Irish Soda Bread

Ingredients:

3 ½ Cups Sifted Flour

6 tsp Baking Powder

1/3 Cup Sugar

1 tsp Salt

1 Stick Butter or Margarine

1 Cup Seedless Raisins

2 Eggs, slightly beaten with fork

¾ Cup of Milk

Directions:

Stir together dry ingredients. Blend in butter until mix resembles cornmeal. Add raisins. Mix in beaten eggs and milk. Turn out dough onto slightly floured surface and knead lightly for two minutes. Roll out dough into a 9” round circle on a baking sheet. Brush top of bread with egg wash and sprinkle with sugar.

Bake at 350 degrees for 30 minutes or until top is golden brown (to ensure bread is fully cooked, pierce with knife, it knife comes clean, bread is fully cooked). Serve warm with butter.

One of the most important aspects of cooking a recipe is the history behind that recipe. Whether it comes from the newest cooking fad, or the oldest of traditions, the background is just as important as the ingredients. For my family, and what I imagine the majority of other Irish-American families, Irish soda bread is a staple in the festivities of St. Patrick’s day. For most, that day includes dressing in green and paying homage to one’s heritage via corn beef and cabbage and Guinness. For dessert, thought, there would always be Irish Soda Bread. Cooking, as we all know, is notorious for bringing a connection. The togetherness of creation, the inclusiveness of sitting together and sharing a meal. But what may be forgotten is the tradition of the recipes that are created in the family kitchen—that the old recipe cards have been used for generations. Cooking is something that creates a relationship between the youngest and oldest in a family.

This particular recipe happens to come from my mother’s side of the family. Her great grandmother passed it down to her daughter, who passed it to her daughter, who passed it to hers and who passed it to my sister and myself. Through the five generations this recipe has passed through, not once has an ingredient or a practice been changed. We even use the exact recipe my grandmother hand wrote on my grandfather’s work stationary. This cookbook may be the first time since the 1960s that my grandmother’s recipe has been re-written.  The tradition of this recipe may be the most important aspect; of course it’s delicious, but it’s largely made because of what it means in our home.

It is tradition to prepare the bread in the way the ingredients state, to cut a cross into the top of the bread and to say prayer before it is baked in the oven. Even the shape of the bread is particular to the region of Ireland where it is made. Southern Ireland, where my family is from, shapes the dough into large round loaves, whereas Northern Irelanders would shape theirs into small triangles and cook them in a hot griddle rather than baking them (Abigail’s Bakery). To this day, most traditions of the recipe holds true. The one thing that may have changed over the years is why the bread is made.

Irish Soda Bread is clearly full of simple, easily accessible ingredients. During the time that it was popularized, the Irish (including my great, great, grandmother), made this because of the price. In 1830, when my family and many others would have started to make soda bread in Ireland, the economy of the country was beginning to effect Irish families throughout Ireland. They needed something easy, cheap, and filling. After many had left Ireland, the recipes they had used remained the same because their economic hardships had followed them across the Atlantic. What is now known as a holiday staple, was once a meal that lasted a week for countless families. Though the ingredients may not have been from their own gardens, Barbara Kingsolver may still approve of such a recipe. She built her livelihood on a familial connection with the foods they grew in the ground, but she highlighted the importance of cooking in a household and how that brings people together. She wrote, “Households that have lost the soul of cooking from their routines may not know what they are missing: the song of a stir-fry sizzle, the small talk of clinking measuring spoons, the yeasty scent of rising dough, the painting of flavors onto a pizza before it slides into the oven” (Kingsolver 130).  So, although Irish soda bread may not be fully Kingsolver approved, her appreciation for the extension of the dish’s popularity may still hold up in Kingsolver’s eyes.

After families had immigrated to America, and had become more “Americanized” this became a housewife’s recipe. Women would make whatever was necessary to please their husbands. I know that my grandfather thought of soda bread as one of his favorites, so my grandmother would bake it for him even on a date past St. Patrick’s Day. Just like The Pioneer Woman, Rhee Drummond, my grandmother cooked to please her husband and children, no one else. As time moved on, the St. Patrick’s Day aspect of the bread gained popularity, the traditional housewife of the 50s faded out as their children began to take hold of the adult world. My grandmother taught my mother how to make this dish, who, in turn, taught my sister and I how to make this dish. But instead of making it on a regular basis, out of necessity, entertainment, or craving, we make it to celebrate our heritage.

Work Cited

Abigail’s Bakery. “History of Irish Soda Bread.” History of Irish Soda Bread. N.p., n.d. Web. 18 May 2017.

Kingsolver, Barbara, Camille Kingsolver, and Steven L. Hopp. Animal, Vegetable, Miracle a Year of Food Life. Place of Publication Not Identified: Clipper, 2009. Print.