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Boston Brown Bread
One heaping coffee-cup each of corn, rye and Graham meal. The rye meal should be as fine as the Graham, or rye flour may be used. Sift the three kinds together as closely as possible, and beat together thoroughly with two cups New Orleans or Porto Rico molasses, two cups sweet milk, one cup sour milk, one dessert-spoon soda, one tea-spoon salt; pour into a tin form, place in a kettle of cold water, put on and boil four hours. Put on to cook as soon as mixed. It may appear to be too thin, but it is not, as this recipe has never been known to fail. Serve warm, with baked beans or Thanksgiving turkey. The bread should not quite fill the form (or a tin pail with cover will answer), as it must have room to swell. See that the water does not boil up to the top of the form; also take care it does not boil entirely away or stop boiling. To serve it, remove the lid and set it a few moments into the open oven to dry the top, and it will then turn out in perfect shape. This bread can be used as a pudding, and served with a sauce made of thick sour cream, well sweetened and seasoned with nutmeg; or it is good toasted the next day. - Mrs. H. S. Stevens, Minneapolis, Minn.
A classic steamed three-meal brown bread, given here in coffee-cup measures. Nothing about it is dangerous; the main work of translation is in the units, the vessel and the leavening.
- Coffee-cup and dessert-spoonA nineteenth-century coffee cup is close to a standard 8 oz cup, so read "one heaping coffee-cup" as a generous cup of each meal. A dessert-spoon is two teaspoons, i.e. the soda here is 2 tsp, not a tablespoon.
- The meals"Corn meal" is plain yellow or white cornmeal, ideally fine ground; Graham meal is coarse whole-wheat flour. Rye meal is now sold as medium or dark rye flour, which is the substitution the recipe itself offers.
- MolassesNew Orleans and Porto Rico molasses were unsulphured cane syrups, dark but not bitter. Use a standard unsulphured dark molasses, not blackstrap, which will overwhelm the grain.
- Sour milkThe one cup of sour milk is the acid that reacts with the soda; the two cups of sweet milk are liquid only. Cultured buttermilk is the direct modern equivalent. Fresh milk soured with a tablespoon of vinegar or lemon juice works if buttermilk is unavailable.
- The formA one- or two-pound coffee tin, a pudding mould, or clean cans all serve. Grease it, fill no more than two-thirds, and cover with a lid or a doubled sheet of foil tied down, or the batter will take on water.
- Steaming, not boilingSet the covered mould on a rack in a deep pot so water reaches halfway to two-thirds up the sides, and keep it at a bare simmer. Top up with boiling water as it evaporates, and do not let it stop bubbling; four hours is right for a large form, closer to two to two and a half for small cans.
- The thin batterThe instruction to put it on to cook as soon as mixed is the hinge. Soda in contact with sour milk starts working immediately, and the batter is deliberately loose so it can climb in the mould. Do not thicken it and do not let it stand.
- Drying the topThe few minutes in an open oven sets the damp crown so the loaf releases cleanly. Skip it and the top may stick or tear.
- YieldThis makes a substantial quantity, enough for a large form or several small tins. It slices best barely warm, and the recipe is correct that day-old slices toast well.
Brown bread is the New England answer to a kitchen without a dependable bread oven: a batter of the three cheap grains a farmhouse actually had, leavened with soda rather than yeast and cooked by steam over the fire, which needs no baking chamber at all. Its fixed partner is Saturday-night baked beans, a pairing generally traced to the Puritan practice of cooking ahead so that no work fell on the Sabbath. That a book called The Dixie Cook-Book carries it, contributed by a woman in Minneapolis, is a reminder that these late-century compilations drew contributions from across the country, and that regional titles were often more marketing than menu. The alternative serving here, as a pudding under sweetened sour cream and nutmeg, shows how thin the line was between bread and dessert when molasses was the household sweetener.