When did all purpose flour become readily available?

[lizerdbits]

My mom picked me up some copies of old cookbooks (as in late 1700's to early 1900's) at book sales and I'm wondering what flours were primarily used at what point in time. Some just say "flour" so I'm curious when AP flour was an ingredient since at some point it wasn't an option. All I could find googling was a wiki reference to becoming available in the late 1800's. Obviously the fatty acids in the germ will become rancid over time so degermination was a good way of extending shelf life before refrigeration. I'm primarily concerned with bread making here, so I can always experiment, which is part of the fun of cooking. :)

On a side note, I found in the book Better Than Store Bought (published in 1979 so not old) a recipe for a rye sourdough starter that uses an onion for the first 24 hours of the starter, remove the onion, add more rye flour and water, and let it go another 24 hours. Has anyone ever tried that? I think I'm going to start it tonight and bake on Sunday.

[Lucinda]

1. All Purpose is just plain flour right?

So I assume that would be equal to what was used in old recipes? Maybe someone will pop in with a better answer...

[lizerdbits]

2. AP or white flour has the been degerminated

If you grind whole wheat berries it's whole wheat flour. When really old recipes say "flour" I'm interested in whether they mean whole wheat or white flour, which would depend on when degerminated flour became readily available.

[Denninmi]

3. Well, yes and no.

All purpose is intermediate in gluten (protein) content.

There are different kinds of wheat -- red and white wheat. Spring wheat and winter wheat. Hard (high gluten (wheat protein) content) and soft (low gluten (wheat protein) content).

So, you can have hard red spring wheat or soft white spring wheat. Or, soft white winter wheat. Or other combinations. They are all different strains or varieties of wheat, they just generally aren't named like we name tomatoes or apples, to my knowledge. But, all are still "unique" varieties or strains in the same way a Red Delicious apple is different from a Granny Smith, which is different than a Fuji.

Red and White refer to the color of the wheat berry (grain of wheat) -- Red wheat is darker in color, and sort of rust colored. White wheat is lighter and a basic straw color. I actually saw both of these grains on the hoof today in the bulk bins at Whole Paychecks, when I was getting some Black Eyed Peas to make Hoppin' John on Saturday (yes, I'm a shameless thief, stealing other's culinary traditions outright -- I'm pure yankee through and through, with New England roots and a midwestern/Great Lakes upbringing, and NO southern culinary roots at all).

Soft wheat flour is used for pastry and cakes -- you want a low gluten content so that the end product is delicate, not tough and chewy.

Hard wheat flour is bread flour -- you want the gluten for a chewy texture and good "rise" -- higher gluten content makes a dough or batter more "spongy" and allows it to trap carbon dioxide, which is released by the yeast during fermentation, better than a lower gluten content does.

All purpose is the compromise version -- it's intermediate in gluten content -- low enough it still works for cakes, pie crusts, and pastry -- high enough it still makes decent bread. It's off the rack, one size fits all flour.

I don't know WHEN they came up with the concept of all purpose, but I'd be wiling to bet it was either in the 1920's when consumerism and its trappings were basically invented, or in the 1950's, when consumerism went mainstream and became a pop culture phenomenon.

To me, "all purpose" seems like the kind of thing that would have come out of the mind of a Henry Ford type guy -- "I know, I sell a blend of flours that will work for everything, and make a killing."

A couple of other random factoids -- the gluten content of flour varies a little bit by region and season -- "hard" flours grow better in colder climates, and more "winter" wheat varieties are hard wheats than are spring wheat varieties. As a result, I seem to recall that all purpose flour sold in the northern states tends to be slightly higher in protein content than that sold in the south, and also, flour from the winter wheat crop is higher in gluten than flour made from the spring wheat crop.

Now, bear with me just a bit, and please forgive any errors in the above, because I'm dredging this from memories of my "Intro to Crop and Soil Science" class at Michigan State winter term 1987, which would have started 24 years ago next week, and that is a LONG time ago.

[lizerdbits]

4. Thanks, I guess I was using AP and white flour interchangably

when maybe that's not the case. White flour is only made from just the endosperm as opposed to the whole grain. I'm assuming that whole grain flour was the only thing available until someone figured out that shelf life could be extended by removing the bran and germ which contain fatty acids that will go rancid. So I was trying to figure out when that occurred so I know which recipes that just say "flour" (as opposed to modern recipes that usually specify white, whole wheat, etc) used white or whole wheat flour.

[Denninmi]

5. Yes, white and all purpose aren't necessarily the same.

To my knowledge, all "all purpose" flour is white, or at least unbleached (I'm sure out there somewhere, some company makes an all purpose whole grain flour of some kind, but I don't recall seeing such).

But, not all white flour is all purpose by any means -- there is cake/pastry and bread as well as the all purpose.

[housewolf]

8. "All purpose" refers to the protein content of the flour

We've got bread flour, all-purpose flour, pastry flour, cake flour and the so-called "instant" flour like Wondra. Each designation refers to specific range of protein content. In addition to that, bread flour is generally milled from hard winter wheat, all purpose from a mix of hard and soft wheats, and the others all from soft wheat. Bread flour can be either whole wheat or white flour, all purpose is generally white flour, pastry flour can be either, cake & instant flour are white flour. Bleaching is another matter entirely - it's something done to white flour only - all purpose, cake and instant - however, all purpose and cake flour also come unbleached. I don't think anyone bleachs bread flour, and instant flour is always bleached.

[trud]

6. I'm impressed :-) n/t

[TreasonousBastard]

7. It looks like all flour was "all-purpose" until...

several millers started differentiating flour in the market. Fine white flour was, I think, invented in the late 17th, early 18th century, and most American flour was soft, low-gluten English flour until hard wheat started coming in from Eastern Europe and Russia.

http://www.gmiflour.com/gmflour/ourheritage.aspx

http://www.angelfire.com/journal/millrestoration/history.html

[Warpy]

9. All purpose flour is milled white flour, bleached or unbleached,

with as much of the bran and germ removed as possible to retard spoilage.

Some of this was accomplished by sifting, but by the early part of the Industrial Revolution, rolling mills rather than grinding mills had come into production, crushing the grain instead of grinding it and separating the bran and germ out more easily.

All purpose flour is generally made from hard red winter wheat instead of the softer spring wheat used to make pastry/cake flour. As its name implies, it can be used for every purpose, although care must be taken in pastry cooking not to overwork the dough and activate the higher gluten content.

All purpose flour is different from the other types because it has nothing but vitamins and minerals added to it. Self rising has a leavening agent added, usually baking powder. Whole wheat commercial flour is roller mill flour with the germ and bran added back after the milling process. It's only very recently that they've started calling it all purpose. It was just "flour" in simpler times.

As for flours readily available, colonial New England preferred maize flours and rye flours to wheat, although the coast was a prime wheat growing area and exporter. As the country was settled westward, wheat took over, especially since its cultivation was ideally suited to the dry prairies.