Apple Stack Cake-Icon of Appalachian "Cuisine"? (March 2024)

 Apple Stack Cake-Icon of Appalachian Cuisine?  (March 2024)

Sometimes serendipity is the key to research! I have been looking for apple stack cake ever
since I first heard about it in the early 2000s. A cake made of 7-13 thin cookie-like layers sandwiched together with a sauce ideally made from dried apples and, some insist, sorghum, it has been held up as an icon of Appalachian cuisine by chefs, cookbook writers, and food journalists. 

     I learned of stack cake from Mark Sohn, a French-trained chef from the Pacific northwest who was teaching in Kentucky and had taken an interest in the region’s food culture. He began writing a weekly column in the local paper, asking for readers to send in recipes and memories. He then reworked the recipes and published several cookbooks. One of the first “outsiders” to celebrate mountain foodways as worthy of attention from gourmet cooks, his books drew a great deal of attention and were nominated for James Beard awards. (Sohn, Mark F., Appalachian home cooking: History, culture and recipes. Lexington, Kentucky: The University Press of Kentucky, 2005 and Mountain country cooking:  A gathering of the best recipes from the Smokies to the Blue Ridge, forward by John Egerton. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1996.)

            Anyway, I had never seen or heard of the cake prior to Sohn, so I began looking for it. I discovered that Ronni Lundy, a native of Kentucky, and another author of cookbooks, had grown up with it and even featured it in her 1994 cookbook, Shuck beans, stack cakes, and honest fried chicken: The heart and soul of southern country kitchens. 

            Still, both of these authors were based in Kentucky, and southern Appalachia is a big place with lots of sub-regions. My area of western North Carolina (mostly, Ashe and Buncombe counties) was very different from parts of Kentucky and West Virginia that had historically been exploited for coal mining. Tourism had kept the natural environment preserved as a scenic attraction, and the highland plateau of Ashe County had supported thriving family-based cattle and dairy industries. 

It wasn’t that I distrusted those authors, but I wasn’t sure that apple stack cake could stand for all of southern Appalachian food culture. Also, they discussed it as an icon of a regional cuisine. I never heard anyone refer to mountain food traditions as “cuisine,” and whenever I suggested it, people tended to look incredulous and even laugh—local residents because it sounded too “fancy;” outsiders because the assumptions about that food culture was that it, at best, was simple, plain cooking that took little skill or, at worst, featured roadkill and small critters.

I set out looking for apple stack cake on my various travels through Appalachia and never once came across it. And then, after attending this year’s Appalachian Studies conference in Cullowhee,NC,  I decided spur of the moment to stay an extra day in order to go hiking and visit friends who had rented a place in Waynesville. (Also, is cut off an hour of travel time back to

Ohio.) For dinner Sunday evening, we stopped in a local restaurant, Clyde’s, advertising home cooking. I had a vegetable plate of fried okra, fried squash, and fried green tomato (another blog about how that’s not traditional to the region!), cole slaw (made the “correct” way with mayonnaise), corn bread, and sweet tea—a pretty standard southern meal. 

On the off chance, I mentioned to the young woman serving us that I was looking for apple stack cake. Not only had she definitely heard of it, but her aunt served it at her restaurant at the other end of town! And she opened at 7 in the morning for breakfast.

The next morning, my intrepid friend, Pat, went with me for breakfast before I headed home. Sure enough. They had a whole stack cake in their refrigerator. They brought it out and cut two large quarter slices for me. It was delicious, and very different texture from the usual cake. The woman who makes them wasn’t in yet, but the servers showed me the jar of sugar cane molasses that she uses (not sorghum). They also said the cakes usually have 7 layers, but they had messed up one layer, so this one only had 6. 

After looking for over 20 years, I finally got to taste the cake—and it was just on the off chance, that I found it at Haley and Waylon’s Southern Kitchen in Waynesville, NC.

Interestingly, I stopped off at the Appalachian Museum in Tennessee on my way back north to see if the restaurant was open and serving corn casserole—the best I’ve tasted anywhere, except my grandmother’s in Kannapolis. I asked the servers there if they ever offered stack cake, and the young woman said she had never heard of it. When I said it was supposed to be the best of Appalachian cooking, she pointed out that they were the Appalachian Museum, but never had it on their menu. Then, on the way out, I greeted an older couple who were just finishing their meal. The woman said the founder of the museum was her husband’s brother. I asked her about stack cake, and she said, oh yes, she loved it, but it was a lot of trouble to make so didn’t have it often. She said they just lived across the road and come up for a visit, but I had to get on home. Next time! 

Soda Bread at Balleymaloe Cookery School, County Cork.    March 15, 2024

Irish soda bread in the US is oftentimes presented as a quick bread, frequently sweetened and with raisins and caraway seed and baked in a rectangular loaf pan. Soda bread in Ireland (the Republic, not Northern Ireland) tends to be sold as rounded loaves—cakes, they are usually called. Also, it carries imagery of being rural and old-fashioned, with adjectives like “farm-house” attached to the packaging. 

Also, soda bread made from wholewheat (called whole-meal there) is usually called “brown bread” and frequently not even referred to as soda bread. This variety appears more frequently in a loaf form, and slices accompany breakfast or a bowl of soup. They might also be the base for open-face sandwiches. On several occasions, I asked servers in restaurants if the brown slice was soda bread, and they didn’t know. 

Anyway, I have tried making soda bread numerous times on my own and have varying degrees of success. I usually stick to making smaller round loaves. A cross is made on top to help the bread bake all the way through—although some fanciful descriptions say it’s for a blessing or to keep the fairies away. 

The following recipe is a composite of basic traditional ones, and uses American measurements.  

