Type | Unleavened bread (traditionally) |
---|---|
Place of origin | Australia |
Created by | Stockmen |
Main ingredients | Wheat flour, salt, water |
Damper is a thick home-made bread traditionally prepared by early European settlers in Australia. [1] It is a bread made from wheat-based dough. Flour, salt and water, [2] with some butter if available, is lightly kneaded and baked in the coals of a campfire, either directly or within a camp oven. [3]
Damper was utilised by stockmen who travelled in remote areas for long periods, with only basic rations of flour (much less bulky than baked bread [2] ), sugar and tea, supplemented by whatever meat was available. [1] It was also a basic provision of squatters. [4] Baking soda or beer could be used for leavening the basic flour, salt, and water if available, but traditionally the bread was unleavened. Damper was normally cooked in the ashes of the campfire. The ashes were flattened, and the damper was cooked there for ten minutes, often wrapped around a stick. Following this, it was covered with ashes and cooked for another 20 to 30 minutes until it sounded hollow when tapped. [5] Damper could also be cooked in a greased camp oven. [6] Damper was eaten with dried or cooked meat or golden syrup.
Damper is considered quintessentially Australian, and emblematic of early European settlement and rural life there, [1] [7] although this way to make bread was not unique to colonial or pre-colonial Australia. Other cultures have similar hearth breads, and versions of soda or other quick breads are made when camping in many parts of the world, [8] including New Zealand and the United Kingdom.
When cooked as smaller, individually-sized portions, the damper may be known as "bush scones" or "johnnycakes" (also "johnny cakes"). [9] [10] [11] North American cornmeal bread is also called johnnycake; it is uncertain if this influenced the Australian term. However, Australian johnnycakes, while often pan-fried, remain wheat-based. [9] [12]
The bread is different from bush bread, which has been eaten by Indigenous Australians for thousands of years, traditionally made by crushing a variety of native seeds, nuts and roots, and mixing them into a dough baked in the coals of a fire. [13] [14] [15] There are studies into whether this technique of various Aboriginal peoples influenced the development of colonial-era damper, similarly cooked in the ashes of a camp fire. [16] [17] [8]
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. 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.
Dough is a thick, malleable, sometimes elastic paste made from grains or from leguminous or chestnut crops. Dough is typically made by mixing flour with a small amount of water or other liquid and sometimes includes yeast or other leavening agents, as well as ingredients such as fats or flavorings.
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.
A papadam, also known as papad, is a snack that originated in the Indian subcontinent. Dough of black gram bean flour is either deep fried or cooked with dry heat until crunchy. Other flours made from lentils, chickpeas, rice, tapioca, millet or potato are also used. Papadam is typically served as an accompaniment to a meal in India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal, Sri Lanka and the Caribbean or as an appetizer, often with a dip such as chutneys, or toppings such as chopped onions and chili peppers, or it may be used as an ingredient in curries.
A hush puppy is a small, savory, deep-fried round ball made from cornmeal-based batter. Hushpuppies are frequently served as a side dish with seafood and other deep-fried foods.
Frybread is a dish of the indigenous people of North America that is a flat dough bread, fried or deep-fried in oil, shortening, or lard.
A flatbread is bread made usually with flour; water, milk, yogurt, or other liquid; and salt, and then thoroughly rolled into flattened dough. Many flatbreads are unleavened, although some are leavened, such as pita bread.
Rye bread is a type of bread made with various proportions of flour from rye grain. It can be light or dark in color, depending on the type of flour used and the addition of coloring agents, and is typically denser than bread made from wheat flour. Compared to white bread, it is higher in fiber, darker in color, and stronger in flavor. The world's largest exporter of rye bread is Poland.
A bannock is a variety of flatbread or quick bread cooked from flour, typically round, which is common in Scotland and other areas in the British Isles. They are usually cut into sections before serving.
Bush tucker, also called bush food, is any food native to Australia and historically eaten by Indigenous Australians, the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, but it can also describe any native flora, fauna, or funga used for culinary or medicinal purposes, regardless of the continent or culture. Animal native foods include kangaroo, emu, witchetty grubs and crocodile, and plant foods include fruits such as quandong, kutjera, spices such as lemon myrtle and vegetables such as warrigal greens and various native yams.
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, Bermuda, Canada, Colombia, Curaçao, Dominican Republic, Jamaica, Puerto Rico, Saint Croix, Sint Marteen, Antigua, and the United States.
Bush bread, or seedcakes, refers to the bread made by Aboriginal Australians by crushing seeds into a dough that is then baked. The bread is high in protein and carbohydrate, and forms part of a balanced traditional diet. It is also sometimes referred to as damper, although damper is more commonly used to describe the bread made by non-Indigenous people.
Potato cake is a name given to various shaped potato dishes around the world, including a patty of hashed potatoes, a fried patty of mashed potato, a fried and battered slice of potato, or a flatbread made with mashed potato and flour. In Northern England and some states in Australia, a thin slice of potato that is battered and deep fried may be called a potato scallop. In Australia and New Zealand, the terms potato cake, potato flip and potato fritter may be used.
Tortilla de rescoldo or ember tortilla is a traditional Chilean and Northern Argentine flatbread, often unleavened, that was commonly prepared by rural travelers. It consists of a wheat-flour-based bread, traditionally baked in the coals of a campfire or fireplace. It is common street food in populated areas or along roadways and sold by palomitas.
Panicum decompositum, known by the common names native millet, native panic, Australian millet, papa grass, and umbrella grass, is a species of perennial grass native to the inland of Australia. It occurs in every mainland state. The seeds can be cultivated to produce flour typically used in Aboriginal bushfood. The species is also considered to have relatively high palatability by livestock, making it suitable for grazing pastures.
A great variety of cassava-based dishes are consumed in the regions where cassava is cultivated, and the ingredient is included many national or ethnic specialities.
Ash 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.
Bannock, skaan, Indian bread, alatiq, or frybread is found throughout North-American Native cuisine, including that of the Inuit of Canada and Alaska, other Alaska Natives, the First Nations of the rest of Canada, the Native Americans in the United States, and the Métis.
Dumb bread is a traditional bread that originates from the Virgin Islands. The name "dumb bread" comes from the cooking technique called dum pukht, originating from India and brought to the Caribbean when the Indian indentured workers replaced the slaves.
[excerpt from Hodgkinson book]: I have myself known many squatters who, ... were content to live on an unvarying course of salt beef, damper, and tea; ...
Millstones for grinding seeds into flour have been discovered, which have been dated to 50,000 years old.