Pancakes and Other Bread

The bread that most people eat is called soda bread and it is made from buttermilk, flour and soda. Brown bread and wholemeal bread can also be made. Ginger bread is made from flour, milk, sugar and bread-soda and ginger while pancakes are made using eggs, flour, milk and salt and cooked on a pan over the fire. People long ago were very fond of potato cakes. The flour they used had a very dark colour. The people were very healthy then because they used to eat the crusts of the bread as well as the rest of the cake. There were hardly ever any toothaches as people didn’t like sweet cakes. They mostly made cakes made from bran.

Cleggan, Co. Galway

Collector: Teresa Newman

Informant: Unknown

Duchas, ‘The Schools’ Collection’, www.duchas.ie