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Rye and Indian Meal, Bread Of
"The proportions of rye and cornmeal used," says an American writer, "may be varied according to the taste. If the largest proportion of rye is used, make the dough stiff; if the largest proportion of cornmeal, make the dough softer. The greater the proportion of cornmeal, the longer the bread requires baking. The best way to mix the dough is to put the cornmeal into a glazed earthen pan, sprinkle salt over it, pour on boiling water, work it till thoroughly wet, and when about milk-warm add the rye-flour with the yeast, and as much more warm, but not hot, water as is required. Work the dough until stiff, but not so stiff as flour dough. Put it then into a deep greased pan, put your hand in warm water, and pat down the top, set it to rise in a warm place by the stove in winter, but in the sun in summer. When it begins to crack on the top, which will be in an hour to an hour and a half, put in a well-heated oven. To make the bread two-thirds of cornmeal, take four quarts of sifted cornmeal, sprinkle a table-spoonful of salt over it, and pour over it two quarts of boiling water, as directed above; when lukewarm add two quarts of rye-meal, half a pint of lively yeast mixed in a pint of warm water; add more water if necessary. Bake two or three hours. This makes a loaf weighing seven or eight pounds." Probable cost, 9d.
A quotation from an American writer, reproduced in a British book, so the measures sit awkwardly between two systems. The hinge is the first step: the cornmeal must be scalded, not merely moistened, or the loaf will be gritty and will refuse to hold together.
- Scald the meal properlyBoiling water poured over cornmeal gelatinises the starch and softens the bran, which is what lets a largely gluten-free meal bake into a sliceable loaf. Work it until every particle is wet and let it fall to blood heat before the yeast goes in, or the heat will kill the yeast.
- Indian mealCornmeal, and in this period a stone-ground whole meal rather than the degerminated supermarket product. Coarse or medium stone-ground yellow cornmeal is the nearest equivalent; it drinks more water than modern fine meal.
- Rye-meal against rye-flourThe text uses both words. Rye meal is the coarse whole grind, rye flour the sifted one; either works, but meal gives the denser, darker loaf the writer clearly has in mind.
- The yeast is not modern yeast"Half a pint of lively yeast" means liquid barm or a brewer's yeast of unknown strength, and there is no honest conversion to dried yeast. Judge by behaviour rather than quantity: the dough is ready for the oven when the surface cracks, roughly an hour to an hour and a half in a warm place.
- Scale it downFour quarts of cornmeal plus two quarts of rye produces a single loaf of seven or eight pounds, which will not fit most domestic pans or ovens. A quarter of the recipe gives a manageable two-pound loaf; reduce the baking time accordingly.
- "A well-heated oven"The book gives no temperature. For a wet, dense loaf of this size a modern equivalent might start around 425F to set the crust and drop to 350F for the long bake. The two to three hours quoted is for the full seven- to eight-pound loaf; a small tin will need considerably less.
- Judging donenessThumping the base is unreliable with a loaf this moist. An instant-read thermometer in the centre should show about 205F; below that the crumb stays pasty.
- Texture and keepingExpect a close, moist, faintly sweet crumb rather than an open one, and let it cool completely before cutting or it will smear. It slices better on the second day and toasts well for a week.
Rye-and-Indian bread was an everyday loaf in colonial and nineteenth-century New England, where wheat grew badly and maize and rye grew well; a related mixture, steamed rather than baked and sweetened with molasses (and usually including some wheat flour), is Boston brown bread. Cassell's, compiling in London, prints the passage as a quotation from "an American writer" and leaves the American measures intact, which is one way transatlantic material travelled between cookery books in this period. The "probable cost, 9d" falls outside the quotation and so appears to be the editor's own addition, marking it as cheap provision food. Scalding meal before adding the leaven is a long-standing practice with grains that have no gluten of their own.