March 19, 2025 • 35 mins
This category of breads leavened with baking soda encompasses both simple staples and rich treats. Anney and Lauren dig into the science and history of Irish (and Irish-ish) soda breads.
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Speaker 1 (00:08):
Hello, and welcome to Savor production of iHeart Radio. I'm
any Rec and I'm.
Speaker 2 (00:11):
Lorn Vogelbaum, and today we have an episode for you
about Irish soda bread.
Speaker 1 (00:16):
Yes, and I think I know the answer, but I
will ask the question anyway. Any particular reason this was
on your mind?
Speaker 2 (00:23):
Yeah, you know, Saint Patrick's Day is coming up, and
for some reason, Americans have decided that's a really big
deal and that we should use it as an excuse
to celebrate various aspects of Irish culture, some of which
we've kind of made up. But soda bread is a
(00:46):
thing and it's got an interesting history. We were just
talking about it in that Caraway Seed episode and I
was like, yeah, why not dig into that thing.
Speaker 1 (00:59):
Yes, that was a heavy sigh because this was this
was a tricky one. Oh it went places. Oh my goodness,
it went on a lot of places. I've learned a lot.
I learned a lot about flower, but I did. I
told the story in the Caraway Seed episode. I had
(01:21):
made Irish soda bread with Carraway seeds and I over
it was like an overpower, and I thought something had
gone awry. That's like a pun, that's like a Okay, yes,
well and so, but then I was looking up you know,
(01:41):
is that even a thing in irishwa bread, traditional Irish
showa bread, And I got really mixed results. And we're
going to talk about that a bit in the in
this history outline. But I made it for Saint Patrick's
Day because I saw it every Saint Patrick's Day. It
would be Irish to bad bread. Okay, let me try.
(02:05):
I'm thinking I should give it another go.
Speaker 2 (02:07):
I think, yeah, and you don't have to put too
many caraway seeds in it. You can, you can put
no carawt seeds in it.
Speaker 1 (02:15):
I think the thing is, I've said this before, I
hate during dishes. So a lot of times I do
like the I do like the like just eyeball it method,
which usually works out. But I think I didn't understand
how powerful care seeds were. It was a meat, it
was a mimesteak. I don't blame the recipe. I think
(02:36):
it was me. But yeah, I should give it another
go because that's actually my only experience with our soda
bread is made.
Speaker 2 (02:45):
Yeah. Yeah, it's bread. It's delicious. Bread is baseline tasty,
so yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1 (02:54):
And I feel like a lot of the recipes. I
saw very simple, very.
Speaker 2 (02:58):
Simple, that's the concept, really, yeah.
Speaker 1 (03:01):
Which we'll talk about. So we have done other bread episodes.
You can see caraway seats. As we've been saying, have
we done baking soda? I thought we had no. Oh no, Okay,
(03:21):
I feel like maybe we've just talked about it a
lot because it did change a lot of things.
Speaker 2 (03:25):
Yeah, butter, we also have not. We also have not
done an episode on buttermilk.
Speaker 1 (03:30):
We we did a video kind of thing.
Speaker 2 (03:35):
We've done episodes on butter. We did cream of tartar,
which is a kind of related chemical levener that goes
with baking soda into baking powder.
Speaker 1 (03:49):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (03:52):
We we did talk about buttermilk in a video back
in the day.
Speaker 1 (03:55):
Yes, uh.
Speaker 2 (03:57):
In in terms of breads, buffets and biscuits are both
like particularly relevant.
Speaker 1 (04:04):
But yeah, oh goodness, well, I guess this is you
are question. Sure, a few questions, a few questions are raised,
But for this one Irish soda bread, what is it?
Speaker 2 (04:25):
Well, Irish soda bread is a type of quick bread,
meaning a bread that is leavened or raised quickly using
chemical leveners instead of yeast. The name soda bread refers
to the specific chemical levener traditionally used, which is baking soda.
Other cultures make soda breads. Today we're talking about the
Irish versions, and those come in a lot of varieties,
(04:49):
made with either white or whole wheat flour, sometimes with
other grains or flowers mixed in, like millet or oat
or barley for flavor or texture. These breads can be plain,
intended as like a starchy side for main dishes or
a base for like savory toasts or sandwiches, or they
can be sweetened, maybe studded with things like dried fruit,
(05:11):
eaten as a breakfast or a snack, maybe with toppings
like butter and jam. They they tend to be a
little bit dense, but but very tender and lightly chewy.
It's a category of breads that are easy and inexpensive
to make and very adaptable. They're they're only as fussy
as you want them to be. It's it's taking a
lot of the work out of bread, but like still
(05:34):
getting bread. It is just this like soft, thick bread
hack and it's sort of airily heavy and enveloping, like
a like a nice morning fog on a day off
when you can just curl up with a good book
about it.
Speaker 1 (05:53):
M I do love those days.
Speaker 2 (05:56):
Yeah, other days other than fog always reminding me of
silent hell I love. I love it inside though, right,
don't go outside.
Speaker 1 (06:10):
Then you get silent floor the room. And you know,
we introduce another problem by saying side anyway, that one's
for the nerds out there, and just.
Speaker 2 (06:20):
Don't go through the hair or mirror.
Speaker 1 (06:21):
I don't know like that anyway.
Speaker 2 (06:29):
Okay, back to soda bread. That's a good peek inside
just what Annie and I are operating on all the time. Yep,
soda bread. Okay, So let's talk about chemical leveners. These
are a category of leveners that produce bubbles of carbon
dioxide and dough, either due to a chemical reaction when
(06:52):
you mix the dough's ingredients together or due to thermal
decomposition when you bake the dough. Baking soda aka sodium
bicarbonate can actually do both. It's a base on the
pH scale and will react with acids to release carbon
dioxide and yes, in the oven, if there's any baking
(07:12):
soda left over after that acid base reaction, baking soda
will break down and release carbon dioxide. You actually kind
of want to avoid that because it'll leave like a
sort of bitter, soapy taste behind. You're sort of looking
to use it all up in that acid base reaction.
And all of this is in contrast to yeast raised breads,
which rely on yeast microbes to poop carbon dioxide. Yeast poop.
(07:41):
This takes a few hours though, because you know, you
have to like grow a colony of yeast to do
this work for you, which is nice. I mean, it's tasty,
but it takes a while.
Speaker 1 (07:52):
I like that. Yeah, it feels like I'm like raising
an army or something like that. Yeah, and then we're
gonna take this bread over.
Speaker 2 (08:02):
And then immediately sacrificing it to the bread gods. Yeah. So,
at its most basic, soda bread can be made with
just flour, baking soda, a liquid, and an acid. The
flour and liquid make up the body of the dough,
and the baking soda and acid do their thing and
make it rise. You can technically just use like water
(08:24):
and a little bit of vinegar or lemon juice, but
that would be pretty bland. Classic recipes for soda breads
call for buttermilk, which covers both the liquid and acid.
