Starch. We shall explain how starch is made; we shall follow the detailed process in all its circumstances; and our final definition of starch will result from the operations that we have demonstrated.

Procure some corn or by-products of the milling process, such as milled bran and cornmeal. To understand what is meant by milled bran and cornmeal one has to understand that milled grain is sifted, and that the product comprises six portions [1]; i.e. fine flour, coarse flour, cornmeal, milled bran, and bran. The bran is given to horses; cows are fed on milled bran; bread is made with fine and coarse flour; and the starch is extracted from milled bran and cornmeal.

Starch Makers will only use the corn itself when it is spoilt. They are prohibited from using good corn; which prohibition is probably superfluous. Motivation to perfect their craft hardly ever causes workers to produce well at substantial cost that which they can produce badly or less well at lower cost.

Starch Makers resolutely seek out the greasiest by-products. It is from these constituents that they extract fine starch; that which is used for hair powder, for dragées [2] and for other products intended for human consumption. Spoilt grain is milled and used, as we will see below, to produce common starch; which is used by paste-board makers, by book-binders, by bill-stickers, etc., in a word by craftsmen who use glue in large quantities.

Provide yourself with cornmeal and milled bran, and even spoilt grain. Bakers will furnish the cornmeal and milled bran, which you can use immediately. You will need to mill the spoilt grain.

Water is the main substance used by the Starch Maker; but especially so as to act as leaven and produce the fermentation. If you are intending to make starch in a place where there are no Starch Makers, and you are unable to borrow some leaven, and so obtain that which is called sour water, you can obtain the same in one of the three following ways:

1. Take two pounds of the leaven with which the Baker raises his dough; steep these two pounds of leaven in a bucket of warm water: after two days the water will be sour. Stir the water; let it rest. Stir again and continue the same action until such time as you have the amount of water that you will need.
2. Or, put into a cauldron four pints of water, four pints of brandy, and two pounds of rock alum: boil the mixture, and use it as I will tell you below.
3. Or, follow the procedure which will be indicated to you as the Starch Maker’s third operation.

Take some barrels known under the name of demi-queues de Bourgogne  [3] as can be seen in the Plate of Starch Makers b, c, d, e, f, g, etc., break them open at one end, and use them as follows.

Put the sour water which you have borrowed from a brother tradesman, or which you have prepared, as instructed above, in one of your barrels; you may require less than a bucketful of this water. The quantity of leaven varies: less is needed in summer, more in winter, and care must be taken, especially in the latter season, that the leaven does not freeze.

Put some pure water on the leaven up to bung-hole; this is shown in figure 1 of the Starch Maker, who is at the well. Finish filling the barrels with constituents, i.e. half-and-half milled bran and cornmeal, or the flour of spoilt grain. This first operation is called steeping.

Regulations [4] provide that the milled bran shall be steeped or leavened for three weeks in pure, clear, clean water. But in summer the mixture is left for ten days, and in winter for fifteen days: this period may be more or less depending on the strength of the leaven. Only experience will tell. The constituents are soaking in the barrels [shown in plates] e, f etc which are seen to be full.

After the constituents have been steeped or leavened for long enough, they will be precipitated, and they will be covered by water which is called fatty water. This fatty water consists of the oils in the constituents that which have been brought to the surface by fermentation. This water is thrown away. After you have thrown this water away, procure some sieves of horsehair canvas 18 inches in diameter by 18 inches in height; take one: place it upon a well-rinsed barrel, as you see at barrel b; take three bucketfuls of steeped consituents ; pour them onto the sieve, and wash them with six bucketfuls of clear water, proceeding as follows. First pour onto the three bucketfuls of steeped constituents into the sieve, two bucketfuls of clean water; stir the mixture with your arms, as can be seen in figure 2 . When the two bucketfuls of water have passed through, pour two more bucketfuls on the rest of the constituents in the sieve; stir again. When these two bucketfuls have passed through, pour the last two bucketfuls on the mixture left in the sieve the second time, and stir for a third time. This second operation is called washing the bran [5] . It is recommended in the regulations laid down by the Master Starch Makers that the bran should be properly washed or separated, and that their sieves should be sound, and their water pure and clean.

Empty into a barrel that which is left in the sieve; wash the residue with clear water, as shown in figure 3 and the washed residue can be used as animal feed. Continue to sieve the steeped constituents into the same barrel, until it is full.

On the day following the second operation (the regulations say three days after ) pour off the water which has passed through the sieve with the steeped constituents: this water is called sour water. It is the natural leaven used by Starch Makers; that which I advised you to borrow from them, if they are nearby. You need to add some of this water, when it is used for soaking the constituents, a bucketful in each barrel in summer; three and sometimes four bucketfuls in winter. That is the third method of leavening about which I promised to speak.

Remove this sour water with a wooden bowl, until the white matter deposited at the bottom of each barrel appears; then fill your barrels with fresh water, in sufficient quantity to be able to beat,pound and separate the starch: as may also be seen in figure 3. Then fill your barrels with clean water. This third operation is called refreshing the starch . It is noted that Starch Makers who refresh [the starch] the day following the washing of the bran, do not exactly follow their regulations.

Two days after refreshing the starch, pour off the water which has been used for the refreshing until the first white matter appears. This first white matter is called by Craftsmen either coarse or black, according to the different places where starch is made: this coarse or black is lifted from the starch

or second white matter which it covers. It is not wasted; it makes for the greatest profit enjoyed by the Starch Makers, who use it for fattening pigs. When the coarse or black matter is taken off, a bucketful of clear water is thrown on the second white matter, or over the starch , which it covered. The surface of this starch is well rinsed with this bucketful of water; an empty barrel is at hand to receive the rinsings: they are put into it; they settle; and the deposit of the rinsings is called common starch . Starch Makers call this fourth operation rinsing .

