Week 6—Brown Bread (c. 1849)

Source: Putnam, Mrs. "Bread." Recipe. Mrs. Putnam's receipt book; and young housekeeper's assistant. Boston: Ticknor, Reed, and Fields, 1849, pp. 2. Book.

Here we are already! It's the sixth and final week of the historical recipes portion of the Indian Meal Line project. I wanted to thank everyone for this project's support and attention; this time absolutely flew by for me, and working through these recipes each week was truly insightful.

For our final week, and after the failure that was last week, I wanted a 'win.' And I really wanted to do something special, because it was the last week. So, I decided I couldn't leave the 19th-century bread where I had it. I decided to try again but with a different recipe from the same year, and one that I'd make to have one other notable difference: I wanted to cook this bread over an open fire for a truly authentic, old-timey feel.

A substitution

One problem that I did have right at the start of this bread, admittedly, was that I got ahead of myself.

Once I decided to try another bread and chose this recipe, I immediately headed out to buy ingredients. I found that I could not, for the life of me, find rye meal anywhere close. I checked a few stores, and the closest I could find was rye meal flour. Considering that, much like cornmeal and corn flour, rye meal and flour are both similarly produced—one has just been much more finely processed than the other—I eventually decided it was better to substitute than omit altogether. So, I bought the rye flour instead of the requested meal and accepted I'd have to substitute.

Only then did I realize I should check about the rye situation in 1840s Newfoundland. Typically, this was the first thing I did in any of these recipes, but, as mentioned, I got ahead of myself in excitement for the final week. So, I quickly got onto that.

And... Newfoundland did not appear to have been receiving rye meal in the 1840s. Across about one hundred newspapers, I never once noticed it on any of the delivery and shipment notices. However, I did notice that there were regular deliveries of rye flour! It was a pleasant surprise for me considering how much had gone wrong last week, as now I could find that, even though something this week didn't work out perfectly either, it actually worked in my favour. It made my experience more realistic to the situation in Newfoundland in the 1840s.

As with all of the others, this recipe could have easily been transmitted from the United States alongside our shipments of cornmeal (and rye flour!), whether by delivery of the books themselves or through word of mouth. It is equally not so unreasonable to think that some entrepreneurial women could have heard or seen something like this recipe back in Newfoundland and faced the same situation I did. These ingredients may not have been available, but an easy substitute was evident. To have made a substitution, especially in times of crisis and grief, should not be surprising, either. The availability of a lot of food was influenced by the crash in the fisheries and the potato blight, so adapting to make new recipes work was practically unavoidable.

A change

Another change that I did have to make with this bread, though, was that I also used store-bought yeast. I had initially hoped to save and use the yeast from last week. However, after how terribly that turned out, I was not encouraged to make it again, so I decided to buy a standard active dry yeast instead.

I concluded that it was near impossible to say what precisely went wrong with the yeast from last week—whether ingredients are possibly manufactured differently now as opposed to then, if methods have changed, if additional context has been lost—but to have at least tried it once was enough for me. I can accept that it doesn't work for me today. Using the store-bought yeast here also solidified for me that it very likely was the yeast that was the primary problem with the bread last week; I can say now that this bread turned out very, very differently.

Ingredients

• One quart (4 cups) of cornmeal

• One quart (4 cups) of rye meal flour

• One teaspoon of salt

• Half a cup of active dry yeast

• Half a cup of molasses

• Three cups water

Note: I have practiced baking over an open fire like this before. If you have never done so but wish to try, please be careful and remember that you are still dealing with an open fire and having to maneuver around hot embers to cook the bread. Be responsible, always check the local fire index, and have a nearby water source if things go wrong.

Method

1. Prepare the yeast according to package directions; I used Fleischmann's Traditional Active Dry Yeast and allowed it to rest for 10 minutes, as instructed.

2. In the meantime, prepare a cast iron pot for cooking. Parchment is recommended to help with removing the bread from the pot afterward. I also lightly greased the parchment with butter to add a bit more flavour to the crust due to the suggestion of using a buttered pan in the recipe. This step is technically optional, but I do recommend it.

3. Once the yeast has had enough time to proof, mix the cornmeal, rye, salt, yeast, molasses, and water in a large bowl. This bread has an odd texture while mixing, so I recommend adding the water in half-cup (or even quarter-cup) increments. Depending on the humidity, you may also need more or less water. Once combined, the dough feels a bit like a soft cookie dough.

4. Form the dough into a ball and cover it in the prepared cast iron pot. Allow the bread ball to rise in the pot for one hour.

5. During that time, prepare a good fire. It does not need to be large, just one from which you will be able to retrieve a lot of embers.

6. Once the bread has risen appropriately, just to the side of your fire, use a shovel and scoop out some embers to make a little bed for the cast iron to sit atop. Place the pot onto these embers, then shovel more onto the pot's lid so that there is heat from both sides. You'll want a fair amount but also be prepared to top up the embers once or twice during cooking to ensure good heat throughout.

7. Allow the bread to cook for about an hour and fifteen minutes. It was done for me at this time, but you can always inspect your bread to see if it has cooked enough for you.

I'll be the first to admit: this is not a good-looking bread. It almost looks more like a cookie—which I suspect may be the result of using rye flour instead of rye meal or due to the inclusion of the molasses making it soft—but, otherwise, this bread is actually really good. The cornmeal wholly lent it its texture (it had a texture quite similar to the Boiled Pudding recipe from Week 2, in my opinion, or like a soft banana bread), while the rye lent it all of its flavour. It had a nice crust and tasted like a typical rye bread, and it was really lovely to enjoy with some butter out beside the fire. We likely cut mine a little too soon as it was pretty crumbly as we ate it, but it tasted good, and my family and I enjoyed it.