Components and also gives you some nice like creaminess and
you know that milky buttery sort of flavor. But buttermilk
is traditionally a byproduct of making butter. You know, as
you concentrate the fats in milk to get butter, you
(08:46):
press out a lot of water and stuff which is buttermilk.
It's naturally acidic because again, if you're making butter, traditionally
you're going to culture your milk with lactic acid bacteria
during that process, and the bacteria are going to eat
some of the sugars and milk and poop acids. Bacteria
poop which help you separate and collect the fats from
(09:09):
the rest of the milk. They also poop some flavors
that make butter taste, you know, buttery. These days, the
buttermilk you finded stores is usually made independently of the
butter process to replicate those slightly tart buttery flavors. If
you can find real buttermilk, that's great, but you can
also mock them up at home by adding a little
bit of a lemon juice or vinegar to regular milk.
(09:33):
But okay, with chemical leveners, those bubbles are going those
carbon dioxide bubbles that are produced in the dough are
going to dissipate with time or if you work the
dough a bunch. So after you bring the ingredients together,
you generally want to like shape your loaf and get
it into the oven in pretty short order to get
the most lift out of it. Again, traditionally, you score
(09:56):
the top of that loaf with a deep X. That
that is, you cut like maybe like half an inch
down into the loaf in anex shape. Scientifically speaking, you
do this to allow the dough to expand upward as
much as possible as carbon dioxide and steam inflate it
in the oven. Without scoring the top of your loaf
(10:19):
can kind of stiffen and prevent that upward rise. Culturally,
people say that there's different reasons for doing that. We're
going to get it into that in the history section
just a little bit. I've read a lot of recipes
that really gussy soda bread up, making more of like
a cake, like a tea cake, or think like like
like an indulgent muffin, you know, something like banana bread
(10:41):
minus the banana, you know, you know, incorporating a lot
of rich ingredients like butter, sour, cream and or eggs,
and like kind of a lot of sugar. Sweeter versions
of soda bread might use raisins, golden raisins, currants, citrus zest,
or candied citrus peel. Soda bread that does include raisins
(11:01):
or currants is sometimes called spotted dog. Spotted dick, by
the way, is a related term for a baked good
with raisins or currants, but usually indicates like a denser,
more cakey dessert. I'd always wondered about that, never bothered
to look it up. Here we are, but yeah, that
the ease of baking soda bread means that the simpler
(11:22):
versions are certainly like a staple starch in some culinary traditions,
and can be eaten in you know, different formats any
as part of any meal or snack. For example, in
Ulster cuisine at the North end of the Island, soda
raised breads are often cooked as like more or less
flatbreads on the griddle, often in a round that's been
(11:44):
cut into quarters. Furthermore, I understand that in Ireland, whole
wheat soda bread is often not called soda bread. It's
called brown bread or wheaten bread, and folks will be confused.
Speaker 1 (11:58):
If you try to call that soda bread.
Speaker 2 (12:01):
It is raised with soda, but that's brown bread.
Speaker 1 (12:04):
It's different.
Speaker 2 (12:04):
I don't know, y'all, right now.
Speaker 1 (12:07):
Yeah, right in, I ran into that too. Okay, well,
what about the nutrition?
Speaker 2 (12:13):
Bread is nice? You know, whole wheat is better for
you than white wheat. It'll definitely fill you up. But
to keep you going, you know, pair with a fat
beat a vegetable, yeah.
Speaker 1 (12:25):
Yeah, heat a vegetable always. We have a couple of
numbers for you.
Speaker 2 (12:30):
Okay, we have zero numbers, but I put two cultural
points in here. So I did find some search results
for like a lot of different Irish culture festivals around
the United States that have soda bread bacon contests every year.
And I think I included this note specifically because in Atlanta,
(12:54):
old friend of the show chef Thomas McCowan has been
one of the judges. Such a good dude, what a
lovely human, right, yeah, showed us some bee hives.
Speaker 1 (13:08):
He showed us some beehives. And I happened to run
into him a lot at Dragon con Big NERD NERD events,
NERD Convention, and I'm usually in costume and he always
talks to me as if I'm on costume's amazing.
Speaker 2 (13:28):
Also, I am so happy to report that my googling
led me to an article published in the Pittsburgh City
Paper under the title yins or Yems of Yesteryear, Irish
soda bread.
Speaker 1 (13:46):
You can always tell when somebody really loves words a literation.
Speaker 2 (13:56):
Yeah, yeah, and Yin's is a person no favorite words.
So yeah, yeah, it's the you know, the Pittsburgh concept
of like y'all or or yuse guys or something like that.
Speaker 1 (14:09):
So yeah, that's pretty solid like that. Oh my goodness. Well,
we do have quite a history for you.
Speaker 2 (14:20):
Oh we do, and we are going to get into
that as soon as we get back from a quick
break for a word from our sponsors.
Speaker 1 (14:36):
A we're back, Thank you, sponsors, Yes, thank you. Okay,
So bread are bread like products are old? They're old. Yeah, yep.
Speaker 2 (14:48):
Bread making has been a practice in as far as
I know, every society that developed grain agriculture, it often
co developed with brewing because the yeasts responsible for making
for example, beer foamy and alcoholic are the same ones
that give yeast breads their lyft. Not that we knew
that before like the eighteen hundreds, but we knew that
(15:10):
it worked. Yeah, people, it would take yeast cultures from
breweries or keep a bread starter culture alive and then
use those to eleven breads. People did develop chemical leveners
around the world at different times. I read one theory
that the secret ingredient in fluffy Dutch gingerbread was potash
(15:31):
circa the thirteen hundreds, which is or I sound impressed
because that's early, but chemical levenors weren't really written about
in European accounts until the sixteen hundreds. That's when you
start seeing recipes that call for potash or for heartshorn
also called Baker's ammonia to leven baked goods. Potash is
made from wood fire ashes. When you add an acid
(15:52):
to it, it produces carbon dioxide bubbles. Baker's ammonia breaks
down when heated to release carbon dioxide. However, neither are
ideal because they have unpleasant flavors to them, like Baker's
ammonia is actually ammonium carbonate, which is smelling salts, which
are like specifically useful because they're stinky. In baked goods,
(16:15):
it produces ammonia along with the carbon dioxide, and that
one was considered more more pleasant than the potash. So
here we are until like the mid to late eighteen hundreds,
though either one of those or yeasts were what bakers
were mostly working with for leavening. But hey, speaking of bakers,
this is ostensibly an episode about bread.
Speaker 1 (16:40):
Ostensibly Ostensibly back in the old days in Ireland, the
type of flour largely available didn't really rise, so flat
griddle bread was the typical bread that was being made.
Speaker 2 (16:52):
Yeah, and very briefly because I but both of us
had the fear a little bit about reading about too
many types of flowers. There are different varieties of wheat
that contain more or less gluten and other proteins and stuff,
and before the late eighteen hundreds or so, most of
the wheat that was available in Ireland was soft wheat,
(17:15):
which does not contain much gluten. And gluten is what
forms up in a stretchy matrix in yeast raised breads.
