Tasty Dishes Made of Bread (1942)

Today I want to share with you one of the information pamphlets issued by the Press Department of the US wartime Department of Agriculture, because it is a nice follow-on from the bread story yesterday. The gaps in the text where the name of an expert should have appeared were presumably placed to allow for a local name to be inserted?

Many Tasty Dishes are Made of Bread

How to make good use of accumulated stale bread without giving the family any more bread puddings is often a problem for the conservation-minded homemaker. How about serving hot bread and milk once in a while, as a breakfast cereal, a simple luncheon dish, or as a bed-time snack, for the elderly, or for people coming home any time tired, wet, or cold?

You don't need fresh bread to make it,  …… says. Just pour a cupful of scalding hot milk over a slice of stale bread, or let the bread cook in the hot milk a minute. Dot with butter, and add a few grains of salt. Toast the bread loefore adding the milk, if you like it better that way.

Another suggestion: Make oven-dried toast, delicately browned, thin, crisp, brittle. This is often called "Melba toast” because the great singer ordered it frequently. Bread that comes ready-sliced is a little too thick for Melba toast unless you cut it in sticks, but with a large sharp bread knife you can easily cut the- slices in half horizontally and they are just right for oven- toasting. Don't have the oven very hot for making it. Store in a tin with a tight lid, like crackers, and the toast will keep crisp for some time. Reheat a few minutes if necessary after storing. Oven-dried toast can be used in place of ordinary toast under creamed chicken, fish, chipped beef, welsh rabbit, or mushrooms.

Broken pieces of bread, oven-dried, if not too dark, can be rolled out for fine, dry crumbs,  …. says. Store in a glass jar covered with cheesecloth and they will be ready to sprinkle on scalloped and "au gratin" dishes.

Of course stale bread also goes into stuffings and scalloped dishes, makes good French toast, dipped in an egg-and-milk mixture and fried delicately in a very little fat. And now that apples are plentiful — don't forget apple betty.