Northern Ireland's artisan bakeries have banded together to preserve home baking skills, in the face of competition from supermarkets. Caroline Workman reports
When Robert Ditty took over the family bakery in the 1970s, he expected to witness the gradual disappearance of Northern Ireland's ethnic breads. However, 30 years on, while craft baking in the rest of Ireland and Britain is disappearing, these speciality breads, and many of the 150 home bakeries that make them, still exist.
"We are the envy of the English baker. We're still doing what he was doing 30 years ago and has lost." Competition from supermarkets is slightly less intense in Northern Ireland than in Britain, and bakers operate in the shelter of a predominantly rural culture. "There are very few towns and villages outside Belfast that don't have a butcher, baker and a greengrocer. Northern Ireland's people have a rural attitude to food, even in the city. If you meet people from Belfast in a supermarket, you'll find that they're only in there to buy certain items.
"The Northern Irish housewife has more in common with a French housewife, or an Italian housewife, than she does with her English counterpart. She's more likely to buy food on a daily basis and there is a strong tradition of the family eating together. It's slowly disappearing, but families still eat, once a week anyway, around one table. Tea is a big thing in Northern Ireland, too. You are likely to be offered a cup of tea and a bun, either homemade or bought in a home bakery, whereas across the water you will get a cup of coffee and a Penguin biscuit, or a mini Twix bar."
Ditty blames the complacency of bakers lulled by the lack of competition during years of political instability, as much as the arrival of supermarkets, for the dramatic closures of more than 350 home bakeries that have occurred in Northern Ireland in the past 10 years.
It's the unique character of the ethnic products themselves that has contributed most significantly to the success of the remaining bakers. "If you think of what has happened - we have lost more than 350 bakeries, but the flour usage figure hasn't dropped - the 150 bakeries that are left are using as much flour as 500 bakeries used to. We must be doing something right."
The formation of a new guild, the Artisan Bakers of Northern Ireland, bodes well for the continued success of Northern Irish breads. "The group is made up of people who are passionate about what they do, who have more than just a commercial interest in the future of Northern Irish baking, or Irish baking for that matter. The bonus of being a group is that we can source and sell corporately - promote ourselves and still be individuals.
"We're now looking at new ingredients. I think the ethnic bread range really needs a big change, a kick in the backside, because there was never anything done with it, no one ever expanded the range. It has been the same as long as I can remember. If anything, the range has decreased. We used to make things such as Indian farls, based on maize flour, a yellow meal. They had a very distinctive flavour. It's much easier to develop new products as a group than to work at it by yourself.
"People are interested in artisan bread again. Already this year 140 people have enrolled in the Dublin School of Bakery bread course, and none of them is young enough to go into the trade. These are people who want to be able to make bread at home, because they appreciate good food. I think more and more people will be going back to making things from scratch because of all the food scares, and because so many mass-produced foods are so bland. I know people who have built chicken runs in their homes so they can have proper free-range eggs."
Ditty takes a belts-and-braces approach to preserving the tradition about which he is passionate, and is building a library of old recipe books, fearing that there may be a time when the old skills are forgotten.
"In Northern Ireland we call bakeries 'home bakeries'. The origin of this was a woman who was a good baker and turned her front lounge into a shop. If you look at the majority of recipes for tray bakes, they're Women's Institute recipes, they are Mrs Jones's shortbread, teacakes, or whatever. Or else they originated in the farmhouse. Every woman over 50 or 60 years of age has a recipe for wheaten bread, and hers is always the best. These are the recipes a lot of our products are based on."
The bakers have been tweaking the production process too, making progress by retracing their footsteps. "If you look at a recipe for soda bread, the first thing you're told to do is sift the flour. People stopped doing that it's amazing how simple things like that get out of the system. We just bought a mechanical sifter and we sift every last mix of soda bread."
It's just this kind of information that is swapped at monthly meetings organised by the bakers to compare methods, share recipes and taste the results in order to perfect their art, and it's here they decide how to raise the profile of Northern Irish breads.
In recent times, the bigger bakeries have leapt on the "artisan" bandwagon, confusing consumers with misleading labelling, but Ditty has too much confidence to be unsettled by this.
"There are some people who buy commercially-produced, supposedly artisan breads and believe it is the real thing, but consumers will eventually realise the difference. Northern Irish consumers are very discerning about their breads, and most know that they can buy better product from the local bakeries."
NORTHERN IRELAND'S ARTISAN BREADS
SODA BREAD Substantial, chunky farls with a fluffy consistency, made with fresh buttermilk. Delicious toasted and served with melted butter and home-made jam.
POTATO BREAD Dense, earthy farls with a dappled brown surface that fry deliciously crisp in butter. Essential element of an Ulster fry.
BATCH BREAD A springy, soft, sourdough bread with a flavoursome crusty top, this square loaf is ideal for the ultimate Irish doorstep sandwich of honey roast ham or egg mayo and chives.
WHEATEN BREAD Light and nutty, buttered wheaten makes a great base for smoked salmon canapés.
Butter-rich and melt-in-the-mouth shortbread is a perfect accompaniment to desserts such as rhubarb fool, or simply enjoyed with a nice cup of tea.
Light, nutty and wholesome, these versatile biscuits are made with rolled oats. Try with coarse homemade pâté and caramelised onions, or with sliced vine tomatoes and flaked rock salt.
NORTHERN IRELAND'S ARTISAN BREADS
SODA BREAD Substantial, chunky farls with a fluffy consistency, made with fresh buttermilk. Delicious toasted and served with melted butter and home-made jam.
POTATO BREAD Dense, earthy farls with a dappled brown surface that fry deliciously crisp in butter. Essential element of an Ulster fry.
BATCH BREAD A springy, soft, sourdough bread with a flavoursome crusty top, this square loaf is ideal for the ultimate Irish doorstep sandwich of honey roast ham or egg mayo and chives.
WHEATEN BREAD Light and nutty, buttered wheaten makes a great base for smoked salmon canapés.
SHORTBREAD Butter-rich and melt-in-the-mouth shortbread is a perfect accompaniment to desserts such as rhubarb fool, or simply enjoyed with a nice cup of tea.
OATCAKES Light, nutty and wholesome, these versatile biscuits are made with rolled oats. Try with coarse homemade pâté and caramelised onions, or with sliced vine tomatoes and flaked rock salt.
FRUIT LOAF A sweet tea bread with a glossy, chestnut brown surface and packed with cherries, dried fruits, and nuts.
TYPICAL "WEE BUNS"
BANOFFEE CREAMS A shortcrust pastry shell filled with banana cream and topped with caramel fudge icing and a banana chip.
VIENNESE BISCUITS Swirls of butter shortbread sandwiched with buttercream and drizzled with chocolate.
GERMAN BISCUITS Crinkle-cut shortbread biscuits sandwiched with strawberry jelly, topped with icing and multicoloured dew drops.
RICE CRISPY SQUARES Chocolate and puffed rice topped with a layer of chocolate.
VANILLA SLICE Mille feuille pastry layers sandwiched with centre of vanilla custard, topped with icing and drizzled with chocolate.
MILLIONAIRE'S SHORTBREAD Layer of all-butter shortbread, topped with caramel - or mint - with a final layer of chocolate.
FONDANT FANCIES Chocolate, lemon and strawberry sponge slices, sandwiched with jam and butter cream, topped with cream and coated in pink, yellow or chocolate icing.