You know, it's capable of both allowing a dough to
expand and then in the oven firming up to hold
onto pockets of air. And it is difficult to get
super fluffy breads from soft wheat, so it was more
(17:37):
common to stick with flatbreads. Although they were using some
yeast for rise in those.
Speaker 1 (17:43):
Yes, they were using barm or the foam on top
of fermented liquids like beer to get a little bit
of that rise. Yeah. When baking soda was invented, though,
the Iris quickly made use of it to give bread
products more.
Speaker 2 (17:59):
With that ride. Yeah, we probably need to do a
baking soda episode.
Speaker 1 (18:05):
You know. That's been on our list since we first started.
I'm aware it was one of my first pitches was
because I didn't know the difference between baking soda and
baking powder.
Speaker 2 (18:15):
Yeah, I mean baking powder as well, Like there's those
might be a simultane that there might be a single
topic because there's this time and history called the Baking
Powder Wars, which is yeah, at any rate, I'm pretty
sure that baking soda was discovered in eighteen oh one
(18:36):
and was available in Ireland by the eighteen thirties or so.
Speaker 1 (18:41):
Yes, problem for future US, but yeah, that would make
sense because the Irish brown soda bread of this time
was relatively cheap and simple to make, and a lot
of it was a case of trying to use up
food before it spoiled, especially during tough times. For example,
early so to bread. Written recipes out of Ireland date
(19:02):
back to about the eighteen thirties. This was after the
British had invaded and a lot of locals were struggling.
Many of these recipes didn't need yeast, didn't need eggs,
and used up milk.
Speaker 2 (19:15):
Yeah, buttermilk would have been pretty well available, though you
could always add an acid to regular milk, or you know,
possibly even slightly soured milk got thrown in before it
went totally off. I generally dislike the like. People were
using this as a way to get rid of spoiled food,
because that's like, people knew that spoiled food would make
you sick, So but lightly soured milk.
Speaker 1 (19:36):
Sure, and some people believed that the bread had health benefits.
An eighteen thirty six Irish newspaper mentioned that soda bread
was good for digestion and general gut health. A lot
of these early recipes were reported to be sweet.
Speaker 2 (19:57):
Yeah, they probably didn't mean sweet as in my we've
added sugar. Sugar was still expensive for a lot of
people and would have taken soda bread from being like
a staple food into the treat category. More likely, what
they meant by sweet was that it wasn't as tart
as sourdough, and today we think of sourdough as being
sort of an outlier flavor wise, but pretty much all
(20:21):
yeast risen breads prior to the eighteen seventies would have
had at least a little of a sourdough type tang
to it. The eighteen seventies being when Louis Pastor and
a bunch of bakery industry humans figured out that like
yeast is a living thing and they said about producing
like specific dependable strains of yeast and selling them. Before
(20:44):
that that the barm and the bread starter cultures that
people were using would have had wild bacteria and yeasts
that produced tart flavors in a bread. And yes, there
is acid in buttermilk, but most of that is canceling
out the baking soda and gets neutralized flavor wise.
Speaker 1 (21:02):
So yeah, well, okay, So going back to that X
that's carved into the top of the bread. According to
a few articles I read this, there's a lot of
superstitions around it, including letting out the fairies, or that
it keeps the devil out.
Speaker 2 (21:22):
I think I think lets the devil out is I
think it's lets out either the devil or the fairies both.
Speaker 1 (21:28):
I'm not sure. Yeah, well, listeners, please write in because
these are always fun, but you know, sometimes I don't
know if I'm not from there, people write in. Please. Yes,
Our soda bread really took off after the Potato famine,
which took place between eighteen forty five to eighteen fifty.
Speaker 2 (21:48):
Yeah, and this is probably a thing you've heard of.
Speaker 1 (21:53):
It.
Speaker 2 (21:53):
It's a blight on the potato crops that the British
landlord class had kind of basically forced a monoculture in
which most local farmers depended on for sustenance. And the
whole thing was exacerbated because the ruling class was still
exporting a lot of what food was grown that wasn't
blighted during that time.
Speaker 1 (22:15):
So that's bad.
Speaker 2 (22:18):
During like the really hard times the famine, wheat flour
might have been beyond the reach of lots of people,
but certainly in the years following it, wheat products like
soda bread became like sustenance staples. Also that aligns with
when baking soda started being industrially produced and was therefore
more available. Soda bread did fall a bit out of
(22:41):
fashion in Ireland around the turn of the twentieth century,
you know, like manufactured yeast and high gluten flour became
commercially available, and bakery made shopbread was more popular with
those who could afford it.
Speaker 1 (22:55):
Yes, and people sold and or delivered this via horse
and bug. Oh yeah, okay. Soda bread had a comeback
though in the nineteen sixties at nice hotels frequently paired
with smoked salmon, which is a pretty far cry from
its historical association with tough times. It does seem the
(23:19):
modern addition of raisins and caraway seeds was more of
an American thing or something of the past.
Speaker 2 (23:27):
Okay, this one is complicated, Yeah, all right, So dried currants,
not raisins. Dried currents were being used in soda raised
baked goods in Ireland in the eighteen hundreds. That's when
that term spotted dog originated, and a current soda or
other fruit soda bread was probably like a special occasion
(23:50):
treat around that time. Raisins were less common, I think,
and are indeed an American substitute for currents. Caraway was
being used in Irish cooking in the eighteen hundreds as well,
and in baked goods like cakes, like deep into the
nineteen hundreds. I think, I think currents still show up
(24:11):
in like snack soda breads today, but caraway is considered
sort of old fashioned in sweet baked goods in Ireland.
Y'all write in and like I will say, like the
American conception of Irish food is kind of weird. I mean,
our conceptions of a lot of other cuisines are pretty weird.
To be fair, don't necessarily have anything to do with
(24:33):
what people eat in that actual place. But okay, I've
I've read it posited like in a really good academic
paper actually by one Lucy m Long called the Travels
of Soda Bread from everyday staple to Heritage Food. She
posited that like, for Irish immigrants, you know, most of
whom came to America during the famine in the eighteen hundreds,
(24:57):
you know, their food ways were all already severely interrupted,
and when they got here, they faced a lot of discrimination,
and for whatever combination of reasons, cuisine was not really
part of what they tried to bridge the cultural gap
with here the way that we've seen with some other
immigrant populations. And so for some heck in reason, American
(25:25):
Irish soda bread recipes often do call for both raisins
and caraway seeds, like going back to like the nineteen seventies.
Speaker 1 (25:34):
At least.
Speaker 2 (25:36):
There was a real cakey version with those two things
published in the nineteen nineties update of the Joy of Cooking.
