asked the Minister for Supplies if he is aware that the quality of flour produced to-day is not suitable for home baking and if he will take steps to have the quality of flour improved.
Ceisteanna—Questions. Oral Answers. - Flour for Home Baking.
The Irish flour millers are making every effort to produce the best possible type of flour of the permitted extraction from the cereals which are available. Tests which are being made show that it is not correct that the quality of flour produced to-day is unsuitable for home baking, but it appears that the change over from the brown flour to the new flour presented some difficulties to home bakers due to inexperience in the use of the flour which, apparently, requires different treatment to either 100 per cent. flour or pre-war flour. If these tests, when completed, disclose any material factors which are likely to assist the home baker, the information will be made available to the public.
Is the Minister aware that a general complaint exists as regards the standard of this new flour, which has been issued in the past three months? I am of the opinion, from what I have heard, that the only people who have benefited from the change over are the members of the medical association.
Is the Minister aware that the flour released for home baking contains a much higher percentage of home-grown wheat than the flour supplied to the millers? Is it not a wrong principle to encourage the production of bread by bakers as against bread produced in the home? Would the Minister not consider that the home bakers—the people baking their own bread in the home—are entitled to at least as good flour as is supplied to the bakeries?
It has always been the practice to produce a bakers' flour with a high percentage of hard wheats. I do not think that a shop flour could be produced in the same way. It has always been the practice to produce shop flour mainly from soft wheats. At the present time the percentage of hard wheats going into any type of flour is determined by the supply position. The new flour requires different treatment in home baking to either pre-war or 100 per cent. flour; and, particularly, it is necessary to exercise more discretion in the use of baking powders, as anything of an alkaline nature tends to produce unsatisfactory results. I may say that it was a very long time in Great Britain before the millers were producing a satisfactory flour of a similar character to that which we are trying to produce here now and before uniformity of standard was achieved. I think our millers are not in a position in which they have adjusted their machinery fully to produce the most satisfactory type of flour; but the tests that are proceeding will help to alleviate the difficulties. If those tests reveal that there is advice which should be given to the public in the use of the flour for home baking, that advice will be made public as widely as possible.
Is the Minister aware that it is at present impossible to eat the bread baked in country homes? If there is some new idea to overcome this, will the Minister have it published in the form of leaflets, so that the housewife can adopt it?
I think I have made it plain that those tests are proceeding and that any information collected will be made public.
Will the Minister say the percentage in each of the two classes, in regard to soft wheat?
It varies from week to week and from month to month, according to the supply position.
Is the Minister aware that there is a variation over the whole country, that some mills are good and others are bad?
I am fully aware that not all of the flour millers are getting satisfactory results, but the efforts which are being made are designed to secure that there will be a pooling of information, so as to ensure uniformity of quality.
Is the Minister aware that bakers in the City of Dublin are apparently being supplied with a much superior flour to that which is being supplied to the bakers in country towns? It is much whiter.
The information available to me rather suggests the contrary.
The bakers get one type of flour and the householders get another.
That has always been the case. A much higher proportion of hard wheat must be used in baker's flour than is normally used in the manufacture of shop flour.