Comment: This is another item from The Hydropathic Cook-Book by R. T. Trall M. D., prolific proponent of the “Hydropathic” school of medicine and lifestyle of the 19th century. While biographical data on “Dr.” Trall is hard to come by–we have not yet found what the “R.T.” stands for, where Trall obtained a medical education if any, or for that matter what Trall’s gender might have been–there is no question that a great many books and pamphlets were published under that name from the 1850s through nearly the end of the century. Covering everything from temperance to dress reform (women’s) to the evils of tobacco and drugs to sex, Hydropathy was a full-service school of medical philosophy.

It was not, however, the only one competing for popularity at the time. Nor were all the proponents of dietary reform trained in medicine. Sylvester Graham–today famous only for the Graham cracker, which in its present formulation he would not at all recognize and would repudiate in horror–was a clergyman by trade. He decided sin, particularly of the sexual sort, was caused by improper diet which led to excessive stimulation of the nervous system. He was less hardcore vegetarian, allowing limited use of milk, cheese, eggs and butter, but downright fanatical against spices, particularly hot ones such as pepper.

After Graham died–at the age of 58–in 1851, a certain waning of enthusiasm for his diet plan set in. One last overlap between the two generations of dietary reformers was yet to be. The following recipe, for the famous “Graham bread,” made its first appearance in Dr. Trall’s 1854  The New Hydropathic Cook-Book. So enjoy a bite of history here. Even a dab of butter if you must. But no pepper, please…

WHEAT MEAL BREAD–GRAHAM BREAD

In every cook-book I have examined, and in all the medico-dietetical works I have consulted, I find saleratus or pearlash, and salt always in the recipe for making what those books call brown, dyspepsia, or Graham bread. Those two drugs ought always to be left out. Molasses or brown sugar is also a fixture in the ordinary receipt books, and as a small quantity–a tablespoonful to a common loaf–is not harmful, the saccarine element may be left to taste. Make the sponge of unbolted wheat-meal in the ordinary way, with either hop or potato yeast, but mix it rather thin. Be sure and mold the loaves as soon as it becomes light [risen], as the unbolted flour runs into the acetous fermentation much more rapidly than the bolted or superfine flour, and bake an hour and a quarter or an hour and a half, according to the size of the loaf.

From The New Hydropathic Cook-Book by R. T. Trall M. D. New York 1854.