I don't know whether that's like a cause or a
symptom of its current popularity. I don't think that either
ingredient is like strictly unheard of in Irish soda breads,
(25:57):
but it is confounding that Americans have glommed onto that combo.
It is confounding. I read too much about this, you guys.
On the upside, I was still awake for the lunar eclipse,
(26:19):
so that's great.
Speaker 1 (26:21):
Hey, that is an upside. It was lovely. The moon
is cool. The moon is cool. It was so clear
last night too. Oh my goodness.
Speaker 2 (26:35):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (26:37):
Well, I know we've already heard from listener Bart about this,
but please listeners write in, because, for sure, the recipe
I feel like most of the recipes I ran into
had caraway seeds. I did not add raisins for sure, No,
(26:59):
But I don't know, I can't remember, or maybe that
was just a me thing, or I actually don't hate raisins.
Speaker 2 (27:03):
I just was like, not not not say raisins. Yeah, yeah,
I've seen it. I've seen either one or the other
both in a lot of American recipes and also a
lot of American recipes do tend to be more cake
like like with those with like like butter and eggs
(27:24):
and stuff like that. So yeah, I don't know which,
strangely is like not how I've ever really encountered it.
I like, I like I know that like friends have
made it for me. I've had it at restaurants, probably
around Saint Patrick's Day, and it's been bread just like.
Speaker 1 (27:41):
Nice, like like a like a good bread.
Speaker 2 (27:43):
I don't know.
Speaker 1 (27:45):
Hmm. Wow, listeners, clearly we need you let us know
your experience with Irish soda bread. But in the meantime,
I think that's what we have to say for now.
I think it is.
Speaker 2 (28:02):
And we do already have some listener mail for you,
and we are going to get into that as soon
as we get back from one more quick break for
a word from our sponsors.
Speaker 1 (28:19):
And we're back. Thank you sponsor, Yes, thank you, and
we're back with the Snooth Rise Rise. Yeah. Okay, all
Eric wrote, short bread cookies are definitely a wonderful little treat.
(28:40):
The regular simple shortbread is great with tear coffee with
maybe a dab of a little preserved or cream on them,
or even both. While I will eat rounds or sticks,
I tend to prefer the sticks. They are good straight
up or dipped in the beverage. A lot of people
do not like flavored ones. I think they do have
a place, especially if done right. I think that flavored
(29:03):
shortbread should be mildly flavored. A nice lemon or orange
with a cup of spiced chai are one of my favorites.
Get an earl gray shortbread a nice cup of warmed,
slightly sweetened vanilla milk, Dip the short bread in the
milk and enjoy the milk is really easy as well.
A cup of milk that you like about a tea
(29:23):
spoon of sugar, a splash of vanilla extract, and warm
on the stove or in the microwave. For once, I
was actually just ahead of an episode. The Carowe episode
came out a day after I made a kelbasa dish
with it, and I was planning on using it again
the evening it came out. I try to keep caroe
seed handy as it can provide a nice change to
(29:45):
some dishes, and we have a couple that need it.
My wife has this Norwegian meatball recipe that needs it
along with dill seed. If one of them is missing,
the dish does not taste right. I love the sort
of anis pepper and citrus notes. And then Eric included
a recipe and if anybody wants it, it was kilbossa
(30:06):
and cabbage scalet recipe, right An, We'll send it to you.
Oh yeah, sounds delicious.
Speaker 2 (30:12):
Yeah, I love I love sausage plus cabbage dishes. So
this is a thing that occurs across multiple cuisines from
around the world, and it is amazing. Every time. I'm like, yes,
for some reason, that is just the best.
Speaker 1 (30:31):
Yes, it is. It is. I have a friend who's
on a real cabbage kick lately, which is kind of
thing to say, Yeah, but I should I should pass
this along to her. Absolutely, She's like, tell me all
the ways I can eat cabbage. I finally discovered how
good it can be, and.
Speaker 2 (30:47):
I'm like, a, yeah, it's er it's so good and.
Speaker 1 (30:51):
It lasts really long. One thing I learned during the pandemic, right,
cabbage is one of your it's gonna last longer than
a lot of your other vegetable pandemic knowledge. Oh yeah,
but yes. Also, I mean this sounds going back to
like the book and the fog. Having a nice warm
(31:12):
drink and some short bread that sounds really lovely. That
makes me want to curl up under a blanket.
Speaker 2 (31:19):
Oh yeah, yeah, that's blanket fort territory for sure. Yeah yeah. Also,
I do appreciate that this is not the first. Like, no,
you put the flavor of the tea in the shortbread
itself recommendation, which is great, right, Yeah, I.
Speaker 1 (31:37):
Bet that's delicious.
Speaker 2 (31:38):
Yeah. M Christine wrote on this week's Strange News episode
of Stuff they Don't Want You to Know the subject
of the X Men's aircraft came up and Ben Bolan,
who really should know better, referred to it as the
X Wing. This was even worse than when you referred
(32:02):
to the Transformers all life, Annie to get two major
nerd properties mixed up like that. I thought Ben's nerd
credentials were impeccable, just in case. The X Men's jet
is most commonly called the Blackbird h in the comics, animations,
and movies. It's very occasionally called the ex jet, but
that mostly seems to be the lego version X Wing. Indeed,
(32:26):
George Lucas would have a conniption. I need you to
revoke all their NERD cards immediately.
Speaker 1 (32:33):
I'm stunned. Stunned, I tell you, whoa, Christine, this shall
not stand. I love that you wrote to us about this.
I'm you were right to contact us. We need to
deal with this.
Speaker 2 (32:51):
Who a you gonna call like that's yeah. I hope
that you also dragged Ben Bolan like two his face.
Speaker 1 (33:01):
But that is a pretty egregious error. And I say,
this is my My error was egregious, But I I
give myself a little wiggle room because it was a
D and D mix up that really happened on my
end because in our D and D campaign there is
something called the all and all spark. Is what I
(33:22):
should have said. It was a major mistake. I I
don't deny that, but I think this X Wing X men,
this is We're gonna have to have a serious meeting
with him.
Speaker 2 (33:41):
Set up a performance review, be like, look, this is
unacceptable here. Oh my goodness, yeah, yeah, it shall not stand.
Speaker 1 (33:56):
Uh well, no, we'll we'll formulate the best way to handle.
Speaker 2 (34:04):
Yeah, this is but something has to be done, that's
for sure.
Speaker 1 (34:09):
Absolutely absolutely, thank you Christine for bringing this to our attention.
Speaker 2 (34:18):
Oh gosh, so good.
Speaker 1 (34:23):
Thanks to both of these listeners for writing in. If
you would like to write to as you can, Our
email is Hello at savorpod dot com.
Speaker 2 (34:30):
But we're also on social media. You can find us
on Blue Sky and Instagram at saber pod, and we
do hope to hear from you. Savor is a production
of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from my Heart Radio, you
can visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you
listen to your favorite shows. Thanks as always to our
super producers Dylan Fagan and Andrew Howard. Thanks to you
for listening, and we hope that lots more good things
(34:52):
are coming your way
Hello, and welcome to Savor production of iHeart Radio. I'm
any Rec and I'm.
