Democratic Sentinel, Volume 7, Number 51, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 18 January 1884 — Evolution in Buckwheat Cakes. [ARTICLE]

Evolution in Buckwheat Cakes.

“Buckwheat cakes!” said a man in a down-town restaurant. “Wheat cakes!” said another man by his side. In a short time the waiter brought three broad, thin disks, that were white within and crisp and brown without, to each man. In looks the cakes were exactly alike. A man with a sensitive taste could have determined after 1 one or two trials that they did not taste alike. “I ordered buckwheat just because the name brings up pleasant memories,” said one. “Here is a case in which evolution has ruined the thing evoluted. When I was a boy my father used to carry buckwheat to mill and bring back a grayish flour. My mother mixed it up at night, and the next morning I sat down to breakfast before a heap—but no matter. We won’t talk about it.” “Yes. but you said something about the evolution spoiling the thing evoluted ?” “The buckwheat flour; The buckwheat of my youth was cleaned and then ground between the stones like any other grain. Not long ago a man who wanted to make a beautiful flour to look at, concluded that he could do so if he could entirely remove i;he shuck from the kernel of buckwheat. To do this he made a machine that consists of four serrated or corrugated rollers. Two are placed at the end of a screen over which the grain passes, and as the grain passes between them it gets a nip that breaks it up and separates about all the meat frqm the husks. Then the meats drop through a short Bcreen, and the husks pass on through the seoond set of rollers. They are further broken up and the remaining meats are separated. The meats are ground and this white, tasteless stuff is the result.” “That was only the complaint of a man who thinks there are no times like the old times, ” said a flour-dealer to whom the above was related. “If he wants ground husks instead of clean flour he can get it, and for less money. Few mills now grind the shucks and all together, but the flour is to be had. If the new-process flour were not better than the old, it would not now be taking the lead.” —New York Sun. There is less and less epicurian enthusiasm over venison every year.