Jamaican hard-dough bread

Hi Everyone,

There are 3 men in particular who read this column and comment every week. Their handles are: Observer, CAG and Al Fernandes. The comments are full of humour, history, nostalgia and bantering. For me, it is always an education reading their comments. Thanks fellas and keep the gyaff going.

Last week when I wrote about Another Easy Bread, the conversation quickly turned to the kinds of bread Observer, CAG and Al like to eat with their Pepperpot. For many Guyanese, the standard of excellent bread is measured by its ability to be eaten with Pepperpot. First there is the break-ability of the bread; there should be no slicing involved. You want to be able to break, tear and pull off a good hunk of the bread. The crumb (the inside or white part of the bread) has to be tender enough so that when you dunk it into the Pepperpot, it sucks the sauce good and proper. The bread must be heavy with sauce as you bring it to your mouth. And when you bite down on the bread, the sweet-spiced sauce is squirted to all parts of your taste buds; the bread becomes a soft chew. Gosh I suddenly feel like eating Pepperpot and bread! Al boasted of his mother’s baking exploits every Saturday afternoon “…in de mud oven next to the kitchen downstairs.” Now living in Florida, he says that nothing else would suffice, “Except maybe, a Jamaican Hardo-bread every now and again.”  I thought to myself, well if the Jamaican hard-dough bread is up to Al’s high bread standards then it was certainly a bread worth trying.

The Jamaican hard-dough bread is so called for a variety of reasons, chief among which is that it is a solid, sturdy bread – one that’s great for sandwiches and other fillings that might be moist. It does not