Anna and Her Damn Bread: A Legendary Recipe

This past weekend actually felt like winter, by which I mean it was cold and we got some snow. The recent 70 degree weekend was pleasant but a little freakish. Give me a cold snowy weekend instead! I know some of you out there hate snow but it always makes me happy to see it falling. It also makes me want to bake.

I'm still recovering from eating too many cookies and too much candy over Christmas, so I decided to bake some bread rather than a dessert. A wintry New England weekend calls for a classic New England recipe: anadama bread.

Anadama bread is a yeasted bread made with wheat flour, cornmeal, and molasses. Its consistency and taste is somewhere between cornbread and traditional sandwich bread. You can certainly use it to make sandwiches, but I think it's best just toasted and spread with butter. 

The cornmeal and molasses are dead giveaways that anadama bread originated in New England. These two ingredients feature in classic Yankee recipes like Indian pudding and brown bread and have deep roots in New England history. Corn (aka maize or Indian corn) has been part of the local diet for thousands of years. The Pilgrims stopped by Provincetown in 1620 on their way to Cape Cod and stole some corn that the local Wampanoags had stored there. That's how deeply rooted corn is in local history. 

Molasses also has deep roots in New England as part of what's known as the Triangular Trade. In the 1700s distilleries in New England produced rum from molasses, which merchants then traded in Africa for slaves. The slaves were transported to the Caribbean to work on sugar plantations which produced molasses. The molasses was then brought to New England to be distilled into rum which was traded in Africa for more slaves to make more molasses to make more rum... You get the picture and it's pretty grim. I tend to think of molasses as a quaint ingredient used in gingersnaps and molasses cookies but it does have an unhappy history. 

Back to the bread. There are two legends that explain anadama bread's unusual name, and they both center on a woman named Anna. In the first, Anna is the wife of a Cape Ann fisherman and she is a lousy cook. A really lousy cook. Every day she serves her husband the same exact thing for breakfast, lunch and dinner: cornmeal mush sweetened with molasses. Finally he can't take it anymore. He screams "Anna damn her!" and combines the cornmeal mush with flour and yeast to make bread. Thus we have anadama bread. 

In a second, less prevalent legend Anna is the wife of a sea-captain. This Anna is a great cook and provided baked goods for her husband's long ocean voyages that never spoiled or went bad. Still, the captain always referred to her as "Anna damn her" to his ship's crew, and her bread became known as "Anna damn her's bread." Thus we again have anadama bread. When Anna died the captain put the following on her tombstone: "Anna was a lovely bride, but Anna damn her, up and died." 

I don't know if either of these stories are true. They're pretty vague (what was Anna's surname and when did she live?) but the bread's unique name has no good historical explanation. None. Some people have suggested the recipe was created by Finnish fishermen or stonecutters living in Gloucester or Rockport, but I couldn't find anadama in the Finnish dictionary. The stories about Anna and her damned bread are the best explanations we have for the name.

Food historian Joyce White, on her blog A Taste of History, notes that "anadama bread" was filed with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office in 1850 as a brand of bread and was used in 1876 by a company called Anadma Mixes, Inc. The bread is definitely connected to Cape Ann. A man named Baker Knowlton produced the bread in Rockport by the end of the 19th century and shipping it across New England. 

Me and my bread! My expression's kind of odd...

If you have a hankering for anadama bread, rich in legend and history, you can probably buy some at the supermarket. When Pigs Fly, the bread company from York, Maine, sells a multi-grain version that is widely available. Anadama bread is not that hard to make, though, and you can find lots of recipes online (like this one from Yankee Magazine). Baking bread is great way to spend a cold, wintry day.

*****

My source for the two legends is Morris Dictionary of Word and Phrase Origins, second edition (1988 ) by William, Mary and William Otis Morris. 

Rye and Rum Pancakes? Breakfast Fit for A Pirate!

I'm taking a break this week from the usual witches, monsters and weirdness to ask a few questions:

1. Has your physician told you that you need to get more rum in your diet?

2. Have you ever wondered what a pirate might eat for breakfast?

3. Did you ever want to put vinegar on your pancakes?

If you answered yes to any of those questions I have a recipe you need to try.

I found it The Old Farmer's Almanac Colonial Cookbook, which was published by Yankee Magazine in 1976. This was given to me many years ago by my friend Dave, and it used to belong to his mother. The Colonial Cookbook contains lots of unusual recipes, like partridge in vine leaves, green corn pudding, and snow griddle cakes. It also has a recipe innocuously titled "rye pancakes."

In addition to rye flour, which you don't often see in pancake recipes, the recipe includes molasses and rum. It's very Olde New England (and also very piratey). I've never eaten pancakes with rum in the batter, so I thought I'd give the recipe a try.

