or dough. Boiling water is added to the semola and the dough is mixed for about seven minutes. The mass is then put on a flat, circular kneading board and kneaded by two sharp-edged parallel beams which rise and fall as the table turns and press into the dough as they descend. A few minutes of kneading are sufficient and the homogeneous dough is then put into the cylinder and the piston descends upon the mass, forcing it in strings slowly through the perforated plate at the bottom. Fifteen minutes are required to convert the gallons of dough into thousands of feet of yellow macaroni. The yellow color is produced by the use of saffron or of a coal tar dye of which a very small quantity is put into each batch of dough. This is a reprehensible practice.

As soon as the strings of fresh paste which issue continually from the die are of the proper length they are cut and thrown over a reed pole and carried into the sunlight, if the weather is fair, or into sheltered terraces, protected by curtains from the rain, if the weather is unfavorable. On bright days the strings of macaroni are exposed to the sunlight only two hours. They must be dried out only slightly before being cellared for the night in dungeonlike underground vaults similar to the Bavarian beer cellars.

For twelve hours or more the poles of macaroni are kept in these damp places, until the dough has become moist and pliable again and the strings. have lost the brittleness that the exposure to the sunlight has given them. From the cellars the poles are carried to shaded storehouses open on all sides to the air but not lighted from above. Here, in great masses of millions of strings, they hang for several days, from eight to twenty being required, depending upon the dryness of the atmosphere. According to the statements of a manager of a factory this process of drying is necessary to give to the brittle paste a horn-like toughness and fit it to withstand the rough handling to which it will be subjected without breaking into small pieces.

In all this simple process the one point at which bacteria might have a chance to play a rôle is in the first drying, cellaring, and subsequent slow drying in the shade. The theory that the water is responsible for the flavor must rest, it seems to the writer, on other than bacterial grounds, for from the appearance of the tank which supplied the hot water the inference is easy that the water is chalybeate, for the tank was incrusted with iron.

ROLLS.

The term rolls is given to bread usually leavened with yeast or baking powder, and usually eaten warm, or hot. The term biscuit is generally but improperly used in this country for hot bread made with baking powder. The composition of rolls varies greatly with their method of preparation. Those made with yeast have practically the same composition as ordinary

fermented bread, while those made with a baking powder or with exceptionally large additions of milk, butter, or lard vary in composition accordingly. In the making of hot rolls with baking powder, lard or butter is commonly used to a very large extent as "shortening." These fatty bodics render the gluten less tenacious, and the roll is thus easily broken and is without toughness or elasticity. Owing to this irregular use of shortening and of mineral matter, including salt, the composition of rolls of commerce is extremely variable. In eleven samples of rolls analyzed, for instance, the content of moisture varied from 7 to 34. Evidently the sample sold as a roll which contained only 7 percent of moisture was in point of fact a biscuit and not a roll. The percentage of ether extract in these samples varied from .43 to 7.55. The average composition of the eleven samples is as follows:

Wheat flour is one of the principal constituents of that class of sweetened bread known generally as cake. The kind and character of cake vary so greatly that no general statement of any very great value can be made respecting the average composition. In addition to the sugar and flour which are used in the manufacture of cake various flavoring ingredients or essences are employed, and usually excessive quantities of butter or lard for shortening purposes. In addition to this, other forms of cake are cooked in oil after the dough is made, thus adding an additional quantity of fatty matter to the material. Eggs are also a common constituent of cakes and these introduce into their composition additional quantities of protein and fat. Baking powder is very generally used in this country instead of yeast for the leavening of the cake and thus an additional quantity of mineral matter is introduced into their composition.

In the manufacture of sweetened cakes the flour is mixed with eggs and sugar and butter or lard to the proper consistency with or without the use

of milk or cream. The cakes are baked in all kinds of sizes and shapes and may be eaten plain or in layers separated by a jelly, marmalade, or some other preserve. The exterior of the cake is often frosted with a mixture consisting of the white of egg beaten up with white sugar. The methods. of mixing the ingredients of these cakes as well as the method of frosting are so various that it would not be possible to undertake any minute description of them.

For flavoring various materials are employed, either the real article or the imitation thereof, such as artificial strawberry, vanilla, etc. The cake or sweet cake is a very common dainty which is served at dessert. The ordinary cane sugar of commerce is the common sweetening matter usually employed in the refined state although sometimes yellow sugar is used. Honey is not so commonly used as a sweetening agent in this country as it is in European countries.

In the manufacture of one of the common varieties known as ginger cake sugar-cane sirup or molasses is a common ingredient.

An examination of a large number of samples of cake shows the following average composition:

A study of the individual data shows extremely wide variations from the mean. The ether extract in the moisture samples in some cases amounted to over 19 percent and in the dry substance to over 24 percent. The moisture in one case was over 64 percent while in the dry cake of biscuit character it sinks below 5 percent and in one case below 4 percent. The average data, therefore, are to be considered only as a representative of this class of bodies and not as a type of any particular variety.

