It is very likely that the Irish soda bread you have come to love and enjoy each March is not all that Irish.
True Irish soda bread, said Elizabeth Stack, executive director of the Irish American Heritage Museum in Albany, is made of only four ingredients (flour, salt, baking soda and buttermilk) and is cooked on a griddle, on a stove or in a cauldron or other pot in a fire. The version most of us enjoy each March in the shadows of St. Patrick’s Day is studded with raisins or currants and enriched with butter and egg, lending to a softer crumb and looser texture. According to a 2019 survey by the U.S. Census Bureau, 32 million Americans (9.7 percent of the country's population) count Irish roots among their heritage. But the connections to true Irish cuisine is something that has been lost after centuries of migration away from the Emerald Isle.
“The Irish didn’t bring their food traditions here,” Stack said, adding that food was just nutrition to the Irish and drink was mostly transactional, allowing for the Irish laborers who dug the Erie Canal and other projects to be paid with pints of whiskey and beer. The layout and design of the meager cabins that most Irish immigrants hailed from had very little kitchen space, leaving little room for kneading complicated bread doughs. Food in Ireland was mostly grown and raised on the homestead and the effects of spice routes took centuries to impact Irish foodways. To the Irish, food was not a symbol of regal grandiosity, as it was in Russian, French and Austrian kingdoms. Food was mostly a necessitated afterthought.
The ingredients at hand to make bread changed drastically as more Irish left for America and early globalization changed the way we eat. The Society for the Preservation of Irish Soda Bread said on its website (www.sodabread.info) that the flour traditionally used in Ireland was milled from soft wheat, which did not fare well with yeast and leavening agents, like baking soda. Until the early 20th century, two-thirds of flour used in Ireland came from soft wheat. When leavening agents were used, those were typically natural yeasts or potash, a potassium product that created carbon dioxide when introduced to an acid like buttermilk.
Irish immigration hit its peak in America in the 1840s, when half of all immigrants were Irish. Commercial baking soda was introduced in the same decade and it became a necessity in producing what we call Irish soda bread today, as the “hard wheat” grown in America that allows for beautifully enriched and yeasted doughs (think Wonder Bread, brioche and Parker House rolls) required a leavening agent like baking soda to prevent an outcome similar to hard tack.
Modern Irish soda bread is a tale of empire, immigration, mobility and culinary advances. Most immigrants from Ireland came singularly, Stack said. They did not come as a family unit like later immigration groups did. The need to assimilate as an individual meant the culinary comforts of home were mostly lost when there was no family link to bind the recipes to identity. Food was not seen as a signifier of upward mobility among the Irish as much as it was for other immigration groups, like Germans and Italians. “We are one of the few immigrant groups that don’t have a great relationship with food,” said Stack, who is Irish. Irish immigrants and their progeny chose patronage jobs and civil service in politics, fire and police departments, teaching and nursing as a way to boost their reputations in society and strayed from traditions of food to link them to their heritage.
Still, the concept of soda bread was affixed to Irish culture. Later iterations in Ireland incorporated the dried fruits and caraway seeds that came from the global south as a byproduct of the British empire, which ruled Ireland until 1937. In the Northeast, raisins and currants produced in the Hudson Valley and Boston’s North Shore (and later, California) were accessible additions to bring sweetness to the bread.
Soda bread is still synonymous with Irish heritage and prominently featured and sold each March where there are caches of Irish pride. Just under 12 percent of New Yorkers report that they have Irish ancestry, but local counties and cities outpace that percentage. Rensselaer County has the largest percentage of Irish heritage (25.2 percent). City of Albany residents self-report to be 15.5 percent Irish, with Troy (22.2 percent), Schenectady (11.7 percent) and Saratoga Springs (26 percent) all reporting high populations of Irish descendants, according to U.S Census Bureau information as of 2019.
Regardless of peak Irish ancestry, Irish immigrants and their descendants allowed other immigrant groups to affect and shape their food culture. “We have a bad reputation of bad food and boiling everything to death,” Stack said . Jewish butchers in New York City replaced the traditional boiled ham or bacon of Ireland with beef that was pickled — or “corned” — to bring corned beef and cabbage into modern Irish celebration. Beef also replaced the classic use of lamb in Ireland’s quintessential shepherd’s pie. (Modern farming in Ireland has followed suit. Beef production accounts for 55 percent of farming in Ireland however, there are still more sheep — 5.2 million — in Ireland than people — 4.9 million — according to reports from The Irish Times.)
Modern soda bread that is sweeter and softer than traditional Irish bread is better suited for sit-down tea time than for a ham sandwich eaten while working a field, Stack said. While the outlines of Irish cuisine have survived centuries of Irish migration, how the outlines are filled varied drastically from 18th-century Ireland.
Soda bread is a hallmark of cultural celebration for America’s Irish, along with corned beef, boxty — a traditional Irish pancake made with potatoes — and plentiful pints of good Irish stout. Local grocery stores and bakeries sell the bread en masse for a few dollars per loaf each March. For those looking to make the bread in their own kitchens, Stack said the Irish American Heritage Museum will be hosting an online class on its Facebook page with lessons and techniques provided by judges and participants from the museum’s annual soda bread bake-off, which is canceled this year due to COVID-19 restrictions. Information on the class can be found at www.facebook.com/IrishMuseum.
Deanna Fox is a food and agriculture journalist. www.foxonfood.com, @DeannaNFox
Irish-American Soda Bread
Makes 1 loaf
2 1/2 cups whole wheat flour or Irish-style wholemeal flour
1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour, plus more for dusting
3 tablespoons sugar
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon kosher salt
2/3 cup currants or raisins
4 tablespoons cold butter, cut into pieces, plus more for pan
1 1/3 cups buttermilk
1 large egg
- Heat the oven to 400 degrees. Grease an 8- or 9-inch round cake pan or pie plate with a little butter and set aside.
- In a medium mixing bowl, whisk together the flours, sugar, baking soda, salt, and currants/raisins.
- Using a pastry blender or your fingers, cut the 4 tablespoons of butter and flour mixture together until it is evenly distributed and no large chunks remain.
- In a separate bowl, whisk together the buttermilk and the egg. Pour this mixture into the dry ingredients and mix until just combined. This will create a very stiff dough, so squeeze it together with your hands if needed. If it still feels too crumbly, add more buttermilk, 1 tablespoon at a time.
- Knead the dough a few times to make sure it holds together. Shape into a ball, then flatten slightly.
- Place the loaf into the prepared pan. Dust a light coating of all-purpose flour on top of the loaf.
- Using a sharp knife, cut a 1/2-inch deep cross, extending across the entire top of the loaf.
- Bake for 45 to 55 minutes, or until it is golden brown and a skewer inserted in the middle comes out relatively clean. Remove from the oven and allow to cool for 30 minutes before slicing. The bread has a loose crumb, so it is easier served cut into wedges with a serrated knife than cut into slices.
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