Irish Barmbrack

 

Barmbrack, or for short brack, is a traditional yeasted bread with added sultanas and raisins and sometimes nuts. (Allen) In Ireland it is sometimes called Bairín Breac. Derived from the Irish word bairín meaning loaf and breac meaning speckled hence it literally means speckled loaf. Barmbrack is usually sold in flattened rounds, and served toasted with butter along with a cup of tea in the afternoon. To prepare this loaf, the sultanas and raisins are soaked overnight in the tea solution containing vanilla extract and irish whiskey. The dough is also not a traditional bread dough. It is a sweetened wet dough that remains quite sticky and does not need to be kneaded. Once in the pan, during Halloween, object are added to be baked into the dough as a fortune-telling game when you cut the slice. The object are usually a pea, a stick, a piece of cloth, a small coin, and a ring. Each item, when received in a slice, carried a meaning: the pea, the person will not marry that year; the stick, you would have an unhappy marriage or continually be in disputes; the cloth, would be bad luck or be poor; the coin, would bring good fortune and wealth; and the ring, would be wed within the year. (Kelly) I chose this food as I love to bake and anything seasonal with a twist is always fun.

The cultural aspect of barmbrack is that it brings the people together with tradition. In Northern Ireland, the population grew up on barmbrack and the Halloween tradition of fortune-telling. The tradition is taken seriously as Ireland is the birthplace of Halloween. Halloween to Ireland is like Thanksgiving to America. The upbringing of barmbrack was to give excitement/ to ease the families as October 31st marked the end of the summer and that was the time that the veil that separated the living and the dead was at its thinnest in Celtic religion. ( O’Shaughnessy) In today society in Ireland, they are no longer fighting off the evil spirits at Halloween, yet the tradition of barmbrack lived on. In a video, a women, by the name of Kerry Ann, goes around on the streets of Ireland asking people to try her brack and with that you get to see the citizens from all ages react to how they grew up with brack and how it played a big role in their Halloween experiences. (Ann) With her also being English you can see that the tradition and the taste for barmbrack did not stay in Ireland. It spread allowing others to be apart of the fortune-telling brack. Economically, barmbrack is a food that can be shared throughout the social classes. With brack being such a big deal, especially around Halloween, it it made sure to be made. It is like a dessert everyone can enjoy from the poorest to the richest. For the rich, barmbrack could be made with all high end ingredients. For the poor, the ingredients could be scrapped together. At the end, they both end up with the same bread and the same fun fortune-telling event.  

Work Cited

 

Allen, Darina (2012). Irish Traditional Cooking. Dublin: Gill and Macmillan. p. 278. ISBN 9780717154364.

 

Ann, Kerry. “Irish Fruit Loaf |’Barmbrack’| KerryAnn Dunlop – AD.” YouTube, YouTube, 14 Oct. 2016, youtu.be/xKgwUCYHoyk.

 

Kelly, Dara. “Top Ten Irish Halloween Traditions and Memories You May Share.” IrishCentral.com, IrishCentral, 6 Oct. 2018, www.irishcentral.com/culture/craic/top-irish-halloween-memories-traditions.

 

O’Shaughnessy, Kate. “Halloween Customs and Traditional Irish Barmbrack Recipe.” Mannings Bakery, 22 Oct. 2015, www.manningsbakeryshops.ie/blog/irish-halloween-customs-tradtional-brambrack-recipe/.