What I Ate For Dinner

To this day, my mom makes Irish Soda Bread with the same recipe her mother used in County Kerry nearly a century ago. Somewhere, we even have the original in my grandmother's hand. It makes sense why this method would stick around so long, given its reliability. It also exemplifies how recipes present and preserve a family's, community's or even culture's collective knowledge, accumulated and refined through the generations.

I rarely measure when I cook, but it's important when you're baking to do so because you need to assure proper proportions of leavening agents and the like in order to produce something light and moist. So, in a departure from habit, I'll begin with measurements (like a real recipe!) and then move on to the preparation proper:

5 cups flour
1 stick butter (softened at room temperature)
1 cup sugar
½ teaspoon salt
2 ½ cups buttermilk
1 tablespoon baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 well-beaten egg
1 ½ cup raisins
Caraway seeds

1. First, sift together the flour, baking powder, salt and sugar.


2. Now add the softened butter and mix with the dry ingredients by hand.


3. Dissolve the baking soda in the buttermilk and add to the dry ingredients. Also add one well-beaten egg to the mix. You may want to use an electric beater for the egg. Mix everything else by hand.


4. Finally, add the raisins and caraway seeds.


5. Lightly butter a tube pan (aka angel food cake pan) and coat with a dusting of flour. Pour the bread batter in, distributing as evenly as possible around the pan.


6. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Bake for 60-75 minutes, until golden brown.


7. When the bread is done baking, finish with a glaze of milk (regular milk, not buttermilk) and sugar after allowing the loaf to cool.