When the rinsing has been done, at the bottom of each barrel is found approximately four inches of starch . This quantity varies according to the quality of the milled bran which has been used. It is evident that spoilt corn used for starch will give more, as all is used: but the starch extracted is always common, and never possesses the whiteness of that which is made from the milled bran of good corn. Take the starch in a barrel, pour it into another barrel; that is to say, to be precise, from two barrels of starch only one is made, in which consequently there are nine to ten inches of starch of milled bran. This fifth operation is called straining the whites.

When the whites have been strained from one barrel into another, enough clean water is poured over them to beat, pound and soak them; which is done with a wooden shovel. This operation is the sixth, and is called separating the whites.

Once the whites have been separated, a silk sieve, oval in shape, is placed on a rinsed and clean barrel; the whites which have been separated are strained through this sieve: this work is continued using the same barrel until it is full. The regulations prescribe using very clean water for straining the whites .

Two days after the whites have been separated and strained, the water which is in the barrels, and which has been strained through the sieve, is poured off until the white matter appears. The white matter is covered by water of the same colour; pour this water into a large earthenware pot; then pour a bucketful of clear water onto the starch itself; rinse its surface with this water; add the rinsings to the white water: the rinsings will settle; the deposit will be more common starch .

After the starch has been properly rinsed, lift it from the bottom of the barrels; put it into wicker baskets, with rounded corners and lined with cloths which are not attached to the baskets. These baskets are a foot wide, eighteen inches long, and ten inches high. This operation is called lifting the whites .

On the day following the day upon which the whites have been lifted, take the baskets filled with starch up to a loft at the top of the house; as shown in figure 4 . The floor space of this loft must be made of very clean white plaster. The baskets o o are turned upside down on the plaster floor; as the cloth is not atttached it will fall onto the starch . Remove the cloth from the block of starch which will remain uncovered as is shown in n m. The block n m is put on its side; it is broken into quarters using the hands and no tools; each quarter is further broken into four pieces; that is to say that each basket will produce sixteen pieces, or around sixty pounds of starch. The starch is left on the plaster floor until any moisture in it evaporates. The preceding operation is the eighth, and is called breaking the starch . Next to the block n m can be seen some broken starch .

When it is observed that the broken starch is dry enough, and it has been left for long enough on the plaster floor to enable it to be handled, it is put out to dry; it is the ninth operation: it consists in exposing it to fresh air on planks placed horizontally at the Starch Makers’ windows. This is shown in figure 5 . And in i i i etc.

When the starch on the planks appears to be sufficiently dried, take the pieces, and scrape them on all sides; the scrapings will be added to common starch; crush the scrapings, and place them in an oven, spreading them to a depth of 3 inches on wicker trays covered in cloths. This is shown in figures 6 and 7 . You willl need to turn the starch every evening and morning: without this precaution, if it is not turned in the oven, its fine white colour will become green. This operation is the last, and is called putting the starch in the oven.

Starch Makers who do not have their own ovens use the upper level of Bakers’ ovens; they lease them.

On being taken out of the oven the starch is dry and ready to sell.

What then is starch ? it is a sediment of spoilt corn, or of milled bran and cornmeal made from good corn, from which is made a sort of friable white paste, and which is prepared by following the procedure which we have just explained.

Coarse starch which is sold to Confectioners, Candlemakers, Dyers of fast colours, Bleachers of gauze, etc. must be left forty-eight hours in the Starch Makers’ ovens; and on being taken out of the oven, eight days’ drying is required: these are the regulations.

The Starch Maker may not buy spoilt corn without the permission to sell granted by the Magistrate to the merchant.

Starch derived from it, will be made with the same precaution as fine starch .

Common and fine starch may only be sold by Starch Makers in granular form, and they are not permitted, for any reason whatsover, to reduce it to powder.

Starch is used to make glue, white or blue stiffening paste, etc. the white is better, soft and malleable. It is said that its Latin name amylum is derived from sine mola factum; as the Ancients did not mill the grain from which they made starch. This method is still used in some parts of Germany; they break it and crush it.

Besides wheat starch, there are two other sorts: one is made with the root of the arum lily, see Arum , or pied de veau, etc. and the other with the potato and the red truffle . It was the Sieur de Vaudreuil who invented the first, and who obtained in 1716 the exclusive licence for himself and his family to make it for twenty years.

The Academy decided in 1739, that starch made from potatoes and red truffles, proposed by the Sieur de Ghise, produced a stiffening paste that is thicker than that of ordinary starch, but that it did not emulsify so well; it would, however, be good to permit its use, as it was not made with any grain, which has to be spared in years of need. See Starch indicator.

Notes

1. In defining six products and by-products of milling for his article, the author uses two different terms ( recoupes and recoupettes ) to describe milled bran, meaning the ‘flour’ made from bran put back in the mill. However, the Encyclopédie treats these two terms as being synonymous and no evidence has been found that these two terms can in fact be distinguished. For this reason, only five products and by-products appear in the translation.

Another term used in the author‘s list, griots , has been translated as cornmeal, meaning hulled corn which has been roughly milled. Whilst it is difficult to pin down precisely what the author had in mind when using the term griots , cornmeal seems to be a suitably generic equivalent.

2. Dragées are almonds or small pieces of fruit covered in a hard sugar coating and still enjoyed in France today, especially by guests at weddings and christenings.

3. A barrel with a capacity of half of one queue – this would be about about 13,5 litres of grain by Paris measures.

4. The regulations made by the Master Starch Makers.

5. It is not clear why the reference here is to washing the bran, rather than washing the milled bran and cornmeal.