Adulterations. It is difficult to speak of adulterations of a substance of the composition of cake. Any wholesome flavoring or sweetening ingredient. or other wholesome ingredient may be used in the manufacture of a cake

of this kind without being an adulterant. From this class of bodies, however, there is excluded artificial colors and artificial flavoring essences bearing the name of genuine. A yellow cake which does not owe its color to the eggs or other normal ingredients employed must be regarded as an adulterated article, especially if the dye used in producing the yellow is one of the coal dyes or coal tar derivatives such as naphthol yellow. The use of imitation fruit flavors such as the so-called strawberry, blackberry, raspberry, vanilla, etc., is also to be regarded as an adulteration. The adulteration of cakes may be regarded as confined particularly to these two classes of article assuming that all the other ingredients are wholesome and without injurious effects upon the digestion. The eggs used in cake making should be fresh and palatable. Too often passé storage eggs and eggs broken and preserved with borax or formaldehyde and unfit for consumption have been used by the bakers of cakes.

Mineral coloring matters have sometimes been found in cakes and these are more objectionable by far than the artificial colors above mentioned. Where molasses from sugar-cane factories is used in the manufacture of cake a considerable trace of chlorid of tin or of zinc salts may be found therein, derived from the wash used in the centrifugal when drying sugar crystals or from the process of bleaching the molasses. This must be regarded as a very serious adulteration and molasses of this kind should never be used in the manufacture of cake nor for edible purposes upon the table. Sulfurous acid may also be absorbed during the process of bleaching the sugar-cane juices. It is needless to add that cake with its complex character should be eaten as a relish rather than a diet. There is no hygienic or dietetic objection to the mixture of sugar with the flour in the making of ordinary sweetened bread. Such bread must be regarded as highly nutritious and as differing from ordinary bread only in a disturbance of the natural food content of the loaf caused by the addition of a carbohydrate to the bread. Many of the cakes which are sold contain so small a quantity of sugar that they ought not to be classed with the sweet cake. Out of the whole number of samples used in the making up of the above average only four contained so little sugar as to be ineligible to bear the name of sweet cake or sweetened bread.

Breakfast Foods.-A very large variety of cereal preparations are on the market under the general name of breakfast foods. These preparations are made directly from the cereals more or less completely ground by subjecting them to certain manipulations of a fermentative or culinary character by means of which the preparations are made ready for immediate consumption or at least with only a moderate degree of additional cooking. The changes which take place in the preparation of cereals for breakfast foods are of two general characters, namely, those produced by fermentative action. with malt, yeast, or other ferments, and, second, changes produced by heating,

either in the moist or dry state. Often both sets of changes are produced in the same product. The general difference, therefore, between a so-called breakfast food and the raw material from which it is made is found in the conversion of more or less starch into sugar and the change in the composition of the material produced by moist heat or dry heat. In the latter case the temperature may be raised to the state of considerable caramelization.

Breakfast foods may also contain added condimental substances, such as salt, sugar, etc., sometimes used in their preparation. Nearly all the cereals or mixtures of cereals are represented in these prepared foods. Oats probably occupy the first rank and the preparations of oatmeal have to a large extent in the United States taken the place of home-prepared oatmeal for the breakfast table. Wheat, barley, and Indian corn are not far behind oats in their contributions to the numerous varieties of breakfast foods.

The particular methods of preparation are usually trade secrets and at any rate the description of the extensive technical processes would be improper in this manual. The secrets, however, are merely methods of manipulation, since it is certain that the changes of a chemical nature which take place are of the general character or class described above.

Breakfast foods are usually sold under trade-mark names which may or may not give an indication of their origin or character. Sometimes, in fact, the trade name gives a false indication and the use of such trade names must be considered as entirely reprehensible. Whenever a name used is descriptive it should be used in a practical sense and not for the purpose of misleading or deceiving. Breakfast foods may represent practically the whole grain or the grain with a removal of a proportion of the outer covering or they may represent the refined flour from which all or a considerable proportion of the germ and some of the rich nitrogenous ingredients have been removed. The attempt to give a list of the names which have been applied to breakfast foods would consume many pages and be of little value.

Composition of Breakfast Foods. In so far as possible the breakfast foods noted in the following tables have been arranged in accordance with the raw material from which they have been produced and the data given represent the average composition of breakfast foods of the classes mentioned. Individual variations from the average are often very great.

Class

I.-Breakfast foods made from Indian corn products. Class II.-Breakfast foods made from wheat products.

Class III.-Breakfast foods made from oat products.

Class IV.-Breakfast foods made from starch and tapioca.

Class V. Breakfast foods made from noodles, spaghetti, and macaroni. Class VI.-Breakfast foods made from barley.

Class VII.-Breakfast foods of miscellaneous origin, that is consisting of those compounds of raw material not specified.