Speaker 2 (00:11):
Lorn Vogelbaum, and today we have an episode for you
about Irish soda bread.
Speaker 1 (00:16):
Yes, and I think I know the answer, but I
will ask the question anyway. Any particular reason this was
on your mind?
Speaker 2 (00:23):
Yeah, you know, Saint Patrick's Day is coming up, and
for some reason, Americans have decided that's a really big
deal and that we should use it as an excuse
to celebrate various aspects of Irish culture, some of which
we've kind of made up. But soda bread is a
(00:46):
thing and it's got an interesting history. We were just
talking about it in that Caraway Seed episode and I
was like, yeah, why not dig into that thing.
Speaker 1 (00:59):
Yes, that was a heavy sigh because this was this
was a tricky one. Oh it went places. Oh my goodness,
it went on a lot of places. I've learned a lot.
I learned a lot about flower, but I did. I
told the story in the Caraway Seed episode. I had
(01:21):
made Irish soda bread with Carraway seeds and I over
it was like an overpower, and I thought something had
gone awry. That's like a pun, that's like a Okay, yes,
well and so, but then I was looking up you know,
(01:41):
is that even a thing in irishwa bread, traditional Irish
showa bread, And I got really mixed results. And we're
going to talk about that a bit in the in
this history outline. But I made it for Saint Patrick's
Day because I saw it every Saint Patrick's Day. It
would be Irish to bad bread. Okay, let me try.
(02:05):
I'm thinking I should give it another go.
Speaker 2 (02:07):
I think, yeah, and you don't have to put too
many caraway seeds in it. You can, you can put
no carawt seeds in it.
Speaker 1 (02:15):
I think the thing is, I've said this before, I
hate during dishes. So a lot of times I do
like the I do like the like just eyeball it method,
which usually works out. But I think I didn't understand
how powerful care seeds were. It was a meat, it
was a mimesteak. I don't blame the recipe. I think
(02:36):
it was me. But yeah, I should give it another
go because that's actually my only experience with our soda
bread is made.
Speaker 2 (02:45):
Yeah. Yeah, it's bread. It's delicious. Bread is baseline tasty,
so yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1 (02:54):
And I feel like a lot of the recipes. I
saw very simple, very.
Speaker 2 (02:58):
Simple, that's the concept, really, yeah.
Speaker 1 (03:01):
Which we'll talk about. So we have done other bread episodes.
You can see caraway seats. As we've been saying, have
we done baking soda? I thought we had no. Oh no, Okay,
(03:21):
I feel like maybe we've just talked about it a
lot because it did change a lot of things.
Speaker 2 (03:25):
Yeah, butter, we also have not. We also have not
done an episode on buttermilk.
Speaker 1 (03:30):
We we did a video kind of thing.
Speaker 2 (03:35):
We've done episodes on butter. We did cream of tartar,
which is a kind of related chemical levener that goes
with baking soda into baking powder.
Speaker 1 (03:49):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (03:52):
We we did talk about buttermilk in a video back
in the day.
Speaker 1 (03:55):
Yes, uh.
Speaker 2 (03:57):
In in terms of breads, buffets and biscuits are both
like particularly relevant.
Speaker 1 (04:04):
But yeah, oh goodness, well, I guess this is you
are question. Sure, a few questions, a few questions are raised,
But for this one Irish soda bread, what is it?
Speaker 2 (04:25):
Well, Irish soda bread is a type of quick bread,
meaning a bread that is leavened or raised quickly using
chemical leveners instead of yeast. The name soda bread refers
to the specific chemical levener traditionally used, which is baking soda.
Other cultures make soda breads. Today we're talking about the
Irish versions, and those come in a lot of varieties,
(04:49):
made with either white or whole wheat flour, sometimes with
other grains or flowers mixed in, like millet or oat
or barley for flavor or texture. These breads can be plain,
intended as like a starchy side for main dishes or
a base for like savory toasts or sandwiches, or they
can be sweetened, maybe studded with things like dried fruit,
(05:11):
eaten as a breakfast or a snack, maybe with toppings
like butter and jam. They they tend to be a
little bit dense, but but very tender and lightly chewy.
It's a category of breads that are easy and inexpensive
to make and very adaptable. They're they're only as fussy
as you want them to be. It's it's taking a
lot of the work out of bread, but like still
(05:34):
getting bread. It is just this like soft, thick bread
hack and it's sort of airily heavy and enveloping, like
a like a nice morning fog on a day off
when you can just curl up with a good book
about it.
Speaker 1 (05:53):
M I do love those days.
Speaker 2 (05:56):
Yeah, other days other than fog always reminding me of
silent hell I love. I love it inside though, right,
don't go outside.
Speaker 1 (06:10):
Then you get silent floor the room. And you know,
we introduce another problem by saying side anyway, that one's
for the nerds out there, and just.
Speaker 2 (06:20):
Don't go through the hair or mirror.
Speaker 1 (06:21):
I don't know like that anyway.
Speaker 2 (06:29):
Okay, back to soda bread. That's a good peek inside
just what Annie and I are operating on all the time. Yep,
soda bread. Okay, So let's talk about chemical leveners. These
are a category of leveners that produce bubbles of carbon
dioxide and dough, either due to a chemical reaction when
(06:52):
you mix the dough's ingredients together or due to thermal
decomposition when you bake the dough. Baking soda aka sodium
bicarbonate can actually do both. It's a base on the
pH scale and will react with acids to release carbon
dioxide and yes, in the oven, if there's any baking
(07:12):
soda left over after that acid base reaction, baking soda
will break down and release carbon dioxide. You actually kind
of want to avoid that because it'll leave like a
sort of bitter, soapy taste behind. You're sort of looking
to use it all up in that acid base reaction.
And all of this is in contrast to yeast raised breads,
which rely on yeast microbes to poop carbon dioxide. Yeast poop.
(07:41):
This takes a few hours though, because you know, you
have to like grow a colony of yeast to do
this work for you, which is nice. I mean, it's tasty,
but it takes a while.
Speaker 1 (07:52):
I like that. Yeah, it feels like I'm like raising
an army or something like that. Yeah, and then we're
gonna take this bread over.
Speaker 2 (08:02):
And then immediately sacrificing it to the bread gods. Yeah. So,
at its most basic, soda bread can be made with
just flour, baking soda, a liquid, and an acid. The
flour and liquid make up the body of the dough,
and the baking soda and acid do their thing and
make it rise. You can technically just use like water
(08:24):
and a little bit of vinegar or lemon juice, but
that would be pretty bland. Classic recipes for soda breads
call for buttermilk, which covers both the liquid and acid.
Components and also gives you some nice like creaminess and
you know that milky buttery sort of flavor. But buttermilk
is traditionally a byproduct of making butter. You know, as
you concentrate the fats in milk to get butter, you
(08:46):
press out a lot of water and stuff which is buttermilk.