Here's the recipe:

3 cups rye flour
1 cup flour
1 cup molasses
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon cream of tartar
2 eggs
2 cups milk
1/2 cup New England rum

Combine ingredients, beat, fry!

A few things to note about this batter and these pancakes. First of all, the batter is very, very thick. The recipe warns that "These are very rich." That's an understatement. The batter is thick like a bread batter. I had to plop it into the pan, not pour it.

I also have to note that sadly most of the rum cooks away, leaving just a slight flavor but no real intoxication. The predominant flavor is molasses. Happily I love molasses!

Finally, these come out really brown. I realized while making these pancakes that a lot of New England cuisine is brown. Brown bread, Indian pudding, apple pie, roast turkey, New England pot roast, switchel, etc. It is the cuisine of a region where winter is long and summer is very, very short.

The Colonial Cookbook says the following about this recipe: "Here's a recipe that dates back to the early 1700s, when great fields of rye swayed in the wind all along the Taunton River in Massachusetts. The molasses or sugar required for these pancakes was brought up the river in smalls sloops or brigs... A cherished family tradition handed down from generation to generation." The Yankee Magazine web site says the recipe was submitted to them by a Miss Helen H. Lane.

I have no way of knowing if this recipe really dates to the 1700s, but the ingredients do make it seem possible. For example, the early New England settlers found that rye grew better than wheat in this cold climate, and it featured prominently in their baked goods, like brown bread. They always preferred wheat, though, and once New England became more prosperous they imported wheat from other states.

Rum and molasses also have deep roots in New England history. Yankee merchants would trade rum for slaves in Africa, and then trade the slaves for sugar and molasses in the Caribbean. They'd bring the molasses and sugar back to New England to make rum, which they'd then trade in Africa for slaves. They'd repeat this over and over, turning a profit with each transaction.

This exploitative economic system (known as the Triangle Trade) made the merchants quite wealthy, and also infused New England cuisine with Caribbean flavors. Molasses, rum, and spices like cinnamon, ginger and nutmeg are all essential to New England cooking, but all actually come from the Caribbean islands. It's strange to think that the so-called pumpkin pie spices, which are so homey and comforting, have their origin in such a dark period of history.

One last thing about these pancakes. Rather than topping them with butter and syrup, the Colonial Cookbook recommends topping them with vinegar and sugar. It says, "Fill a cereal bowl with sugar. Add enough vinegar to make the resulting mixture spreadable as butter. As you eat the pancakes, dab them with the mixture."

I thought this might be gross, but it was actually kind of delicious. The sour vinegar cut through the sweetness. The combination of vinegar and sugar is also an old New England one. It doesn't show up much these days, unless you are lucky enough to find someplace serving switchel.

Switchel: An Old New England Beverage Back in Style

A hip and trendy nouveau-Chinese restaurant is an unlikely place to find an old New England beverage, so you can imagine how surprised and delighted I was when I found one at Mei-Mei, a nice new restaurant in Boston.

The food at Mei-Mei is described as "Chinese street food made with locally sourced items" (or something to that effect - I can't find the exact quote). The restaurant (which grew from a food truck) is best known for a sandwich called the Double Awesome, which is basically a poached egg and pesto served between two scallion pancakes. I had one and it was really delicious. Apparently everyone in Boston agrees because they've sold over 40,000 of them since they started their truck a few years ago. The eggs in their sandwiches are local, and they use a lot of other locally produced items like winter squash, cabbage, potatoes, oats, and cheeses.

Now, before you scream out "What does this have to do with New England folklore!" let me add that Mei-Mei serves something called haymakers punch. Also known as haymakers switchel, or just plain switchel, this drink has roots deep in New England history.

Made with water, sugar, molasses and vinegar, switchel originated in the Caribbean but soon became a favorite summer beverage for 17th century New England farmers and field hands. The vinegar and molasses may seem a little strange to the modern palate, but just think of it as lemonade from an era when lemons were hard to get but vinegar was plentiful. It was something refreshing to drink on a hot summer day.

A big cup of switchel glowing in the sun!

I've known about switchel for many years but had never tasted it until I ordered the haymakers punch at Mei-Mei. The first time I tried it my taste buds were a little overwhelmed by the tartness of the vinegar. I remember coughing a little bit, but I still finished the drink. The second time I had it I couldn't get enough. Maybe the molasses/vinegar combination is addictive...

Apparently switchel experienced a revival last summer. Why didn't anyone tell me? This article discusses the beverage's origins, and also profiles two hipsters who opened a switchel brewery in Brooklyn. A switchel brewery in Brooklyn!? It sounds like switchel's time has arrived.

