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John Kelly's avatar

Boston brown bread has ancestors in the traditional "thirded" breads, in which thrifty housewives would stretch out their supply of costly wheat flour by substituting oats and/or rye for some of the wheat. In the New World, Indian meal took the place of oats. I wrote about it here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/19HmYtJqY4iiSRTvS8scWC4RvaAvO1rin5SW98z9PyCE/edit?usp=drivesdk

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Elisabet Juan Roca's avatar

Great! Thank you John!

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Lala's avatar

Love deep dives on food! So fascinating. Nice photography btw.

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Elisabet Juan Roca's avatar

Thank you so much Lala! So happy you enjoyed reading it 🥰

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Shell Plant's avatar

Just letting you know, I read this, and after your marvellous descriptions, went and ate three slices of brown bread. 😂

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Elisabet Juan Roca's avatar

Ah! I love this! Thank you for letting me know! Haha ❤️

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N Leana's avatar

Love your photography, as always! Somehow you've transformed all that unrelenting brown into a sensuous mahogany feast for the eyes 💐

Thanks for the deep delve as well - I remember a New England friend talking about how he missed his gran's Boston brown bread but never knew it had such a long history.

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Elisabet Juan Roca's avatar

Thank you so so much for the compliments! I put a lot of attention to how the colors come out in the photos, as it's not always easy to make brown appealing!

It's curious how we give for granted things that we've always had "around", and almost never question how they got here!

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Lucy House's avatar

In Walden, henry David Thoreau talked about rye and Indian bread but didn’t give any indication how to make it and it made me curious. I make rye bread often and I think the addition of cornmeal would make it interesting. Will have a go at it sometime soon!

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Elisabet Juan Roca's avatar

Thank you for this! I had forgotten it was all set in Massachusetts! Let me know if you like the bread when you make it :)

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