Sometime ago I wrote about eating Boston Brown bread as a child, and a recipe I found at a blog called Tasting History. https://www.tastinghistory.com/episodes/bostonbrownbread ** I finally tried making the bread with my own special tweaks. Brown bread is notoriously made in cans, placed in boiling water, for a long time. I wasn’t sure I wanted to try reusing ‘tin’ cans, although I have plenty to choose from. I’ve made a three bean recipe once or twice recently and was surprised to discover that the top edges of the cans are much less lethal than the ones I remember from long ago. Almost smooth! I still don’t want to cook in them.

My solution was to try glass canning jars. But I also thought I’d try using a crock pot. This was not bright. The recipe calls for lightly boiling water for 3 1/2 hours, and I thought the crock pot would make this simple, since my crock pot always boiled everything else. Problem! I forgot that I disposed of that crock pot. Instead I have a very old crock pot that will not get much above 190ºF. I tested this statement extensively yesterday… Furthermore, this crock pot lost its lid, which I think is why I bought the new pot that was so uncrocklike that I got rid of it. And then forgot.

After mixing the batter and cooking it for five hours in the crockpot, with a makeshift lid, I took the bread out of one jar to test for doneness. For sure, it was cooked enough to eat so I dumped all the little jars out. (I cooked it for five hours because the water never boiled.)

I will say that the first mouthful, covered with butter did take me back to New Hampshire as a child, eating brown bread on Saturday night. The flavor was correct. The mouthfeel was close enough and as I remember, you can warm the bread in a frying pan, and crisp the edges. This would be a good idea, since this bread is a little — let’s say moist. (Update to the update: I tried frying a slice in butter. That was really tasty. Frying crisped the bread and let the flavor really shine.)

Would I make this bread again? The recipe calls for buttermilk, so I would have to be careful if I offer it when my children are around; we now have a milk allergy in the family. I had buttermilk because I make buns that use it, on feast days like Thanksgiving, and the milk allergic person just didn’t eat them. But I don’t really like having too many things around that are forbidden to someone. The adult is very adult about the situation, but the one-year old might find a crumb on the floor and that would be VERY bad. I compounded my buttermilk problem by buying a Half Gallon instead of a Quart, and I have to use it up.

On the other hand, the taste of the brown bread is very different, and I enjoyed having something quite different from my usual cooking. As my Experimental Palate said, it tastes sort of good for you, although with nearly a cup of molasses in it, I’m not sure it really qualifies as healthy. I think I might rather try some variant on plain rye bread, without caraway seed in it, to arrive at more of that taste. Caraway seed is an abomination.

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Here’s a picture of the pieces for a burse cut out of green vestment fabric. A burse is that object that goes on top of a chalice over the chalice veil, and opens up, so you can put things in it, before everything gets carried away behind the altar. So this is a bit of progress in my vestment construction. A picture of the completed burse would be more fun … but is not available … for obvious reasons.

** Rabbit Hole! When I went back to find the URL for the bread, I got to the great Molasses Flood of 1919. I haven’t followed up on it because I’m very busy, but YouTube has videos that look interesting.