[Sca-cooks] soda bread with corn meal

[Johnna Holloway]

One of the things that one comes across when reading about the famines 
of the 1840's was that
Ireland was sent "corn meal" or Indian meal or maize at that time as 
something to eat.
Following the famine, Indian meal continued to be something that was 
imported
and eaten in Ireland and that might well account for it showing up in 
some soda bread recipes.
Pellagra in fact became a problem in Ireland later in the 19th century 
just as
it was in the rural American south. [See Clarkson and Crawford Feast and 
Famine.
A History of Food and Nutrition in Ireland 1500-1920 for more details.]

Soda bread only dates from the first half of the 19th century at its 
earliest
which means that it just predates the famine. The use of commercial soda
was only becoming common in the early 1840's, according to Cowan and Sexton
in the volume Ireland's Tradtional Foods. (This volume was prepared for
the GEIE/Euroterroirs project by Teagasc, The National Food Centre.)

The best available book on the topic at the moment is Tim Allen's
(no not Home Improvement) The Ballymaloe Bread Book which Pelican
released in the US in 2002.

Hope this helps

Johnnae llyn Lewis


Elaine Koogler wrote:

> One thing that might sort this out a bit.  Once, a while back, when I 
> was working on a recipe from Platina, it referred to "corn 
> flour"...the translation wasn't great, but there the reference was.  I 
> was told by someone on this list that Europeans often refer to all 
> grains as "corn".  I wonder if that could be the inference here.
>
> Kiri
>
> Kathleen A. Roberts wrote:
>
>> checked my 'little history of irish food' last night.   yeppers.... 
>> the modern recipe sounds like corn bread waiting to happen tho they 
>> refer to corn flour.
>>
>> 19th century references use maize meal, corn meal and corn flour.   
>> all with less that stellar adjectives.
>>
>