Bread: Anadama Bread

This yeast bread made with cornmeal and molasses originated on the North Shore of Boston. The Cape Ann towns of Rockport and Gloucester are among those that claim to have invented it. According to competing popular legends, a farmer—or a local fisherman—grew tired of eating the cornmeal-and-molasses porridge that his wife incessantly prepared for him. He dumped flour and yeast into the bowl and threw it in the oven, grumbling, “Anna, damn her!” Others say it was Anna who got so fed up with her husband that she left him; returning home, her distraught husband threw random ingredients into her unfinished cornbread, muttering, “Anna, damn her!” More appreciative versions claim that Anna’s spouse pronounced his defining epithet with pride as he munched thick slices of her tasty bread, or that Anna’s tombstone fondly read, “Anna was a lovely bride, but Anna, damn ‘er, up and died.” The bread is also known as Amadama bread, allegedly derived from the irate husband who cried, “Where am ‘er, damn ‘er?” when his wife was away.