I have an old switchel recipe in my recipe folder. It doesn't date back to the 17th century, but I did clip it from the Boston Globe in the early 1990s. It's attached to a yellowing index card so by digital standards it seems almost ancient. Here's the recipe:

Ingredients:

1 gallon water
1 cup sugar (or to taste)
1 cup molasses
1/2 cup cider vinegar (or to taste)
1 teaspoon ground ginger

Combine everything in a pitcher and whisk until well-combined.

The recipe notes that "the vinegar may be off-putting to some modern palates; lemon or lime juice can be used in its place." That may be true but I recommend trying it with the vinegar first. You may acquire a taste for it.

Rum Shrub

Tony and I had a party this weekend, and as happens at most parties the guests brought bottles of wine to share. But unlike most parties, a lot of the wine remained unopened at the end of the night.

We mentioned this to a friend who attended and he said, "Oh, that's because instead of wine everyone drank the punch. You know, the rum shrub."

Oh, right the rum shrub!

No, it's not a bush. A shrub is an alcoholic drink that was popular in the colonial era. It seems to come in two forms: either a cordial made from liquor and fruit, or a punch-like concoction made from liquor, sugar and fruit juice. Unlike a traditional punch, a punch-like shrub is made days or weeks in advance to let the flavors mellow.

I made my rum shrub from a recipe I found in Yankee Magazine's Lost and Vintage Recipes. The authors say their recipe comes from Newport, Rhode Island, which was once the rum capital of the world. We'll revisit that fact in a minute.

Basically, the recipe involved twelve cups of rum, lemon and lime juice, sugar and some water. Stir it up in a big bowl and let it sit for at least a week. It was really good! I could definitely taste the rum but the citrus and the sugar mellowed out the alcohol flavor. One person at the party said, "It's like a Colonial margarita!"

Add ice. Drink.

Doesn't it seem odd that Newport was the rum capital of the world? Rum is made from sugar products, usually molasses, and even with global warming no one's growing sugar cane in New England. Molasses, despite its omnipresence in New England cookery, is imported from warmer climates like the Caribbean.

Rum was probably first discovered in the 1600s in the Caribbean by plantation slaves, who realized that molasses (which is a by-product of the sugar manufacturing process) could be distilled into a delicious liquor. The Caribbean islands lacked the skilled workforce and lumber needed for a large-scale rum industry, but New England had both. The first rum distillery in New England opened in Boston in 1667.

New England merchants engaged in what is known as the "triangle trade" to make and sell their rum. First, they would buy molasses in the Caribbean. Ships would carry the rum to New England where it was distilled into rum. Ships would then carry the rum to western Africa where it was sold for slaves. The slaves were shipped to the Caribbean where they were sold for more molasses. A profit was made on each point of the triangle, helping to make New England one of the wealthier regions in North America.

As a New Englander I don't usually think much about this region's role in the slave trade. After all, there weren't a lot of large plantations here, and the Abolitionist movement was very strong here, right?

Both true, but it doesn't change the fact that a lot of people in New England got very rich from the slave trade. So many of the historic dishes from this region, like baked beans, brown bread, Indian pudding, and Joe Froggers get their distinctive molasses flavor from human misery.

I'm not going to stop making these foods or enjoying molasses, but like every part of the world I need to remember that our region's history is very, very complicated.

Joe Froggers: A Cookie Fit for Pirates

Who made the first pumpkin pie?

Who made the first baked beans?

These are profound and unanswerable questions. The origins of many regional dishes are lost in the murky mists of the past. Even if I had a time machine I probably wouldn't find clear answers - most dishes have just evolved into their present form.

However, there are some recipes that do a have a clear point of origin like Tollhouse Cookies, Boston cream pie, and Joe Froggers.

Most people know the first two desserts but I don't think many people have eaten Joe Froggers, a molasses style cookie that originated in Marblehead, Massachusetts.

The origin story goes something like this. Joe Brown was an African-American resident of Marblehead in the 1700s. With his wife Lucretia (who was 22 years his junior), Joe ran a tavern on Gingerbread Hill. Gingerbread Hill sounds cozy and charming but like most taverns of the era, particularly in seaports, things were a little seedy at Joe's establishment. Gambling and heavy drinking were the norm, and as Marblehead historian Joseph Robinson wrote, "a more uncouth assemblage of ruffians could not be found anywhere." Locals with nicknames like Eagle Beak, Pie Mouth, and Cork Leg were among the regulars. Joe's tavern still stands in Marblehead.

However, Joe is famous not just for running a tavern that attracted the riffraff, but because of the cookie that bears his name: Joe Froggers. Joe's last name was not Frogger, but his tavern was located next to a frog pond. Another story says that the cookies got their name because when Lucretia poured the batter in her frying pan they formed a vaguely froglike shape. Perhaps the cookies should really be called Lucretia Froggers?

