would amount to studying the accounts of the progress that has been made by the human race.

Still, in order that the production of bread from suitable ingredients may be fully understood, it will be well

to note the advancement that has been made.

References in the history of the ancient Hebrews show that bread made light by means of

fermentation was known thousands of years ago but it was not until after the accidental discovery of the

action of yeast that the making of wholesome and digestible bread became possible. Through this important advance in the

making of bread came a demand for better grains and more improved methods of making flour.

Indeed, so much attention has been given to these matters

that at present the three important processes related to bread making,

the raising of wheat, the milling of flour,

and the manufacture of yeast are carefully and scientifically performed.

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