How to take away a great part of that rank and unsavoury taste of B•ans, Pease, Beech∣mast, Chestnuts, Acorns, Veches, and such like.

IF this may in some good Measure be per∣formed, then I doubt not but that the Bulk and Body of our Meal and Flower will be much increased and multiplyed, at the least for the poor Mans Table: Then re∣ceive mine own Experience therein. Boyl your Beans, Pease, Beechmast, &c. in fair Water, and if they be not yet pleasing e∣nough, Change your Water again, and at the second or third boyling, you shall find a strange Alteration in Taste, for the Water hath sucked out and imbibed the greatest part of the•• rankness, then must you dry them (and if you think good, you may also hull them, according to the manner set down hereafter in the Abstract of Anchora Famis, &c.) or else you may grind them unhulled, and then make bread thereof, ei∣ther simply of it self, or with the Addition of some third or fourth par• of other Wheat-flower; or else for better Expedition at the Page  162 least in drink, if not in bread, you may take the ground Meal of them, and infuse warm Water thereon, and as it beginneth to cool, dreyne the same away, and reinfuse fresh warm Water till the taste please you: Then dry up the Meal, and make bread thereof either simply, or compounded as before. And as concerning the Chestnuts, we have the Experience of France therein already, where in great abundance they are spent and consumed in their usual bread in divers parts of that Country.

The Beechmast doth yield a most sweet and delicate Oyl, and every way comparable with the Nut it self, and therefore it is very probable that it will make an excellent bread with a very small correction: and if there might be some easie way or manner found out for the ready husking or hulling of them (which seemeth no matter of any great dif∣ficulty) then I durst promise a most rich and plentiful Oyl of our own growing, and serviceable for many necessary uses. But if notwithstanding my former Preparation of Beans, Pease, &c. The Meal thereof do not yet content you, then work it into Past, with a liquor first strengthened with some bruised Annis-seeds, licoras, or sweet Fennel seeds, or with the seeds themselves incorpo∣rated in the Past, or for the avoiding of Page  163 charge with Pepperwort, Thime, Wintersa∣vary, Penniroyal, &c. For if you can but deceive the Taste, you shall find the bread very harty, wholsome, and nourishing. And whatsoever is here spoken of Beans, Pease, &c. May be generally understood of all o∣ther Grain, Seeds, Plants, Pulse, Roots, &c. And that which is serviceable for Bread, will be much more tollerable in drink: For the making whereof in some more cheap manner then as yet is known or usual amongst us, you shall find some few notes of mine up∣on the Abstract following, in their several places.