How to Eat Bread, 1567

Stadtbibliothek Nürnberg, Amb. 317b 2, f. 85r (1607)

Nobles, who are bilious by nature, have both crusts removed from the bread, both the upper and lower crust. And the preeminent leaders of the church and more fastidious gourmands do likewise. So you should choose the inner part of the bread, because it provides better, more substantial, and faster nourishment than the crust. For people who are healthy but have a humid stomach, or people who want to lose weight, it is sometimes permissible to eat crusts after other foods. 

Johann Curio, De conservanda bona valetudine 

Just as you suspected: your crust-rejecting toddler is actually a bilious Renaissance lord.

How to Use Wheat, c. 1150

Tacuinum sanitatis casanatense (14th c.)

 "Wheat is hot and full of profit. Nothing is lacking in it… But, if anyone sifts out the bran from the flour (which is semolina), and then makes bread from that flour, the bread is weaker and more feeble than if it had been made from the proper flour… Whosoever cooks wheat without the entire grain, or wheat not ground in the mill, it is as if he eats another food, for this wheat furnishes neither correct blood nor healthy flesh, but more mucus. It is scarcely digested. It is not at all good for a sick person, even if a healthy person is able to survive on this food… If someone is ailing in his back or loins, cook grains of wheat in water, and place them, warm, over the place where he is ailing. The heat of the wheat will chase away the powers of that disease." 

 Hildegard of Bingen, Physica  

An advisory from the Medieval Grain Council: white bread will turn you into an ill-blooded mucus-monster. Also, have you tried porridge on your loins? 

How to Eat Bread, 1634

Arm und Reich (17th c.)

"Bread that commeth hote from the Oven is unwholesome... hot bread causeth thirstinesse, by reason that it is hot, for it swimmeth in the stomacke, by reason of his vaporous humidity: yet it is of quicke digestion, and descendeth stoutly downe. And although that hote bread... be unwholesome to eate: yet the smell thereof is right wholesome, for it relieveth one in a swound: and it is possible, that some folke may live by the smell of new bread... Beware of crusts eating, because they ingender a dust cholor, or melancholly humours, by reason that they bee burned and dry. And therefore great estates... cause the crustes above and beneath to be chipped away, wherefore the pith or crumme should be chosen, the which is of a greater nourishment than the crust." 

Regimen sanitatis Salerni: or, the Schoole of Salernes Regiment of Health (1634)

Fresh-baked bread! Its aroma alone can revive you from a swoon and keep you alive in tough times, but don't, you know, actually try to eat it. Also: here's some hard science to back up the crust-trimmers out there.

How to Make Snail Bread, 1685

Joachim Camerarius, Symbolorum et Emblematum 4 (1604)

"A sort of Bread, of which a Mouthful can maintain a Man eight daies, without eating any thing else. Take a quantity of Snails, and make them void their sliminess; then dry and reduce them to fine Powder, of which make a Loaf, with a Mouthful of which a Man may be eight days without eating." 

Nicolas Lémery, Modern Curiosities of Art & Nature (1685)

One bite of this special bread and the idea of eating anything at all will nauseate you for eight days! The only problem: to learn how to make snails void their sliminess, you'll have to consult a different manual.

How to Make French Toast, 1660

"French Toasts. Cut French Bread, and toast it in pretty thick toasts on a clean gridiron, and serve them steeped in claret, sack, or any wine, with sugar and juyce of orange."

Robert May, The Accomplisht Cook (1660)

Did you know that "French" is culinary shorthand for "slosh wine all over your breakfast"? With that trick up your sleeve, you'll be mastering the art of French cooking in no time.