What Is The "Photo-Method," You Ask?

Have you ever seen those vintage booklets with "The Photo-Method" on the cover and wondered what that was? It's not a different baking method, but rather an educational method -- I'll let Virginia Roberts explain, from The Photo-Method For Bread Making, by Virginia Roberts, Home Baking Institute Occident Flour, Minneapolis, Minn., copyright Russell-Miller Milling Co. 1944:

Before you start to improve you bread making, or to learn to make bread for the first time...you may wish to know a little something abut how my "Photo-Method" came into being.

Like all home economists, I had dreams for years of perfecting a simple, easy way whereby any one could make excellent bread. I had noticed that most existing recipes for bread did not give the entire method...and I had also noticed that directions were often too general.

Finally, I discovered that the technique of break making can be told better in PICTURES than in any other way. And I knew, too, that no bread method can perform perfectly unless it is fitted to the flour with which it is used.

So...in a word...I set out to create a COMPLETE bread method...with EXACT directions...illustrated with ACTION PHOTOGRAPHS...and especially FITTED TO ENRICHED OCCIDENT FLOUR, the champion bread flour of America.

The result is a booklet with photo instructions along with recipes -- a forerunner of today's video tutorial!