I find the origins of Irish Brown Soda bread fascinating. Apparently, people were starving because marauders kept stealing all of their food. So to keep from losing everything, they tried to create loaves of bread that resembled the dung of stable animals and hide them in the barn. This worked for awhile, until the marauders caught on and tasted one of the loaves to find that it was delicious. To further fool the marauders, the villagers left out the yeast, used spoilt milk, and substituted sawdust for part of the flour. When the marauders returned, one of them grabbed one of the fresh loaves, grinning a mischievous grin. He broke it in two and took a large bite. A horrified look came over his face. “What’s a matter mate? Was it really dung this time?” asked his fellow marauder. Some crumbs spilt over his unmoving lips. “No friend” he said. “It’s something much worse!”
The villagers survived, and to this day we remember the suffering they endured by making this recipe of ole, and pretending it is somehow better than regular bread so we can post pictures of it on Instagram, and email it to our less technologically inclined cousin, Helmut, who is gluten intolerant and gets really steamed when I send him bread recipes.
