Yellowmeal has been a cupboard staple of Irish kitchens for nearly 200 years. Its prevalence in Ireland is little known outside the country, as is the fact that it became a staple as a direct result of its use during the Great Irish Famine of the mid 19th Century.
Yellowmeal, or yellermeal, also known as maize or cornmeal, is made of dried corn kernels that have been ground into a fine, medium or coarse texture. It was used as a bulking agent whenever flour was in short supply or too expensive. But unlike the potato, its association with famine times has persisted without stigma; anyone under 40 is surprised the same yellowmeal that makes their Instagrammable taco was the same shipped to Ireland to stem the tide of famine-related disease and death.
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The presence of yellowmeal in Ireland stems back to when Ireland was still a colony of the British Empire governed by Westminster, when the Great Irish Famine of 1845-1849 took hold, decimating the population. Sir Robert Peel, Britain’s prime minister during the famine, presided over the importation of maize from the Americas into Ireland to feed the hungry. It quickly adopted the moniker of “Peel’s Brimstone” because of its indigestibility – knowledge of how to prepare it (a process called nixtamalisation) and cook it was initially unknown. But once the Irish learned how to use it, yellowmeal embedded itself into Irish foodways and found its way into many Irish dishes, from pancakes to potato cakes and breads.
There are two versions of yellowmeal bread still enjoyed today. One is a traditional style griddle or skillet bread similar to oat cakes or potato farls, made with little or no flour. The other is a baked loaf, like Irish soda bread but made with two-thirds flour and one-third bright yellowmeal, developed post-famine when flour and bicarbonate of soda became cheaper and easier to come by.
This Irish soda bread includes yellowmeal as well as flour (Credit: Kate Ryan)
Soda bread is one of the first recipes mastered by students at Ballymaloe Cookery School, a bastion for preserving and teaching traditional Irish recipes. The school was established in 1983 by Darina Allen and her brother, Rory O’Connell, and has a global reputation for its emphasis on simple, traditional Irish recipes. Students travel from all over the world to learn how to cook with farm-fresh ingredients. One such culinary traveller arrived at Ballymaloe in the late 1980s, an Englishman named Barnaby Blacker.
Allen remembers Blacker as a deliciously eccentric character and a great cook. “He was known to us for his quirkiness, but his food was very Ballymaloe-ish – good ingredients, fresh ingredients served simply. He developed a very distinctive style and was a fantastic baker; incredibly well-read and erudite. He had a Peter Pan-like quality – he always said he didn’t want to grow old.”
Traditional Irish recipes are taught at Ballymaloe Cookery School (Credit: Kate Ryan)
Blacker’s talent for baking led him to work at Ballymaloe and later at the Crawford Art Gallery Café in Cork before opening his own restaurant and bakery shop, The Gingerbread House (now closed). While working at Ballymaloe and testing recipes for The Gingerbread House, it came to light that he was the great, great, great grandson of Sir Robert Peel.
Blacker is remembered well by Regina Sexton, a prominent culinary historian in Ireland who leads postgraduate studies in Irish Food Culture at University College Cork. She wrote about him with fondness in her first book, A Little History of Irish Food (out of print).
Sexton recalls tasting a loaf of Blacker’s yellowmeal bread, and a conversation arose about maize and its connection to the Famine and Sir Robert Peel. Blacker’s ears pricked up at the sound of his great, great, great grandfather’s name but, says Sexton, he wasn’t aware of the connection between his distant relative, the Irish famine, maize and his yellowmeal bread; it was just one of life’s great coincidences.
Blacker passed away in 2022, long after he left Ireland. But memories of a talented cook and baker with a warm and generous personality endures with those who remember Blacker fondly. His take on yellowmeal bread bridged two periods of Irish history: the Famine -era yellowmeal griddle bread and the post-Famine-era soda bread: two simple recipes made with basic staples that have remained prevalent in Irish food culture to this day.
This crisp, buttery griddle bread is easy to make and has only five ingredients (Credit: Kate Ryan)
Yellowmeal Griddle Bread recipe
By Tim and Darina Allen
makes 1 griddle bread
Ingredients
110g (3.9oz) yellowmeal (maize meal/cornmeal/polenta)
1 tsp sea salt flakes
¼ tsp bicarbonate of soda, sieved
175ml (¾ cup) buttermilk
knob of butter, plus more for serving
Method
Step 1
Put the yellowmeal, salt and bicarbonate of soda in a bowl and add the buttermilk. Beat the mixture well with a wooden spoon for 5 minutes.
Step 2
Heat a non-stick frying pan or skillet over medium heat, add the butter and carefully pour the batter into the pan. Cook for 4-5 minutes, and when little bubbles begin to form on the surface of the batter, it is ready to be turned over. Gently flip the bread over and cook for a further 3 minutes. Cut into slices and serve with butter.
Tip
To make a yellowmeal soda bread, substitute a third of the quantity of flour in a standard soda bread recipe with yellowmeal.
(Recipe reprinted from The New Ballymaloe Bread Book by Darina Allen, published by Gill Books, 2023.)
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