When did variations on the basic soda bread recipe begin to develop?
Rory O’Connell: You can’t really put dates on them. But say, for example, having seeds in soda bread a lot of people would completely raise their eyebrows at the idea of there being seeds in soda bread. However, the reality is that in Donegal and Leitrim there was a tradition of putting caraway seeds in bread. The likelihood is that the tradition was taken by immigrants to America. Epicurious: What about the raisins? Rory O’Connell: The raisins or the sultanas or whatever the dried fruit was would have been a luxury item. They would have been put into the white-flour version of the bread at the time of the year when the harvest was going on as a treat for the men who were working. The woman of the house who was making the bread would have put in a fistful of raisins or currants and then perhaps a little bit of sugar and an egg if she had either or both to spare. Epicurious: So butter would not have been put into the bread? Rory O’Connell: Absolutely not. But it would have been slathere
