The place to Strive New England’s Most Well-known Bread Traditions

Anadama Bread

On the Paul Revere Heritage Web site in Canton, Massachusetts, Northern Spy isn’t just a restaurant, it’s a residing historical past museum for meals geeks. Co-owner, govt chef, and meals historian Marc Sheehan interprets many New England traditions, together with anadama bread and Boston brown bread, typically known as New England brown bread. As Sheehan describes it, the same components of anadama and brown bread converse to a number of historic developments, together with the usage of cornmeal, which Europeans traded for or stole from Native People when the brand new arrivals’ preliminary wheat plantings failed; rye, one of many first European grains to efficiently develop in the US; wheat, as soon as that might be traded for or grown; and molasses, a key product of the transatlantic slave commerce.

Anadama bread is a savory baked loaf with a touch of sweetness, usually sliced for sandwiches, and nonetheless made at a good variety of prime spots, together with A&J King Artisan Bakers in Salem, Massachusetts; Abigail’s Bakery in Weare, New Hampshire; Evening Strikes in South Portland, Maine; and Puritan & Firm in Cambridge, Massachusetts, the place proprietor Will Gilson loves it for toast as a result of the cornmeal makes the bread a bit denser and the molasses enhances a superb salty butter.

Brown Bread

Fashionable New England brown bread is far sweeter, a phenomenon that developed over time as high-society varieties added further molasses to indicate off their wealth. It’s additionally steamed extra like a British pudding, although it nonetheless will get utilized in savory settings. The Industrial Revolution led to brown bread being canned for longevity; the best-known instance is made by B&M, which additionally produced baked beans at its iconic cannery in Portland, Maine, for many years earlier than shifting manufacturing to the Midwest in 2021. Amy Traverso, senior meals editor of Yankee journal and co-host of the PBS collection Weekends with Yankee, notes that R.E. Kimball & Firm nonetheless makes a model regionally, welcoming the general public to its manufacturing facility outlet in Amesbury, Massachusetts, in addition to co-packing for companies like Calef’s Nation Retailer in Barrington, New Hampshire.

Lower off each side of the can, slide out the bread, slice it up, and serve it with franks and beans for a traditional New England “bean suppah.” Sheehan dials again the sweetness of his steamed brown bread and serves it with smoked bluefin pate, crème fraîche, and pickled onions — it’s based mostly on the combo of smoked salmon and cinnamon-raisin bagels, which he had “a bizarre factor for” as a child and has become knowledgeable signature.

Parker Home Roll

The Parker Home Roll was invented at Boston’s storied Parker Home lodge, now the Omni Parker Home, within the 1870s. The tender, butter-filled and -brushed roll that always graces the dinner desk at vacation celebrations will get its distinct dimpled form from being folded earlier than baking, which helps you pull it aside for buttering. It was “the impressed creation of an in-house German baker named Ward,” based on Susan Wilson, the Omni Parker Home’s historian. Imitators popped up rapidly, however “the rolls’ exact components, by the way, remained a well-kept secret till 1933, when, based on legend, Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt requested the recipe be forwarded to them in Washington.” Bakery supervisor Laura Figueroa goes by means of about 220 Parker Home rolls per day, promoting them by the dozen on the resorts’ two eating venues, Parker’s Restaurant and the Final Hurrah.

The Parker Home roll is among the best historic breads to seek out in New England lately, particularly for those who’re not finicky in regards to the fold, as many recipes now skip it. The beloved New Rivers rolls, topped generously with Parmigiano-Reggiano at New Rivers in Windfall, Rhode Island, aren’t technically Parker Home rolls, however they’re at the least religious descendants. Identical with those at Puritan & Firm, which matches by means of 30,000 Parker Home rolls per 12 months — they’re made with loads of milk, eggs, butter, and potato flour to make sure they’re as pillowy as anticipated even with out the attribute seam, they usually’re served heat with whipped cultured butter.

Suzy Sapir, founding father of seasoning firm Hippy Pilgrim in Plympton, Massachusetts, recommends the rolls at A&J King Artisan Bakers, which stone-mills its grains in-house. Northern Spy serves Parker Home rolls on weekends with rotating add-ons like scorching buttered lobster or smoked braised beef. You’ll additionally discover fluffy Parker Home rolls at Harvey’s Bakery & Espresso Store in Dover, New Hampshire, and a few of Traverso’s favorites with whipped maple butter at The Purple Rooster on the Woodstock Inn & Resort in Woodstock, Vermont.

Shaker Squash Bread

The recipe for Shaker raised squash bread got here from Canterbury Shaker Village in Canterbury, New Hampshire. These tender, wealthy yeasted rolls get their stunning yellow hue and slight sweetness from pureed squash, a cornerstone of the Three Sisters, the Indigenous methodology of agriculture wherein squash grows harmoniously with corn and beans. Now that the Shakers, a celibate spiritual order, solely have two residing members left — at Maine’s Sabbathday Lake Shaker Village — this bread has turn into laborious to seek out, however The Crust and Crumb Baking Firm in Harmony, New Hampshire, nonetheless makes them below the identify Shaker Squash Rolls, particularly round Thanksgiving. In any other case, you’re extra more likely to see seasonal pumpkin dinner rolls at bakeries, that are arguably the identical factor — a pumpkin is a squash, in spite of everything.