Scotch Style of making Bread

The bread-making industry has made great strides in Scotland. In Glasgow alone there are two firms which each bake over two thousand bags of flour a week -- namely, J. and B. Stevenson and Bilsland Brothers -- while five other firms each bake from five hundred to one thousand bags a week in respect to the output, Scotland is a long way in advance of either England or Ireland. I can well remember the time when oatmeal cakes and scones were the staple food in Scotland; but such food is now notable by its absence. This brings to mind a story I once heard of an Englishman and a Scotchman who were arguing on the merits of their respective countries. The Englishman said, "Man Sandy, you are all fed on oatmeal! Why, in England we only feed our horses on oats." Sandy's reply was, "I don't na but what you say, man, is a very true, but where wull ye get sic horses and where wull ye get sic men ?"
As I have said before, Parisian harm is the kind most used in Scotland; in fact, nearly all the Scotch advertisements require "men used to Parisian barm.' However, I have noticed lately that German yeast is steadily making its way in the North. The Scotch used generally to make their bread with what they called potato ferment. Now it is mostly quarter or full sponges. To make 1 sack of flour into bread with a quarter sponge take 1 gallon of water of the required temperature, add 1/2 a gallon of Parisian barm, and sufficient flour to make it into a good stiff dough. This is generally set between one and two o'clock, and is ready to take about half-past four. It should be dropped when ready an inch in the quarter boat or barrel. Empty it into the trough, add 10 gallons of water, dissolve 2 lbs. of salt, and mix all into a well-beaten sponge. Add 6 gallons of water of the required temperature and 1 1/4 lb. of salt in the morning, or when you take the sponge, and make all into a nice dough. The softer you can work the sponge the clearer and showier will be the loaf.
To make 1 sack of flour with a full sponge, take 1 to 1 1/2 gallons of barm, about 10 gallons of water of the proper temperature with 2 lbs. of salt dissolved in it; make all into a nice-sized sponge. When ready add 6 gallons of water of proper temperature, and 1 1/4 lb. of salt, and make it into dough.
Care should always be taken to keep the barm clear of grease and churned milk, especially if the milk is sour.
There are a great many substitutes for wheat-flour bread, some of which I will enumerate; but I do not think it needful to give the recipes for them, as the recipes and formulae I have given are evidently those most popular in the English, Scotch, and Irish bake houses. Among the many substitutes for wheat bread are the following: bread corn, rice bread, potato bread; bread made of roots, ragwort bread, turnip bread, apple bread, meslin bread, salep bread, Debreczen bread, oat and barley bread. The Norwegians, we are informed, make bread of barley and oatmeal baked between two stones; this bread is said to improve by age, and may be kept for as long as thirty or forty years. At their great festivals the Norwegians use the oldest bread, and it is not unusual at the baptism of infants to have bread made at the time of the baptism of their grandfathers.

Wow I find that incredible that one can eat bread as old as their grandfather and not become ill. How in the world do they keep this bread? I presume it is frozen in order to last 40 yrs and still be edible?? CookingHaus, pray tell is it tough, is it chewy, is it hard as a brick? I simply do not understand:confused: