Start Date
31-5-2022 2:45 PM
End Date
31-5-2022 3:00 PM
Description
Soda bread, a class of quick breads using baking soda and usually buttermilk as the rising agents, is today firmly associated with Ireland. It is presented internationally in the food industry, cookbooks, and tourism materials, as embodying Irish history and culture. As such, it has come to be seen as a heritage food. Not surprisingly, its history and contemporary reality are more complicated, as is Irish cultural identity in general. Three geographic sites for this identity are the Republic of Ireland (Ireland), Northern Ireland (Ulster), and the U.S. Not only does the bread appear in different forms and play different roles in daily and celebratory meal systems within these locations, but the heritage it represents also varies, reflecting distinctive political, economic, and cultural histories.
In this paper, I look at the “travels” of soda bread from quotidian, everyday staple to heritage food. I focus on this trajectory in the U.S. but contextualize it within the other two localities. Soda bread illustrates the complexities of heritage as a concept and is a reminder that the heritigization process is neither uniform, linear nor embraced by all members of a culture.
DOI
https://doi.org/10.21427/ke3e-ms30
The Travels of Soda Bread: From Everyday Staple to Heritage Food
Soda bread, a class of quick breads using baking soda and usually buttermilk as the rising agents, is today firmly associated with Ireland. It is presented internationally in the food industry, cookbooks, and tourism materials, as embodying Irish history and culture. As such, it has come to be seen as a heritage food. Not surprisingly, its history and contemporary reality are more complicated, as is Irish cultural identity in general. Three geographic sites for this identity are the Republic of Ireland (Ireland), Northern Ireland (Ulster), and the U.S. Not only does the bread appear in different forms and play different roles in daily and celebratory meal systems within these locations, but the heritage it represents also varies, reflecting distinctive political, economic, and cultural histories.
In this paper, I look at the “travels” of soda bread from quotidian, everyday staple to heritage food. I focus on this trajectory in the U.S. but contextualize it within the other two localities. Soda bread illustrates the complexities of heritage as a concept and is a reminder that the heritigization process is neither uniform, linear nor embraced by all members of a culture.