A History of Irish Baking (Part 1)

Flatbreads to oatcakes.

Like the idea of Irish food, Irish baking is a difficult proposition. How do we define it? What are its limits? A complete understanding of Irish baking needs to not only take it any indigenous Irish baking tradition, which arises on the island of Ireland, but also the other baking traditions that became incorporated into story of baking on this island through migration and travel.

It is not enough to simply exclude the one over the other, nor it is a case of going in search of authenticity. Authenticity is the devil in disguise. Food stories are messy by their nature, because people have been traversing the globe for thousands of years. They bring their food customs with them, as well as the stories that they contain. Through new baking occasions these traditions and stories transform anew and further enhance novel food experiences that are subsequently passed on to the next generation.

Like the way in which I distinguished between Irish food and food in Ireland in An Irish Food Story (Nine Bean Rows, 2024), Irish baking and baking in Ireland need to be carefully considered. This is no way a clear-cut division between the two, and yet they are not the same tradition.

How then would one begin the story of Irish baking and baking in Ireland? Would it start with the smell of freshly baked soda bread, or white fruit scones, sitting on the sill of an Irish country kitchen window in the late 19^th or early 20th century? If I close my eyes, I can imagine my grandmother fulfilling this role, the Irish matriarch in her the kitchen, a little flour on her apron, standing by her iconic loaf or scones, the soft summer light failing over her face, happy. My grandma, as she was called, never bought a loaf of bread, or to be more precise, never bought a loaf of soda bread. She regularly bought white slice pan, though I’m not sure if that was for us kids, who came to stay with her on occasion, in her house in Mount Merrion, in Dublin.

Stout and treacle bread at Aniar Restaurant (© Ginger & Sage, 2019)

Is this the beginning of Irish baking? Surely not. Though this is where many accounts begin.

To understand the history of baking in Ireland, we would first need to go back to the beginning of people settling in Ireland. Back then, there was no grain, or at least no cultivated grain, in terms of agriculture. There were wild grains (barley and oats) of course. Mesolithic hunter-gatherers (circa 10,000–4,000 BCE) in Ireland may have made basic bread-like foods, although bread production was not as developed as during the Neolithic period. While Irish Mesolithic communities did not cultivate crops on a large scale, they may have used wild grains, seeds, and nuts to create primitive forms of bread.

At a site in northeastern Jordan dating to about 14,400 years ago, archaeologists found the earliest direct evidence of bread, made from wild barley, einkorn wheat, and tubers. Although not in Ireland, this suggests similar practices could have occurred wherever wild grains were available. Of course, this is all speculation. However, closer to home, at Starr Carr in England, grinding tools and plant residues from Mesolithic sites indicate processing of wild plants for food, possibly including bread-making.

How might Mesolithic bread have been made in Ireland?

1. Wild grains (barley, oats), seeds (lily), nuts (hazelnuts), and roots (such as cattail or sedge) would have been gathered.

2. Tools like stones and pestles were used to grind grains and seeds into a coarse flour.

3. Ground flour was mixed with water to create a paste or dough.

4. The dough or paste could be baked on heated stones, in the ashes of a fire, or over a flame, resulting in flat, unleavened bread.

However it is not until around 5,000-4,500BCE that baking arrives with the first farmers who brought agriculture to Ireland, changing the landscape forever, marking us as a people of the land, to this day.

Our first farmers, who milled cereals, such as emmer, on rudimentary quern stones (saddle querns) made unleavened flatbreads over the fire. What would this bread have tasted like? What were its influences? Due to the technology, this grain would have been coarse, and the resulting bread may have contained grit from the stones, but it was a bread none the less, and the effect produced some form of flat cake. This bread would have been baked over open fire, in ash, or in rudimentary clay ovens. However incongruous, this early bread-making tradition laid the foundation for Ireland's long-standing baking culture.

These Neolithic settlers brought new agricultural inventions that would change the face of the Irish landscape. Woodland was cleared to make way for fields and fuel. Animals were domesticated on pastures and enclosures. Cereals were planted, harvested, and stored.