It's naturally acidic because again, if you're making butter, traditionally
you're going to culture your milk with lactic acid bacteria
during that process, and the bacteria are going to eat
some of the sugars and milk and poop acids. Bacteria
poop which help you separate and collect the fats from
(09:09):
the rest of the milk. They also poop some flavors
that make butter taste, you know, buttery. These days, the
buttermilk you finded stores is usually made independently of the
butter process to replicate those slightly tart buttery flavors. If
you can find real buttermilk, that's great, but you can
also mock them up at home by adding a little
bit of a lemon juice or vinegar to regular milk.
(09:33):
But okay, with chemical leveners, those bubbles are going those
carbon dioxide bubbles that are produced in the dough are
going to dissipate with time or if you work the
dough a bunch. So after you bring the ingredients together,
you generally want to like shape your loaf and get
it into the oven in pretty short order to get
the most lift out of it. Again, traditionally, you score
(09:56):
the top of that loaf with a deep X. That
that is, you cut like maybe like half an inch
down into the loaf in anex shape. Scientifically speaking, you
do this to allow the dough to expand upward as
much as possible as carbon dioxide and steam inflate it
in the oven. Without scoring the top of your loaf
(10:19):
can kind of stiffen and prevent that upward rise. Culturally,
people say that there's different reasons for doing that. We're
going to get it into that in the history section
just a little bit. I've read a lot of recipes
that really gussy soda bread up, making more of like
a cake, like a tea cake, or think like like
like an indulgent muffin, you know, something like banana bread
(10:41):
minus the banana, you know, you know, incorporating a lot
of rich ingredients like butter, sour, cream and or eggs,
and like kind of a lot of sugar. Sweeter versions
of soda bread might use raisins, golden raisins, currants, citrus zest,
or candied citrus peel. Soda bread that does include raisins
(11:01):
or currants is sometimes called spotted dog. Spotted dick, by
the way, is a related term for a baked good
with raisins or currants, but usually indicates like a denser,
more cakey dessert. I'd always wondered about that, never bothered
to look it up. Here we are, but yeah, that
the ease of baking soda bread means that the simpler
(11:22):
versions are certainly like a staple starch in some culinary traditions,
and can be eaten in you know, different formats any
as part of any meal or snack. For example, in
Ulster cuisine at the North end of the Island, soda
raised breads are often cooked as like more or less
flatbreads on the griddle, often in a round that's been
(11:44):
cut into quarters. Furthermore, I understand that in Ireland, whole
wheat soda bread is often not called soda bread. It's
called brown bread or wheaten bread, and folks will be confused.
Speaker 1 (11:58):
If you try to call that soda bread.
Speaker 2 (12:01):
It is raised with soda, but that's brown bread.
Speaker 1 (12:04):
It's different.
Speaker 2 (12:04):
I don't know, y'all, right now.
Speaker 1 (12:07):
Yeah, right in, I ran into that too. Okay, well,
what about the nutrition?
Speaker 2 (12:13):
Bread is nice? You know, whole wheat is better for
you than white wheat. It'll definitely fill you up. But
to keep you going, you know, pair with a fat
beat a vegetable, yeah.
Speaker 1 (12:25):
Yeah, heat a vegetable always. We have a couple of
numbers for you.
Speaker 2 (12:30):
Okay, we have zero numbers, but I put two cultural
points in here. So I did find some search results
for like a lot of different Irish culture festivals around
the United States that have soda bread bacon contests every year.
And I think I included this note specifically because in Atlanta,
(12:54):
old friend of the show chef Thomas McCowan has been
one of the judges. Such a good dude, what a
lovely human, right, yeah, showed us some bee hives.
Speaker 1 (13:08):
He showed us some beehives. And I happened to run
into him a lot at Dragon con Big NERD NERD events,
NERD Convention, and I'm usually in costume and he always
talks to me as if I'm on costume's amazing.
Speaker 2 (13:28):
Also, I am so happy to report that my googling
led me to an article published in the Pittsburgh City
Paper under the title yins or Yems of Yesteryear, Irish
soda bread.
Speaker 1 (13:46):
You can always tell when somebody really loves words a literation.
Speaker 2 (13:56):
Yeah, yeah, and Yin's is a person no favorite words.
So yeah, yeah, it's the you know, the Pittsburgh concept
of like y'all or or yuse guys or something like that.
Speaker 1 (14:09):
So yeah, that's pretty solid like that. Oh my goodness. Well,
we do have quite a history for you.
Speaker 2 (14:20):
Oh we do, and we are going to get into
that as soon as we get back from a quick
break for a word from our sponsors.
Speaker 1 (14:36):
A we're back, Thank you, sponsors, Yes, thank you. Okay,
So bread are bread like products are old? They're old. Yeah, yep.
Speaker 2 (14:48):
Bread making has been a practice in as far as
I know, every society that developed grain agriculture, it often
co developed with brewing because the yeasts responsible for making
for example, beer foamy and alcoholic are the same ones
that give yeast breads their lyft. Not that we knew
that before like the eighteen hundreds, but we knew that
(15:10):
it worked. Yeah, people, it would take yeast cultures from
breweries or keep a bread starter culture alive and then
use those to eleven breads. People did develop chemical leveners
around the world at different times. I read one theory
that the secret ingredient in fluffy Dutch gingerbread was potash
(15:31):
circa the thirteen hundreds, which is or I sound impressed
because that's early, but chemical levenors weren't really written about
in European accounts until the sixteen hundreds. That's when you
start seeing recipes that call for potash or for heartshorn
also called Baker's ammonia to leven baked goods. Potash is
made from wood fire ashes. When you add an acid
(15:52):
to it, it produces carbon dioxide bubbles. Baker's ammonia breaks
down when heated to release carbon dioxide. However, neither are
ideal because they have unpleasant flavors to them, like Baker's
ammonia is actually ammonium carbonate, which is smelling salts, which
are like specifically useful because they're stinky. In baked goods,
(16:15):
it produces ammonia along with the carbon dioxide, and that
one was considered more more pleasant than the potash. So
here we are until like the mid to late eighteen hundreds,
though either one of those or yeasts were what bakers
were mostly working with for leavening. But hey, speaking of bakers,
this is ostensibly an episode about bread.
Speaker 1 (16:40):
Ostensibly Ostensibly back in the old days in Ireland, the
type of flour largely available didn't really rise, so flat
griddle bread was the typical bread that was being made.
Speaker 2 (16:52):
Yeah, and very briefly because I but both of us
had the fear a little bit about reading about too
many types of flowers. There are different varieties of wheat
that contain more or less gluten and other proteins and stuff,
and before the late eighteen hundreds or so, most of
the wheat that was available in Ireland was soft wheat,
(17:15):
which does not contain much gluten. And gluten is what
forms up in a stretchy matrix in yeast raised breads.
