Ireland - soda bread

There is hardly any need to say what day March 17th is, nor which country is associated with it. St Patrick has long been the patron saint of the Emerald Isle and the Irish love nothing better than a good old 'knees-up' so his feast day ties in well with a day of eating drinking and parading.

Almost as much revered in Ireland is the national bread. To understand this, imagine yourself a century ago in a tiny cottage with a hungry hardworking husband and ten children. They want bread, and the want lots of it and they want it fast.

With no time to wait for bread to rise, soda bread was the solution. It's easy to make, but because it does not have the keeping properties of a yeasted bread, it stales quickly. This was never a problem though in big families, as every crumb was gone by the end of the meal.

Soda bread is typically made from soft wheat flour, the sort used for cakes or pastries, with lower levels of gluten. Sometimes, the buttermilk is replaced by live yoghurt or even stout. As with scones (because this is basically a scone bread) the dough should not be kneaded.

In Ulster, wholemeal soda bread is usually known as wheaten bread and it is sweetened. In the southern provinces of Ireland, it is usually known as brown bread. See how to make it....

If the dough is rolled out and cooked as a flat bread, it might be called a soda farl or griddle cakes, griddle bread (or soda farls in Ulster). These may be rounded and have a cross cut in the top to allow the bread to expand.  See how to make these...

Whether or not the good saint ever ate these breads, we cannot be sure. But today, every self-respecting Irish person does.