February 20, 2020 – Boston Brown Bread
I
put out a request for something from my New England. New England food runs deep in my psyche –
maple syrup tops the list, next comes Boston Brown Bread.
Recently
I went on a “hunt” for B & M Boston Brown Bread along with the B & M
baked beans that come in a cute little squatty jar at my local grocery
stores. In the last 10 years we’ve lost
a few grocery stores and are basically down to three stores now. I didn’t find brown bread in a can.
Occasionally,
I find the squatty jar of B & M baked beans and add one to my grocery cart
to keep my pantry stocked. But, I haven’t
seen any brown bread in years. [I think it is a case the manager of the store has to come from New England, or they don't stock it.]
But,
alas, I have had a hankering and I put out the word to my best friend, my
brother, Ken.
You
see, he still lives in Yankee land, in Massachusetts, and he laughed at me, but
he does remember that just about every Saturday night as kids we had hot dogs
and beans with B & M Brown bread from a can. Mom would hot water bath heat it then open
the can on both ends. The bread would slip out and she’d slice ½ in to ¾ inch
slabs of it. It was so hot and moist and
a pat or two of butter melted easily into the dark rich bread. YUM.
And, the fragrance of it, always warranted a raccoon sniff [see my blog:
November 4, 2016 ]
I
even remember Mom making brown bread from scratch every once in a while, which is
an art form in itself. You start with an
empty coffee can, something that you can’t really find these days in 2020
because most coffee is now sold in plastic bags or K-cups. I will have to look for a suitable metal can
so that I can try my hand at it again for nostalgia’s sake.
Yesterday
my brother, Ken, said he was at the post office sending me my CARE Package [I
guess he didn’t know that he would need to do this service for me since Mom has
passed away.]
At
the post office, he was chatting with the postmaster and said he was mailing
some Boston Brown Bread to his sister.
The postmaster said, “Yeah, I have to send it to my relatives in West
Virginia.”
It
is a small world, they both had a chuckle about sending the taste of New
England to distant relatives.
Meanwhile,
if you are curious about what I am raving about, below is a link to an article
about B & M Brown Bread, still manufactured in Portland, Maine.
If
you want to try to make it yourself, the above link has an additional link to “Granny’s
Brown Bread”. The recipe I have for
Boston Brown bread comes from The Fanny Farmer Cookbook by Fannie Merritt
Farmer, and uses one cup sour milk or 7/8 cup sweet milk or water instead of the
sour cream listed in Granny’s Brown Bread recipe. Either recipe – you have to devote 2 ½ to 3 tentative hours to the process.
If
you think you haven't that kind of time, ask a friend or relative who lives in New
England to send you a couple of cans.
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