Comment by SECProto
3 days ago
That's a weird (or perhaps regional) definition. Brown bread I've had is always molasses sweetened. Source: ontario and provinces east.
The boston canned brown bread i always assumed was a touristy thing, not something regularly consumed.
Lived in BC, SK, and ON. I'm far enough east that I regularly hit up both Ottawa and Montreal.
In my experience "brown bread" is a synonym for whole wheat bread. If you go order a sandwich and they ask what bread you want it on and you say "brown", you're getting whole wheat (or maybe 60% whole wheat... just not white).
I'd be very confused if I ever got this molasses-sweetened bread everyone is talking about.
BC, AB, ON. Same as you, brown bread = whole wheat. Not sure I've even heard of molasses-sweetened bread, let alone eaten it.
https://www.crosbys.com/sarahs-molasses-brown-bread/
It’s made with ungodly amounts of molasses. My grandmother used to make it with lard or shortening, yikes.
2 replies →
I found a sort of fun blog post that points out that technically, it could be considered a pudding rather than a bread, because it is steamed rather than baked.
https://www.britishfoodinamerica.com/A-Number-of-Historical-...
Although the consistency is more like a dense, very moist bread. It wouldn’t be great for a conventional sandwich. Could reasonably steal the English muffin’s job, though. Or a regular muffin. Maybe a bit messier.
Yeah when I think further on it, I've never heard of it here in Ontario. In Atlantic Canada though, it's definitely made with molasses. Google search results [1] suggests this is a regionalism (Atlantic Canada and new england states)
If I was offered brown bread and got a boring whole wheat, I'd be sorely disappointed.
[1] https://my-mothers-cook-books.ca/2021/05/29/brown-bread-vs-p...
Nova Scotian here: it’s definitely made with molasses. It’s really moist and doughy when it’s fresh. Goes very well when dipped in a chowder.
Or do like my Mom did: mix a little peanut butter with molasses into a slurry on top.
All of this will kill you, of course, but it does taste good!
Massachusetts native, we regularly are brown bread from a can as a kid. Not a touristy thing.
My family were definitely not tourists, but come to think of it I don’t recall seeing the canned stuff in my friends’ houses. So maybe we were just locals who fell for a prank that was being played on the tourists, or something.