A flat cake was
the common form in which most of the bread of olden times was baked;
being too brittle to be cut with a knife, the common mode of dividing it
was by breaking and hence the expression "breaking bread" so common in
Scripture.

Various substances have been and are employed for making this needful
article. Until the last few decades, barley was the grain most
universally used. Chestnuts, ground to a flour, are made into bread in
regions where these nuts abound. Quite recently, an immense peanut crop
in the Southern States was utilized for bread-making purposes. In
ancient times, the Thracians made to bread from a flour made from the
_water coltran_, a prickly root of triangular form. In Syria, mulberries
were dried and grounded to flour. Rice, moss, palm tree piths, and
starch producing roots are used by different nationalities in the
preparation of bread. In many parts of Sweden, bread is made from dried
fish, using one half fish flour and one half barley flour; and in
winter, flour made from the bark of trees is added. Desiccated tomatoes,
potatoes, and other vegetables are also mixed with the cereals for
bread-making. In India, the lower classes make their bread chiefly from
millet. Moss bread is made in Iceland from the reindeer moss, which
toward autumn becomes soft, tender, and moist, with a taste like wheat
bran. It contains a large quantity of starch, and the Icelanders gather,
dry, pulverize it, and thus prepare it for bread-making. The ancient
Egyptians often made their bread from equal parts of the whole grain and
meal.

The breadstuff's most universally used among civilized nations at the
present time are barley, rye, oats, maize, buckwheat, rice, and wheat,
of which the last has acquired a decided preference.

If made in the proper manner and from suitable material, bread is, with
the exception of milk, the article best fitted for the nourishment of
the body, and if need be, can supply the place of all other foods. Good
bread does not cloy the appetite as do many other articles of food, and
the simplest bill of fare which includes light, wholesome bread, is far
more satisfying than an elaborate meal without it. Were the tables of
our land supplied with good, nutritious, well-baked bread, there would
be less desire for cake, pastry, and other indigestible particles,
which, under the present system of cookery, are allowed to compensate
for the inferior quality and poor preparation of more whol