By Oonagh Calkin
     Soda bread is a delicious bread made with few ingredients. It is cheap and easy to make, which is probably why, back in rural Ireland in the 1950s, my grandmother’s family practically lived off it. These days, soda bread is a tradition in my family. Back then, it was a habit. Everyday, my grandmother's mother would bake soda bread for the family. My grandmother’s father would only eat homemade soda bread. 
     Soda bread is one of the ways my family is connected to our Irish heritage, even though we no longer live in Ireland, because when my grandmother was in her twenties, she met my grandfather, an Englishman. They wanted to marry, then immigrate to Canada. My grandparents were nervous going to my grandmother's father to ask permission to marry, because at the time, a union between an Englishman and an Irishwoman was unheard of. Not to mention, my grandfather was planning to take my grandmother thousands of kilometres away from her family. But my grandmother’s father was a reasonable man and said my grandfather could marry her and move to Canada on the condition that he took good care of her, and brought her back to Ireland every year to see her family.

     My grandfather kept that promise, and my mother and her brother grew up going to Ireland every year to visit their family. Over there, they’d walk the dogs my great-grandparents owned, explore the countryside, and of course, eat lots of soda bread. 
​     When my mother left home for university, her visits to Ireland got rarer. She longed for something to remind her of the country and her family that lived there, so she began searching for the recipe to the soda bread her grandmother had always made. But my mother had no luck finding anything like that recipe until a friend brought back a soda bread recipe she’d come across while studying in Ireland. My mom shared the recipe with my grandmother, and they both agree that it's the closest thing to my great-grandmother’s soda bread they’ve ever found.
     A decade ago, my great-grandmother died from Alzheimer's. My mom and the whole family were devastated, but that soda bread recipe means that we’ll always have something to remember her by. Nowadays, we bake soda bread for St-Patrick’s day and my grandmother’s birthday. Baking soda bread is a way to celebrate our Irish roots and remember our family. It is a small, but meaningful, tradition.

Ingredients:

2 cups of flour (1 cup whole wheat and 1 cup white)
1 cup of wheat bran
1 teaspoon of baking soda
1 pinch of salt
1-1.5 cups of buttermilk

Instructions:

Mix dry ingredients together. Add buttermilk and keep mixing until dough reaches a sticky consistency and is able to hold together. Shape dough into a disc/circle with your hands and place in greased cake pan or cake pan covered in a cookie sheet. Use knife to cut a cross in the top, then bake for 35 minutes at 350 degrees farenheit. Once baked, enjoy soda bread plain or with jam and butter.

Soda bread dough