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To Our Readers

Behind every well-loved food there are stories, often heartwarming ones, about where the food came from and the people whose lives it has touched. Most of our food traditions have come to these shores from other places and other continents. Some have adapted and changed over the years and a few have stayed true to their distant origins. But the food we are writing about in this book didn’t arrive with the great immigrant waves. It was born in the hills of Appalachia more than 200 years ago and spread from there along the pioneer wagon trails. Salt Rising Bread is the story of this uniquely American bread and the people who have continued baking it in the years since, passing their recipes down lovingly from generation to generation.

We, Jenny and Susan, have baked and loved salt rising bread for a very long time. Without exaggeration, we can say that in the universe of breads, it stands alone. There is nothing else remotely like it in terms of flavor, personality and technique. There is mystery about it in the wild microbes that cause it to rise. It has attitude and holds tantalizing secrets that have never been fully revealed. Sadly, very few people are alive today who know how to make this delicious yeastless bread the authentic way. That is the reason that we took it upon ourselves to be the chroniclers and preservers of this nearly lost tradition.

About Us

Susan, whose family has deep roots in the region, is the founder of the online resource The Salt Rising Bread Project (www.saltrisingbread.net). Jenny is the proprietor of Rising Creek Bakery, which specializes in traditional salt rising bread. The bakery is located in Mt. Morris, Pennsylvania, in the heart of Appalachia. More than twenty years ago, we set out to find and interview the people who still baked salt rising bread, and beyond that, to discover the secrets and the science behind its unique fermentation and memorable aroma, texture and taste. Our search took us from the Appalachian parlors and kitchens of bread-making elders to the laboratory of a renowned microbiologist, to bread museums and the pages of rare cookbooks and pioneer diaries. What we found was a treasure of American culinary lore.

If you grew up loving your grandmother’s salt rising bread and you miss it (and her), this book is for you. If you haven’t yet had the pleasure of eating salt rising bread and wonder why anyone would write an entire book about it, this book is for you too.

We wish you happy reading, along with your own discovery or re-discovery of this wonderful, tradition-rich bread.

Jenny and Susan

A SALT RISING BREAD MEMORY, SENT TO SUSAN’S SALT RISING BREAD PROJECT

“I grew up in Spelter, WV, just north of Clarksburg on Rt. 19. My grandmother baked this bread EVERY Saturday morning of her life. I don’t think she ever bought bread. She would make several loaves and a couple of cookie sheets full of wonderful large buns. We lived next door and she would call me over just before she took the bread out of the oven. I would race over and wait (usually impatiently) until the bread came out. Then I would take one of the buns and poke my finger into the middle and wiggle it around to hollow it out a bit. I would then put fresh, real butter and my daddy’s homemade blackberry jelly down into the hot bread. It would melt and I would sit and eat that bun with a glass of cold milk. I’m 50 years old and my granny has been gone for nearly 40 years. If I close my eyes and let myself go back in time, I can still smell that wonderful aroma as the bread was baking and still feel my finger burning from sticking it into the bread (you’d think I would have learned to use a knife or fork!!!!) and I can almost taste that wonderful treat. It’s one of my most treasured memories of my grandmother, who was my favorite person in the world!”