You know, it's capable of both allowing a dough to
expand and then in the oven firming up to hold
onto pockets of air. And it is difficult to get
super fluffy breads from soft wheat, so it was more
(17:37):
common to stick with flatbreads. Although they were using some
yeast for rise in those.
Speaker 1 (17:43):
Yes, they were using barm or the foam on top
of fermented liquids like beer to get a little bit
of that rise. Yeah. When baking soda was invented, though,
the Iris quickly made use of it to give bread
products more.
Speaker 2 (17:59):
With that ride. Yeah, we probably need to do a
baking soda episode.
Speaker 1 (18:05):
You know. That's been on our list since we first started.
I'm aware it was one of my first pitches was
because I didn't know the difference between baking soda and
baking powder.
Speaker 2 (18:15):
Yeah, I mean baking powder as well, Like there's those
might be a simultane that there might be a single
topic because there's this time and history called the Baking
Powder Wars, which is yeah, at any rate, I'm pretty
sure that baking soda was discovered in eighteen oh one
(18:36):
and was available in Ireland by the eighteen thirties or so.
Speaker 1 (18:41):
Yes, problem for future US, but yeah, that would make
sense because the Irish brown soda bread of this time
was relatively cheap and simple to make, and a lot
of it was a case of trying to use up
food before it spoiled, especially during tough times. For example,
early so to bread. Written recipes out of Ireland date
(19:02):
back to about the eighteen thirties. This was after the
British had invaded and a lot of locals were struggling.
Many of these recipes didn't need yeast, didn't need eggs,
and used up milk.
Speaker 2 (19:15):
Yeah, buttermilk would have been pretty well available, though you
could always add an acid to regular milk, or you know,
possibly even slightly soured milk got thrown in before it
went totally off. I generally dislike the like. People were
using this as a way to get rid of spoiled food,
because that's like, people knew that spoiled food would make
you sick, So but lightly soured milk.
Speaker 1 (19:36):
Sure, and some people believed that the bread had health benefits.
An eighteen thirty six Irish newspaper mentioned that soda bread
was good for digestion and general gut health. A lot
of these early recipes were reported to be sweet.
Speaker 2 (19:57):
Yeah, they probably didn't mean sweet as in my we've
added sugar. Sugar was still expensive for a lot of
people and would have taken soda bread from being like
a staple food into the treat category. More likely, what
they meant by sweet was that it wasn't as tart
as sourdough, and today we think of sourdough as being
sort of an outlier flavor wise, but pretty much all
(20:21):
yeast risen breads prior to the eighteen seventies would have
had at least a little of a sourdough type tang
to it. The eighteen seventies being when Louis Pastor and
a bunch of bakery industry humans figured out that like
yeast is a living thing and they said about producing
like specific dependable strains of yeast and selling them. Before
(20:44):
that that the barm and the bread starter cultures that
people were using would have had wild bacteria and yeasts
that produced tart flavors in a bread. And yes, there
is acid in buttermilk, but most of that is canceling
out the baking soda and gets neutralized flavor wise.
Speaker 1 (21:02):
So yeah, well, okay, So going back to that X
that's carved into the top of the bread. According to
a few articles I read this, there's a lot of
superstitions around it, including letting out the fairies, or that
it keeps the devil out.
Speaker 2 (21:22):
I think I think lets the devil out is I
think it's lets out either the devil or the fairies both.
Speaker 1 (21:28):
I'm not sure. Yeah, well, listeners, please write in because
these are always fun, but you know, sometimes I don't
know if I'm not from there, people write in. Please. Yes,
Our soda bread really took off after the Potato famine,
which took place between eighteen forty five to eighteen fifty.
Speaker 2 (21:48):
Yeah, and this is probably a thing you've heard of.
Speaker 1 (21:53):
It.
Speaker 2 (21:53):
It's a blight on the potato crops that the British
landlord class had kind of basically forced a monoculture in
which most local farmers depended on for sustenance. And the
whole thing was exacerbated because the ruling class was still
exporting a lot of what food was grown that wasn't
blighted during that time.
Speaker 1 (22:15):
So that's bad.
Speaker 2 (22:18):
During like the really hard times the famine, wheat flour
might have been beyond the reach of lots of people,
but certainly in the years following it, wheat products like
soda bread became like sustenance staples. Also that aligns with
when baking soda started being industrially produced and was therefore
more available. Soda bread did fall a bit out of
(22:41):
fashion in Ireland around the turn of the twentieth century,
you know, like manufactured yeast and high gluten flour became
commercially available, and bakery made shopbread was more popular with
those who could afford it.
Speaker 1 (22:55):
Yes, and people sold and or delivered this via horse
and bug. Oh yeah, okay. Soda bread had a comeback
though in the nineteen sixties at nice hotels frequently paired
with smoked salmon, which is a pretty far cry from
its historical association with tough times. It does seem the
(23:19):
modern addition of raisins and caraway seeds was more of
an American thing or something of the past.
Speaker 2 (23:27):
Okay, this one is complicated, Yeah, all right, So dried currants,
not raisins. Dried currents were being used in soda raised
baked goods in Ireland in the eighteen hundreds. That's when
that term spotted dog originated, and a current soda or
other fruit soda bread was probably like a special occasion
(23:50):
treat around that time. Raisins were less common, I think,
and are indeed an American substitute for currents. Caraway was
being used in Irish cooking in the eighteen hundreds as well,
and in baked goods like cakes, like deep into the
nineteen hundreds. I think, I think currents still show up
(24:11):
in like snack soda breads today, but caraway is considered
sort of old fashioned in sweet baked goods in Ireland.
Y'all write in and like I will say, like the
American conception of Irish food is kind of weird. I mean,
our conceptions of a lot of other cuisines are pretty weird.
To be fair, don't necessarily have anything to do with
(24:33):
what people eat in that actual place. But okay, I've
I've read it posited like in a really good academic
paper actually by one Lucy m Long called the Travels
of Soda Bread from everyday staple to Heritage Food. She
posited that like, for Irish immigrants, you know, most of
whom came to America during the famine in the eighteen hundreds,
(24:57):
you know, their food ways were all already severely interrupted,
and when they got here, they faced a lot of discrimination,
and for whatever combination of reasons, cuisine was not really
part of what they tried to bridge the cultural gap
with here the way that we've seen with some other
immigrant populations. And so for some heck in reason, American
(25:25):
Irish soda bread recipes often do call for both raisins
and caraway seeds, like going back to like the nineteen seventies.
Speaker 1 (25:34):
At least.
Speaker 2 (25:36):
There was a real cakey version with those two things
published in the nineteen nineties update of the Joy of Cooking.
I don't know whether that's like a cause or a
symptom of its current popularity. I don't think that either
ingredient is like strictly unheard of in Irish soda breads,
(25:57):
but it is confounding that Americans have glommed onto that combo.
It is confounding. I read too much about this, you guys.
