Bread: the cornerstone of Irish life

How bread became a staple of the Irish diet.

Many scholars contend that our prehistoric ancestors gave up their hunting-and-gathering lifestyle once they learned how to bake bread. Although there is evidence that barley was sown and harvested over 10,000 years ago, why seed was first planted remains a puzzle.

In the 1950s, archaeologist Robert Braidwood at Chicago University suggested that discovering bread-making methods led to the domestication of cereal grains. Botanist John Sauer at the University of Wisconsin argued that the work involved in collecting wild grain was too much trouble if the only reward was a bit of bread.  Theorizing that a bowl of grain may have been accidentally left out in the rain where the combination of moisture and air-borne yeast caused the seeds to ferment and produce a mildly alcoholic beer, Sauer suggested it may well have been a thirst for beer that turned early humans from foragers into farmers.

Whether bread or beer first motivated the Celts into tilling Ireland’s rocky soil will never be known, but both are mentioned in the Brehon Laws. Surprisingly, the Laws allowed anyone to brew ale and only its public sale was restricted. Bread, however, was regulated by weight, dimension and end consumer.  Bairgin banfuine (woman’s bread) was two fists wide and a fist thick while bairgin ferfuine (man’s bread) was twice as large.  A third loaf, bairgin indriub, was baked fresh daily and never sliced, since it was prohibited to serve visitors something that had already been cut.

The kind of grain used depended largely on who would be eating it. Wheat was scarce, and loaves made from it were consumed almost exclusively by chieftains and kings. Barley, which was associated with hardship and penance, was eaten by monks. On weekdays their spartan meals consisted of barley bread and water, but on Sundays and holy days they feasted on wheat bread, broiled salmon and mugs of ale. Oats were the most abundant grain crop, and oat bread was a principal food for Ireland’s poor. Well into the 19th century, millions of emigrants took oatcakes as provisions on the long voyages that carried them to new homes across the sea.

Bread was such a key element in the Irish diet, and famine such a constant threat, that people believed bread was a talisman that would ward off hunger.  Bits of bread were often used instead of coins to close the eyes of the dead. Travelers carried dry crusts in their pockets to ward off being cursed with starvation should they stumble on the grave of a famine victim.  Many people put out plates of breadcrumbs to appease malevolent spirits bent on doing mischief in the land of the living.  Wasting bread was unthinkable. Even the smallest scraps were saved to make puddings and thicken stews.

When the Normans arrived towards the end of the 12th century, they introduced the native Irish to two new eating styles: pastry and “trencher” bread. In the homes of wealthy barons and merchants, clever cooks added exotic spices brought back from the Middle East by Crusaders to make sweet custard fruit tarts and savory pies filled with fowl and game. And in all Norman households, meat and fish courses were served on thick slices of stale bread called “trenchers.”  When the meal was finished, the gravy-soaked bread was gathered up and given to servants, thrown to the dogs, or distributed to poor people waiting outside the gates.

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Nster.com