 Woman preparing an ash cake over hot sand | |
| Alternative names | Ash bread; Fire cake |
|---|---|
| Type | Flatbread |
| Region or state | Yemen, Arabia |
| Main ingredients | Dough (flour, yeast, water, salt) |
Ash cake (also known as ash bread or fire cake) is a type of bread baked over a layer of heated stones or sand and covered-over in hot ashes, a practice still found principally in Arabian countries, especially among Bedouins.
Epiphanius (c. 310–403), in his work entitled On Weights and Measures , includes an anecdote about the practice of baking ash cakes, which in Hebrew he calls ugoth (Hebrew : עֻגוֹתʿugōṯ, lit. 'cakes'):
When the bread (fine flour) has been kneaded and has afterward fermented, it is kneaded again. They bake this bread not in an oven but on a rock. Collecting smooth stones and piling them upon the ground, by means of much brushwood they heat them until they make of the smooth (stones) glowing embers. Then they remove the ashes from them, cover them with dough, and again spread the ashes over all the dough, spreading it out as one loaf, and hence it is called "hidden," because [it is] concealed in the ashes. [1]
According to Epiphanius, the Hebrew name for this bread is derived, etymologically, from its manner of being baked as "bread that is hidden." Once the bread is baked, it is removed from the ashes and the ashes brushed off before allowing the bread to cool.
Epiphanius adds that it is the bread described in Genesis 18:6, [2] when Sarah, the wife of Abraham, is enjoined by her husband to knead three measures of fine meal and to bake cakes for the visiting angels.
In northern Yemen, ash cakes were called jamrī (جَمْرِي), typically made thick, and baked directly over coals kept in a special vessel made of basalt-stone. [3] In some places, ashes are spread over the face of the dough before being embedded entirely within the hot coals. Bedouins in Yemen would not embed the dough within hot coals, but rather stick the dough on the backside of an iron skillet, and fill the hollow space of the skillet with hot coals. In Arabia, ash cake is served with a treacle of date syrup (dibs) and with clarified butter ( samne ).
In northern Iran, ash-cakes are prepared by laying out the dough over live coals carried in a brazier, upon which dough several pieces of hot coals are also carefully laid. Since the bread comes out hard and dry, it is customarily practised to break up the bread into small pieces and to mix it with butter and work it with one's hands to be formed into a ball before it can be made palatable.[ citation needed ]
In North America, ash cakes were primarily made by using cornmeal. [4] Enslaved African Americans often relied on ash cakes as a staple food. This tradition was likely influenced by Native American techniques for making thinly leavened breads. [5] [6] The manner of preparation varied, although one popular method was to brush aside the hot ashes, lay a large collard green or cabbage leaf upon the hot earth or cast-iron oven, upon which was poured a batter of cornmeal, and over which was laid another leaf, and the hot ashes piled thereon. [7] [8]
In Europe, ash cakes were made into a small, round and flat loaf, usually consisting of a little wheat and sometimes rye, baked under an inverted iron pan over which the ashes of the fire were heaped. [9] This was almost exclusively the bread of the peasants. [9] In French, this type of bread was called fougasse . [9]
In classic Hebrew literature, the words עֻגַת רְצָפִים described in the Hebrew Bible [10] are explained by a consortium of commentators (Rashi, [11] Radak, [11] Joseph Kara, [11] Ralbag, [11] Malbim, among others) as having the connotation of a cake baked on hot stones, coals or cinders. The ash-cake described by A. Mizrachi, or what is called by him jamrī (جَمْرِي), is also baked directly over coals and thought to be a delicacy in South-Arabia. [12] Nathan ben Abraham, the 11th-century Mishnah exegete, explains the method of making a type of ash cake (ma'asei re'afīm) in Palestine. They would bake the cake by heating to fire temperature broken potsherds and spreading the dough over them. [13] Maimonides says that the dough, in this case, was spread over hot tiles and a lid-covering placed over it. [14]
Flour is a powder made by grinding raw grains, roots, beans, nuts, or seeds. Flours are used to make many different foods. Cereal flour, particularly wheat flour, is the main ingredient of bread, which is a staple food for many cultures. Corn flour has been important in Mesoamerican cuisine since ancient times and remains a staple in the Americas. Rye flour is a constituent of bread in both Central Europe and Northern Europe.
