National Real Bread Week

Having things as authentic and ‘real’ as possible is something that is very close to our hearts at Beamish Museum, we want to show our visitors the realistic versions of what people would have eaten in the time periods that we are depicting. A really good way of seeing this in action at the museum is looking at the different kinds of bread we have around site, and as it’s National Real Bread Week I thought I would show you!

I could tell you an in-depth history of each type of bread we bake here, and will at some point as we feel it is an interesting indication of how attitudes towards food changed over the areas that we cover, but today I thought I would give you a little snapshot of our Beamish breads!

In the kitchen at 1820s Pockerley Old Hall, you can find maslin bread with homemade rhubarb and ginger chutney, maslin a heavy bread (maslin means ‘mixed flour’ so would have used what was available) cooked in the Beehive oven on their lovely range, nice and filling for a days work on a Georgian farm.

Getting to the 1900s Town, pop to Joseph Herron’s bakery and get yourself a white cob loaf made in our ‘Super-Human’ kneader, a machine that could knead enough dough to make 150 of our loaves! As you can imagine seeing the bread coming out of the oven every day and enjoying your loaf warm is one of the highlights of the day, so see if you can catch it at the right time!

The Land Girls up at 1940s Home Farm have to be a bit more creative with their limited supplies, see how this wartime rationing has affected the common loaf for their kitchen table!

With all this bread on offer I might have to sample a loaf or two for research purposes… happy Real Bread Week everyone!