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Of late, like a child on Christmas Eve, I’ve found myself lying in bed, attempting to fast-track through the dark hours in order to get out the other end. And all in the name of an early-morning coffee and a slice of soda bread.
But I’m talking about the best of soda breads here. My local bakery does a version that is wild and nutty and deeply satisfying.
And like any soda bread, it’s also vaguely nostalgic and oddly sad, filled as it is with memories of flour-strewn kitchen tables and people long since gone.
Bread is, of course, the most basic form of food. Probably the first anything baked amongst the stones of a camp fire. It is the original smart food – the smartest of smart foods – in that it manages to traverse all societies and cultures. And in doing so, warp into myriad shapes and sizes which demonstrate any number of densities and flavours.
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Yet, while baguettes and bagels and the like have their place, they pale in comparison to their Irish cousin, opting as they do for crispiness over taste, crunch over texture and yes, you’ve got it, style over substance.
But there is a problem. For some reason, soda bread is rarely – make that never – viewed as either edgy or contemporary. Were a bunch of bakers assigned the task of deciding on a bread for say, the classiest of outdoor gatherings or funkiest of social get-togethers, we all know that soda bread wouldn’t even be in the mix. It’s all to do with the fact that soda bread is somehow seen as worthy and substantial, and for that you can read: so very ordinary.
Soda bread is a bread that simply fails to fit in with modern sensibilities. It’s not white. It’s not spongy. It’s not flat. And so bears not even the teeniest resemblance to all of those breads du jour.
Nor is it infused with olives or tomatoes or basil and especially not mozzarella, nor left out in the Italian sun and then moulded lovingly into shape by a cabal of local peasants.
And so soda bread has never slipped off the bread-board and onto the cutting edge of the culinary universe.
But does any of this matter? Not one bit. Soda bread, you see, is a bread secure in its own identity, content with its lot in life.
It has a quiet disdain for all things superficial, having no desire to engulf its consumer in a sea of bland airiness or condemn her to a life of bloatedness and regret.
Okay, sandwiches are not its thing. Anyone planning on slipping a slice of cheese or ham or what-have-you between two of those crumbly slices and then raising them from a plate needs to be calmly but firmly taken aside and made aware of the risks involved.
And as for opting for coleslaw or egg-salad, well such a carefree attitude towards existence is truly heart-warming but actually when you get right down to it, foolhardy and reckless nonetheless.
The issue here is that soda bread was around long before the sandwich era kicked in. It never got that memo about life being so terribly busy that food was to be ingested swiftly and matter-of-factly and preferably standing-up.
Soda bread has never embraced this kind of approach towards meals. It has an old-fashioned attitude instead, which involves people sitting at a table and passing the salt and asking about each other’s day.
But back to my local bakery. The bread is baked in-house and released on a gradual basis throughout the daylight hours. It comes in small, manageable, plastic wrapper-free loaves that are snapped up almost immediately.
I’ve left empty-handed on many an occasion and even wandered to the local park for a perusal of the Drumcondra ducks while waiting for the next batch to be taken out of the oven.
But once successfully purchased, it is promptly taken home, placed on a breadboard and sliced into again and again.
And so I occasionally find myself in bed picturing the kettle and coffee and butter and milk. And best of all, those grainy crumbs descending to the table as I take my first bite.
And believe me when I say, that once up and at it, it is every bit worth the wait.