Cornbread is a quick bread made with cornmeal, associated with the cuisine of the Southern United States, with origins in Native American cuisine. It is an example of batter bread. Dumplings and pancakes made with finely ground cornmeal are staple foods of the Hopi people in Arizona. The Hidatsa people of the Upper Midwest call baked cornbread naktsi, while the Choctaw people of the Southeast call it bvnaha. The Cherokee and Seneca tribes enrich the basic batter, adding chestnuts, sunflower seeds, apples, or berries, and sometimes combine it with beans or potatoes. Modern versions of cornbread are usually leavened by baking powder.
Soda bread is a variety of quick bread made in many cuisines in which sodium bicarbonate is used as a leavening agent instead of yeast. The basic ingredients of soda bread are flour, baking soda, salt, and buttermilk. The buttermilk contains lactic acid, which reacts with the baking soda to form bubbles of carbon dioxide. Other ingredients can be added, such as butter, egg, raisins, or nuts. Quick breads can be prepared quickly and reliably, without requiring the time and labor needed for kneaded yeast breads.
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Yemenite Hebrew, also referred to as Temani Hebrew, is the pronunciation system for Hebrew traditionally used by Yemenite Jews. Yemenite Hebrew has been studied by language scholars, many of whom believe it retains older phonetic and grammatical features lost elsewhere. Yemenite speakers of Hebrew have garnered considerable praise from language purists because of their use of grammatical features from classical Hebrew.
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Showbread, in the King James Version shewbread, in a Biblical or Jewish context, refers to the cakes or loaves of bread which were always present, on a specially-dedicated table, in the Temple in Jerusalem as an offering to God. An alternative, and more appropriate, translation would be presence bread, since the Bible requires that the bread be constantly in the presence of God.
Johnnycake, also known as journey cake, johnny bread, hoecake, shawnee cake or spider cornbread, is a cornmeal flatbread, a type of batter bread. An early American staple food, it is prepared on the Atlantic coast from Newfoundland to Jamaica. The food originates from the indigenous people of North America. It is still eaten in the Bahamas, Belize, Nicaragua, Bermuda, Canada, Colombia, Curaçao, Dominican Republic, Jamaica, Puerto Rico, Saint Croix, Sint Maarten, Antigua, and the United States.
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Lahoh, is a spongy, flat pancake-like bread. It is a type of flat bread eaten regularly in Somalia, Djibouti, Kenya, Ethiopia, Yemen and Saudi Arabia. Yemenite Jewish immigrants popularized the dish in Israel. It is called Canjeero/Canjeelo in southern Somalia and also called Laxoox/Lahoh in Somaliland, Djibouti, Yemen and Saudi Arabia respectively.
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Zalabiyeh is a fritter or doughnut found in several cuisines across the Arab world, West Asia and some parts of Europe influenced by the former. The fritter version is made from a semi-thin batter of wheat flour which is poured into hot oil and deep-fried. The earliest known recipe for the dish comes from a 10th-century Arabic cookbook and was originally made by pouring the batter through a coconut shell.
A fig-cake is a mass or lump of dried and compressed figs, usually formed by a mold into a round or square block for storage, or for selling in the marketplace for human consumption. The fig-cake is not a literal cake made as a pastry with a dough batter, but rather a thick and often hardened paste of dried and pressed figs made into a loaf, sold by weight and eaten as a snack or dessert food in Mediterranean countries and throughout the Near East. It is named "cake" only for its compacted shape when several are pounded and pressed together in a mold.
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