"Anna dam'er" Bread

On Christmas Eve, I made the food that is probably most special to me.

Growing up, my Grandma always made Anadama bread for holidays. I'm not sure what it is about this bread...but it's amazing. This was my first time making it, but I felt a very strong urge to make it for one main reason. This was the first Christmas without my Grandma, who passed this September. I am not exaggerating when I say that she was the glue of our family. I should note that when I say family, I mean the 50+ members of our family. My Grandma and Grumpy (as we call my grandfather) had 10 kids, who in turn procreated and gave them 29 grandkids. Those grandkids are now having kids...anyway- you get the picture- my family is huge. For such a big family, we are all very close and I think we were dreading thinking of spending the holiday without her. 

I wanted to make the bread to feel closer to her again. I realized that this may be the last holiday eating the Andama bread. If I do indeed have to go gluten free, than this will be the food I will miss the most.

My grandma would always burn a batch for my grandfather, saying that he always liked the burnt ones. Now, I've wondered for years if this is true. I'm thinking that the story may be that she burned a batch once and he said to her, "Oh, don't worry honey, I like the burned ones." Alas, for as long as I can remember, he likes his andama bread burned. 

Being a historian, I was curious about the history of this beloved bread, so I did a little search on a historical newspaper database that I subscribe to. The Troy Record from Troy, New York, had an article on November 21, 1963 that stated: "The story of Anadama Bread is a New England legend. For those who don't know it, the story goes that a Rockport, Mass, fisherman, tired of the corn meal mush and molasses his wife, Anna, gave him for supper every night, decided to do something about it. Muttering "Anna dam'er" he mixed the molasses much with flour, added some yeast and baked it into bread. And to this day, corn meal-molasses bread is called Anadama Bread." 

It seems fitting that a recipe that is a New England legend would be made for years by a New England legend.

While I don't want to give away the family recipe (although, you could easily google and find versions of it), the ingredients are:

King Arthur's Flour
Corn meal
Water
Yeast
Grandma's Molasses 
Butter (more than one person should ever consume.)

For some reason, it always had to be King Arthur's Flour. Store brand or any other brand would just not do. 

And, for some reason, Grandma's molasses was always the brand of molasses. Quite fitting.

The bread takes hours to bake. It requires letting it rise two times, the first for 90 minutes. All told, I started making it around 8:30 AM and finished around 1:00 PM. 

For my first time making it, I made a triple batch, just as Grandma would. And, I had to call my mom about three times to ask her questions. In the last decade or two, when my grandmother started to become too weak for the physical labor that is making and baking the anadama bread, my mom took over making it. I grew up watching my mom make it and she taught me all the tricks along the way. My mom has since passed the torch to my cousin, who also does a wonderful job upholding the memory of my grandma. 

I learned some things: that my electric oven does not distribute the heat as evenly as I thought it would and that I should move the pans around next time. I found that I can never have enough butter. I'll need to make sure that the oven is on the lowest possible temperature so it doesn't start to cook when it rises. 

The final product turned out pretty good. Out of the three pans and 40+ rolls that it yielded, 1/2 of two pans came out tasting moist and delicious. I say 1/2 of two pans, because the unevenness of the electric oven burned only one side of the pan. 

On Christmas Eve we had my immediate family over: my brother and their girlfriends, my mom, my dad and his girlfriend, and some close family friends. We had a turkey dinner with all the trappings... and with the andama bread. My mom was very proud of me, and we exchanged glances as we passed it around the table for everyone to try. We both know the labor and the love that goes into baking the bread.

Even if I have to gluten free, I will still bake this bread for the enjoyment of others. Baking Andama bread is a true labor of love and I want to teach my own daughters how to make it. I want to answer their phone calls years down the road when they have questions about the right temperature or how much butter to use. In a way, I suppose my grandma will be immortal- through the love of good bread.