Eben Norton Horsford, baking-powder revolutionary and passionate medievalist

There are a few old books available on Google books about baking-powder and leavening agents. I found it facinating to learn that this is relatively new technology. [0]

Also, that there were (early 20th century) huge industry wars and cartels over baking powder [1], a strange story. (I couldn't read all 2000+ pages of this though)

Another interesting side effect of researching this topic is running into bread made with combining an unleavened dough with carbonic acid inside a vacuum to "insta-rise" the bread. (can't find the reference now, buried in one of those really old books) The claims were it was "healthier".

Last semi-related topic, cereal Grapenuts from Post, was originally sold as a health food, not a breakfast cereal. [2] (worked with a guy that spent years at Post) It's made from huge loaves of bread turned into those little dried crumbs.

Cream of tartar is a dry acid scraped from the barrels from wine making.[3] Makes you wonder who tried this stuff first.

[0] Leavening Agents (1914)

https://books.google.com/books?id=1jQNAAAAYAAJ&printsec=fron...

[1] The Baking Powder Controversy (1907, over 2000 pages long...)

https://books.google.com/books?id=fIbZAAAAMAAJ&printsec=fron...

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grape-Nuts

[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Potassium_bitartrate

Thanks, that was a fascinating read.