On the upside, I was still awake for the lunar eclipse,
(26:19):
so that's great.
Speaker 1 (26:21):
Hey, that is an upside. It was lovely. The moon
is cool. The moon is cool. It was so clear
last night too. Oh my goodness.
Speaker 2 (26:35):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (26:37):
Well, I know we've already heard from listener Bart about this,
but please listeners write in, because, for sure, the recipe
I feel like most of the recipes I ran into
had caraway seeds. I did not add raisins for sure, No,
(26:59):
But I don't know, I can't remember, or maybe that
was just a me thing, or I actually don't hate raisins.
Speaker 2 (27:03):
I just was like, not not not say raisins. Yeah, yeah,
I've seen it. I've seen either one or the other
both in a lot of American recipes and also a
lot of American recipes do tend to be more cake
like like with those with like like butter and eggs
(27:24):
and stuff like that. So yeah, I don't know which,
strangely is like not how I've ever really encountered it.
I like, I like I know that like friends have
made it for me. I've had it at restaurants, probably
around Saint Patrick's Day, and it's been bread just like.
Speaker 1 (27:41):
Nice, like like a like a good bread.
Speaker 2 (27:43):
I don't know.
Speaker 1 (27:45):
Hmm. Wow, listeners, clearly we need you let us know
your experience with Irish soda bread. But in the meantime,
I think that's what we have to say for now.
I think it is.
Speaker 2 (28:02):
And we do already have some listener mail for you,
and we are going to get into that as soon
as we get back from one more quick break for
a word from our sponsors.
Speaker 1 (28:19):
And we're back. Thank you sponsor, Yes, thank you, and
we're back with the Snooth Rise Rise. Yeah. Okay, all
Eric wrote, short bread cookies are definitely a wonderful little treat.
(28:40):
The regular simple shortbread is great with tear coffee with
maybe a dab of a little preserved or cream on them,
or even both. While I will eat rounds or sticks,
I tend to prefer the sticks. They are good straight
up or dipped in the beverage. A lot of people
do not like flavored ones. I think they do have
a place, especially if done right. I think that flavored
(29:03):
shortbread should be mildly flavored. A nice lemon or orange
with a cup of spiced chai are one of my favorites.
Get an earl gray shortbread a nice cup of warmed,
slightly sweetened vanilla milk, Dip the short bread in the
milk and enjoy the milk is really easy as well.
A cup of milk that you like about a tea
(29:23):
spoon of sugar, a splash of vanilla extract, and warm
on the stove or in the microwave. For once, I
was actually just ahead of an episode. The Carowe episode
came out a day after I made a kelbasa dish
with it, and I was planning on using it again
the evening it came out. I try to keep caroe
seed handy as it can provide a nice change to
(29:45):
some dishes, and we have a couple that need it.
My wife has this Norwegian meatball recipe that needs it
along with dill seed. If one of them is missing,
the dish does not taste right. I love the sort
of anis pepper and citrus notes. And then Eric included
a recipe and if anybody wants it, it was kilbossa
(30:06):
and cabbage scalet recipe, right An, We'll send it to you.
Oh yeah, sounds delicious.
Speaker 2 (30:12):
Yeah, I love I love sausage plus cabbage dishes. So
this is a thing that occurs across multiple cuisines from
around the world, and it is amazing. Every time. I'm like, yes,
for some reason, that is just the best.
Speaker 1 (30:31):
Yes, it is. It is. I have a friend who's
on a real cabbage kick lately, which is kind of
thing to say, Yeah, but I should I should pass
this along to her. Absolutely, She's like, tell me all
the ways I can eat cabbage. I finally discovered how
good it can be, and.
Speaker 2 (30:47):
I'm like, a, yeah, it's er it's so good and.
Speaker 1 (30:51):
It lasts really long. One thing I learned during the pandemic, right,
cabbage is one of your it's gonna last longer than
a lot of your other vegetable pandemic knowledge. Oh yeah,
but yes. Also, I mean this sounds going back to
like the book and the fog. Having a nice warm
(31:12):
drink and some short bread that sounds really lovely. That
makes me want to curl up under a blanket.
Speaker 2 (31:19):
Oh yeah, yeah, that's blanket fort territory for sure. Yeah yeah. Also,
I do appreciate that this is not the first. Like, no,
you put the flavor of the tea in the shortbread
itself recommendation, which is great, right, Yeah, I.
Speaker 1 (31:37):
Bet that's delicious.
Speaker 2 (31:38):
Yeah. M Christine wrote on this week's Strange News episode
of Stuff they Don't Want You to Know the subject
of the X Men's aircraft came up and Ben Bolan,
who really should know better, referred to it as the
X Wing. This was even worse than when you referred
(32:02):
to the Transformers all life, Annie to get two major
nerd properties mixed up like that. I thought Ben's nerd
credentials were impeccable, just in case. The X Men's jet
is most commonly called the Blackbird h in the comics, animations,
and movies. It's very occasionally called the ex jet, but
that mostly seems to be the lego version X Wing. Indeed,
(32:26):
George Lucas would have a conniption. I need you to
revoke all their NERD cards immediately.
Speaker 1 (32:33):
I'm stunned. Stunned, I tell you, whoa, Christine, this shall
not stand. I love that you wrote to us about this.
I'm you were right to contact us. We need to
deal with this.
Speaker 2 (32:51):
Who a you gonna call like that's yeah. I hope
that you also dragged Ben Bolan like two his face.
Speaker 1 (33:01):
But that is a pretty egregious error. And I say,
this is my My error was egregious, But I I
give myself a little wiggle room because it was a
D and D mix up that really happened on my
end because in our D and D campaign there is
something called the all and all spark. Is what I
(33:22):
should have said. It was a major mistake. I I
don't deny that, but I think this X Wing X men,
this is We're gonna have to have a serious meeting
with him.
Speaker 2 (33:41):
Set up a performance review, be like, look, this is
unacceptable here. Oh my goodness, yeah, yeah, it shall not stand.
Speaker 1 (33:56):
Uh well, no, we'll we'll formulate the best way to handle.
Speaker 2 (34:04):
Yeah, this is but something has to be done, that's
for sure.
Speaker 1 (34:09):
Absolutely absolutely, thank you Christine for bringing this to our attention.
Speaker 2 (34:18):
Oh gosh, so good.
Speaker 1 (34:23):
Thanks to both of these listeners for writing in. If
you would like to write to as you can, Our
email is Hello at savorpod dot com.
Speaker 2 (34:30):
But we're also on social media. You can find us
on Blue Sky and Instagram at saber pod, and we
do hope to hear from you. Savor is a production
of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from my Heart Radio, you
can visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you
listen to your favorite shows. Thanks as always to our
super producers Dylan Fagan and Andrew Howard. Thanks to you
for listening, and we hope that lots more good things
(34:52):
are coming your way
Savor News
Hosts And Creators
Anney Reese
Lauren Vogelbaum
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