Praise for Salt Rising Bread
“My friend Marion Cunningham first introduced me to salt rising bread – she had been experimenting with baking it in her kitchen, perhaps for one of her cookbooks. She made me some toast at her house, and it was just unlike anything I’d had before. The taste was something really different and unique. It was absolutely perfect toast – it didn’t need anything on it, not even butter. And it made great sandwiches, too!”
~ Alice Waters, chef, restaurateur, author of The Art of Simple Food (I and II), 40 Years of Chez Panisse, and others
I must admit that I have fallen under the spell of salt rising bread. It is the quirkiest of breads but, like an expensive white truffle, the earthy aroma and flavor are intoxicating. The more I eat the more I want.
~ Peter Reinhart, baker, author of Bread Revolution, The Baker’s Apprentice, and others
“Jenny Bardwell and Susan Brown are carrying on the Appalachian art of creating salt rising bread – allowing all of us to indulge in the fruits of their labor! Their combined talent produces the delicious dense bread with a distinctive flavor unique to salt rising bread that is unlike any other. I’ll take mine toasted with a dab of butter, please.”
~ Candace Nelson, author of the food blog “Candace Lately”
“Salt Rising Bread combines oral history and contemporary cookbook to rescue salt rising bread from undeserved obscurity. For those lucky enough to know it from childhood, Susan and Jenny’s book will bring back warm memories. For those of us – like me! – who didn’t know salt rising bread as children, Salt Rising Bread introduces the gospel of this delicious treat.”
~ Geoffrey Cameron Fuller, West Virginian and New York Times bestselling author
“Here are a couple of ladies bringing the world of wild microbes together with memories of our grandmothers’ grandmothers surviving and thriving. They’re dusting off battered bread recipes and sewing them together with science, and it’s somehow all so life-affirming! Even if you don’t remember salt rising bread, you’ll want to. The audacious curiosity cultivated here is, in a word: delicious.”
~ Glynis Board, Reporter, West Virginia Public Broadcasting
“Smells evoke memories, and one of my fondest childhood recollections is of the pungent aroma of salt rising bread being made. My Aunt Avah of Jane Lew, WV, who believed this magical bread had a special consciousness, told us kids that it would only rise if there was absolute peace and harmony in the home. So we had to be quiet all day and not fight if we were to enjoy it. Only later did I become suspicious about her having an ulterior motive for telling us this! Lots of things have changed since then, but not my fondness for toasted salt rising bread. Kudos to Susan and Jenny for reviving this wonderful tradition and helping me relive my childhood.”
~ Greg Juckett, MD, MPH, Professor of Family Medicine, West Virginia University
“I think it will be interesting to a lot of people to read about salt rising bread because there are an awful lot of people who never have heard of it, how it came about or where it came from. I started working in a bakery when I was twelve and eventually owned one for many years. We made over twenty different kinds of bread, including salt rising, one of the most unique breads of all.”
~ William E. Crum III, retired baker, Kansas
SALT RISING
BREAD
SALT RISING
BREAD
Recipes and Heartfelt Stories of a Nearly Lost Appalachian Tradition
Genevieve Bardwell | Susan Ray Brown
Salt Rising Bread
Recipes and Heartfelt Stories of a Nearly Lost Appalachian Tradition
Copyright © 2016 by Genevieve Bardwell and Susan Ray Brown
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored, or transmitted in any form without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages for review purposes.
ISBN-13: 978-1-943366-03-3
Library of Congress Control Number: 2016936358
CIP information available upon request
First Edition, 2016
St. Lynn’s Press . POB 18680 . Pittsburgh, PA 15236
412.381.9933 . www.stlynnspress.com
Book Design – Holly Rosborough
Editor – Catherine Dees
Editorial Intern – Christina Gregory
Photo Credits:
JBN Photo – cover photo, pages viii, x, xii, xiv, xviii, xxi, xxii, 3, 4, 6, 10, 15, 16, 29, 30, 31, 32, 38, 45, 46, 51, 53, 66, 69, 71, 72, 73, 74, 75, 78, 79, 82, 88, 94, 95, 97, 98, 101, 102, 108, 123, 124,