•               Flour (~3 ½ cups). (white or wholemeal)

•               Salt (1/2 -3/4 tsp) 

•               Bicarbonate of Soda (“Baking Soda”) (1 tsp)

•               Buttermilk (~1 ¼-1 ½ cup)

•               Possible traditional additions (egg, butter, sugar, currants, treacle)

      Mix dry ingredients. Make well and add milk. Mix lightly and form into a round. 

Bake in a covered pot (Dutch oven) on a floured baking sheet in oven at 375 degrees F or 200 C or on a floured griddle (flip over half way through cooking).

    In December of 2022 I was delighted to be invited by Irish food scholar Regina Sexton to accompany her on a visit to the Ballymaloe Cookery School in County Cork. We had lunch there and met with some members of the family that had started the restaurant and farm. When I mentioned my interest in sodabread, I was given an impromptu lesson. There were several pointers—use my hands; do not overmix; and round the bottom of the rounded “cake.” These would normally have been passed down in the kitchen, so that formal classes wouldn’t seem necessary. The result was delicious, especially when slathered with butter.  (The photos were taken in the kitchen of the cookery school.)

Irish Soda Bread: Homemade from a packaged mix from Ireland--March 14, 2024

 Irish Soda Bread: Homemade from a packaged mix (from Ireland)--March 14, 2024

Saint Patrick’s Day is coming up in several days, and that usually means that green pastries and Irish stouts and liquors starts appearing in American supermarkets. Occasionally, soda bread is also available. A quick bread relying on baking soda as the rising agent, the bread in the US is closely associated with Irish culture, so that it is usually advertised as “Irish soda bread.” 

Although a long history is usually assumed, soda bread only goes back to the early 1800s, since baking soda was not commercially available until the 1840s. The version usually made in the US is fancy one with sugar, maybe an egg, and raisins (to replace currants) that would have been served only for special occasions in Ireland. The soda bread that I saw at dance events and gatherings in the US was always in a rectangular loaf form rather than the round “cake” presented as traditional “farmhouse” soda in the Republic of Ireland. 

The kind I usually was offered in homes and restaurants in Ireland was actually more commonly “brown bread,” soda bread made with wholewheat flour and oftentimes also baked in a loaf pan. Slices of this—which were never referred to as soda bread, but just “brown bread,” oftentimes accompanied breakfast or soup. Some restaurants also used a slice as a base for an open-top sandwich—shrimp salad or cheese and tomato were the ones I usually saw. 

All of these versions are very different from the “farls” that are common in Northern Ireland—quarters of a round that are cooked on a griddle and turned over and flattened on both sides. These are eaten at any time of day in Ulster and sold in supermarkets and bakeries by the farl. They can be made with white flour (plain soda), wholewheat flour (wholemeal), with treacle (a form of molasses), and with currants or dried fruits. I also saw varieties in a Belfast market in 2022 made with spelt and other flours and having sunflower seeds and nuts mixed in the dough. Farls are central to an “Ulster fry,” a meal of fried eggs, white and black puddings (liver and blood sausage), streaky bacon, broiled tomato, and fried potato farls, that is standard for breakfast but actually served any time of day. I remember having a fry at 2 in the morning after attending a dance or music event! 

Back to St. Patrick’s Day and soda bread in the US… This year the supermarkets seem subdued about the holiday, but in years past, they displayed anything that could be construed as Irish (stout, whiskey, Irish cream liqueurs, corned beef for Jigg’s dinner--a whole other blog!, cheese and butter from Ireland, and, occasionally, soda bread) along with other Spring holidays and imagery. Sometimes, Mardi Gras is close to St. Patrick’s Day, and the stores have a field day then, juxtaposing “Irish” products next to king cake and Polish paczki, doughnuts laden with sugar and fat. 

This year, I haven’t seen soda bread being sold in supermarkets in northwest Ohio or in western North Carolina. That’s ok since it’s usually made with “inauthentic recipes” with baking powder and sugar added. I usually make some from scratch anyway. This year, though, I’m making use of a packaged mix brought over for Christmas by my Irish son-in-law. The mix was came from Odlums, a company started in 1845 in the center of Ireland. I’ve seen and purchased their mixes throughout Ireland and brought them to the US as souvenirs to give to friends. (See: Folkloristic Perspectives on Food as Tourism Souvenir: Stereotypes, Meanings, and Messages in Irish Soda Bread. (Reflection). Research in Hospitality Management 12/3 (2022): 209-214. DOI: 10.1080/22243534.2023.2202491).  They’re always a big hit! 

The mix is very convenient. All it needed was milk instead of the usual called-for buttermilk. Milk can be curdled with vinegar, and some Irish cooks  “sweet” milk can be used, but I’ve never had much success with those. It took 5 minutes at the most to add milk to the mix, stir it together and shape into rounds. I flattened one to be more like the Ulster farls that reminded my father of the buttermilk biscuits he grew up on in Appalachia and left the other one rounded. I made both smaller than usual to make sure they baked all the way through. Slathered with the Irish butter that’s commonly sold in the US now, they were delicious. I served them to friends who were very appreciative.

 

(I’ll include a recipe in another blog recounting my visit to the famous Ballymaloe House cookery school--https://www.ballymaloe.com--in County Cork in December of 2022.)

 

For more about soda bread and its different forms, uses, and meanings in the three cultures, see my conference paper: Travels of Soda bread from Quotidian Food to Heritage Food. In Proceedings of the Dublin Gastronomy Symposium—2022 Food and Movement, pp. 167-73. Dublin: Technological University Dublin, 2022 (https://arrow.tudublin.ie/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1255&context=dgs).