The Joe Froggers people make now are probably a little different than the original recipe. For one thing, in the 1700s they were the size of salad plates. That's a big cookie! Sailors and fishermen would buy them by the barrel for long sea voyages because they kept well. I like the idea of sailing around with a barrel full of cookies. Like Gingerbread Hill, it sounds charming but I'm sure the reality was something else entirely.

Besides their size and strange name, Joe Froggers are distinguished from other molasses cookies and gingersnaps by one key ingredient: rum. It's mixed right into the batter with the butter and sugar, and adds a nice bite to the cookie. It's only fitting for a cookie developed in a raucous seaside tavern. Dark rum is best. Luckily some our family gave us a bottle of Cruzan black strap rum at Christmas. It's probably the darkest rum out there. I felt like a pirate making these cookies!

I got the information about Joe Brown from this article in Marblehead Magazine. The actual cookies I made from a recipe in Yankee Magazine's Lost and Vintage Recipes, which is actually on sale at news stands right now. It has some interesting recipes beyond the Joe Froggers and is worth picking up.

Indian Pudding: The World's Oldest Recipes

It was kind of cold here yesterday, and we actually had a few snowflakes. Most of this winter has been freakishly mild, but yesterday it finally felt like the temperature matched the season. To celebrate I decided to make Indian pudding.

As a lot of people know, and I've written here before, New England Indian pudding doesn't have anything to do with the flavorful and spicy cuisine of South Asian. Despite its name it's really an old Puritan dish that has been made in this area for hundreds of years.

Stirring together cornmeal and milk.

 When the Puritans came to North America they brought their love of puddings with them. Wheat flour is one of the key ingredients of English style puddings, but unfortunately wheat didn't grow well in New England. Not wishing to be deprived of pudding the Puritans adapted their recipes to incorporate Indian corn (maize) and voila! Indian pudding was born.

The first cookbook in America, Amelia Simmons' 1796 American Cookery, contains three recipes for Indian pudding.

No. 1. 3 pints scalded milk, 7 spoons fine Indian meal, stir well
together while hot, let stand till cooled; add 7 eggs, half pound
raisins, 4 ounces butter, spice and sugar, bake one and half hour.

No. 2. 3 pints scalded milk to one pint meal salted; cool, add 2 eggs,
4 ounces butter, sugar or molasses and spice q. f. it will require two
and half hours baking.

No. 3. Salt a pint meal, wet with one quart milk, sweeten and put into
a strong cloth, brass or bell metal vessel, stone or earthern pot,
secure from wet and boil 12 hours.

I'm amazed to see that number three takes twelve hours to cook! Wow! These are the oldest Indian pudding recipes on record, and obviously come from an era when cooking was much more difficult.

Most modern recipes for Indian pudding have four key ingredients: cornmeal, molasses, milk, and spices. I used this recipe from New York Times writer Mark Bittman. It didn't take 12 hours, but it did take about two and half.

Like a lot of other recipes I have seen, one key step is to pour some milk directly on top of the pudding and then put it in the oven without stirring.

Pour the pudding into a greased pan...

... and then pour milk right on top!

Somehow it all magically works and it gives the pudding a nice texture. Do any foodies out there know why this is?

Two hours later, a humble looking but heavenly dessert!

Indian pudding is not what you would call a glamorous dish. When it comes out of the oven it's brown and kind of goopy looking. It was really delicious though!

Anadama Bread

It's been snowing for 36 hours non-stop. The weather forecast says it might stop by midnight, but right now it's snowing harder than ever!

On a snowy day I like to make bread, and today's loaf of choice is Anadama bread. It's very New England!

Some quick facts:

• Anadama bread supposedly got its name when a Yankee farmer came home from a hard day in the fields to find his wife Anna had once again prepared nothing but boiled cornmeal mush for dinner. "Anna, damn her!" he shouted, and mixed the flavorless mush with molasses, flour, yeast and salt. The result? A delicious bread.

• Another variation on this legend claims that Anna was actually very good at baking. When she died her husband missed her bread so much he wrote this on her tombstone: "Anna was a lovely bride, but Anna damn her up and died!"

• Anadama is basically a sandwich style bread, but with cornmeal and molasses. Imagine Indian pudding in a loaf. Yum

• I'm using a recipe from Baking Illustrated by America's Test Kitchen, but there are plenty of recipes on the Web, like this one. The Old Farmer's Almanac has a slight variation that involves boiled molasses and a story about a fisherman instead of a farmer.

• Anadama bread can be baked with fruit in it. Lydia Shire, one of Boston's most popular chefs, has an upscale recipe that features raisins and semolina flour. Nice! She also uses Anadama in a stuffing recipe.

• The true origins of this bread are murky. For instance, Wikipedia and this site owned by the Smith family of Rockport claim the bread's origins can only be traced back to the 1940s. However, the Food Timeline notes that the U.S. Patent office has a patent from 1850 for Anadama bread, so it was probably being baked since the mid-19th century.