Some historians argue that the agricultural revolution, which brought baking to Ireland, changed us for better and for worse. In the case of the former, we were free from being enslaved by the vicissitudes of the land: we were now in control. Yet, in the case of the latter, we left all our wild knowledge behind and left ourselves open to famine each time a crop failed. Whatever your judgement of the agricultural revolution, farming changed everything: from the way in which society was structured in Ireland, to our belief system, to the tools with which we shaped and crafted the land. It also introduced us to pottery which was essential for cooking and storying food.

It took four thousand years for the technology of farming to get to Ireland, from its discovery in the Levant. The next six thousand years would be defined by that revolution. Considering more than 60 per cent of our landmass is given over to agriculture, you could argue that we are but a small baby step away from this ancient revolution. It is impossible to pinpoint the exact moment when farming arrived in Ireland, its arrival was slow and steady, changing the country beyond recognition.

There is still much debate about whether immigrants originating from the Fertile Crescent in south-west Asia brought farming technology with them or whether the technology arrived and was adapted by the people who were already in Europe. This is significant considering our conception of Europe now. It begs the question, were the first farmers of Europe immigrants and if this is so, why do we reject so many immigrants now? It seems likely that farming or farmers arrived in waves, and there were many overlaps and interactions with the hunter-gatherers.

After emmer, wheat and barley, the arrival of oats in Ireland marks the next milestone for baking in Ireland. Oats arrived in Ireland during the Bronze Age (2000–500 BCE). Charred oat grains have been discovered at some Irish Bronze Age sites, suggesting that they were being grown, or at least used, albeit infrequently, during this time. But wheat, barley and rye were still the dominant crops.

The cultivation of oats becomes more prominent from the Iron Age (500BCE) onwards. This could be due to a change in weather during this period, as Brid Mahon observes in her book Land of Milk and Honey: The Story of Traditional Irish Food and Drink (1991). Oat’s ability to grow in poor soils as well as wet and damp conditions made them the more reliable crop for a pastoral population. As well as being used for porridge, oatcakes were also made with this crop.

The advent of the Iron age sees a refinement in technology for farming, with the introduction of iron tools, such as the Ard plough. This facilitated the cultivation of heavier soils and wetter conditions, allowing for oats to become the dominant cereal. New travellers were arriving, especially Celtic speaking ones from mainland Europe.

Oats cakes, a staple of the period, were made from oats, flour, water, and sometimes milk or buttermilk. These would have been cooked on heated stones or griddles made of stone or clay, a method of ‘baking’ that predates metal cookware. Though iron tools were common, metal cookware was rare and limited to high-status individuals or communities. Iron was primarily used for agricultural tools and weapons rather than domestic items.

It would take another thousand years for metal cookware to become common place in terms of everyday domestic cooking. It was not until the Early Medieval Period (5th–12th centuries CE) that bronze pots, griddles, and iron cauldrons appeared.

And the oven was still a long way away…

I hope you enjoyed this little introduction to baking in Ireland. The next part will deal with the early Medieval period up until the 17th century, which is when the potato arrived in Ireland.

We’ll see the further arrival of the Celtic speaking people, who would gradually blend with the indigenous cultures on the island, resulting in the emergence of Gaelic culture by the 5th century CE, a culture we now associate with Irishness.

It's remarkable to think that for the first 8,000 years of settlement on this island, there was no sense of national identity, or even a regional people associated with the idea of Irishness.

Below is a recipe for oat and dillisk cakes (I call them cookies) that we used to make in our café and wine Bar, Tartare (2017-2022). For me, the oat cakes evoke the past of Irish baking, predating both the Celtic and Gaelic way of life on this Island.

Oat and dillisk cakes

Ingredients

• 225g rolled oats

• 225g self-raising flour, sieved

• 225g butter

• 225g brown sugar (or honey)

• 2 tbsp apple syrup

• 2 tsp milled dillisk

Method

1. In a pot, melt the butter and the apple syrup with the milled dillisk and then add the sugar.

2. In a bowl, combine the oats and the flour.

3. Pour the melted butter over the oat and flour mixture and combine.

4. Use a little water to bind the mixture together.

5. Shape into cakes and bake at 180˚C for 10-15 minutes.

N.B. The cakes can also be rolled into a flat biscuit and cut with a cutter for a more uniform shape.