Ancient Food Wisdom
I love this quote from "A Plain Cookery Book for the Working Classes", by Charles Elmé Francatelli. It's from 1852:
And now a few words on baking your own bread. I assure you if you would adopt this excellent practice, you would not only effect a great saving in your expenditure, but you would also insure a more substantial and wholesome kind of food; it would be free from potato, rice, bean or pea flour, and alum, all of which substances are objectionable in the composition of bread.
Firstly, because baking your own bread is still a tricky but rewarding task, and secondly because now I can't help wondering what the hell else went into nineteenth century bread.
It's worth having a little flick through this book, actually, because if you've got an understanding butcher a surprising amount of these recipes are still cheap and doable today.