Frying pan bread

I'm reading Teddy Roosevelt's books on hunting, this was 1880's. He speaks about eating frying pan bread. Now sure what he is talking about. I know NDN's have some kind of fried bread but in Canada they had what they called bannock, which was sort of a flour dough, to fried the bottom a little to get a crust and then flipped it and propped it up near the fire to cook. I've never run across any pre-1840 reference. I've often wondered why mountain men, etc. didn't eat it.

Pancakes or as some say Flap Jacks.
As a kid long ago my mother made a cornbread that was fried in a black iron skillet. New Englanders call that Johnny Cakes. Corn meal based.

Pan de campo maybe. A Spanish/Mexican bread popular by Roosevelt’s time.
Baking powder and just baking soda didn’t become popular till post WBTS times
Pearl Ash dates back to about 1790
Before that quick breads were flat. Or sour dough

Could have been bannock bread.

Bannock usually wrapped around a stick and held over a fire.
Pan bread is nice, done that allot, even pizza in a pan. Cast Iron Pan always.

Any cast iron skillet of a fair depth could also serve as a Dutch oven.

We used to carry locally made pancake flour...just add water. (New Hope Mills). Mix it up a bit thick for a stick, or like normal for the pan. It is pretty basic, ground buckwheat flour mix. I would imagine back in the day it wouldnt have been uncommon to mix up your own bread/flapjack flour well ahead of time to use as needed. Just like today, come meal time, the less preparation when hungry the better.

Daveboone said:

We used to carry locally made pancake flour...just add water. (New Hope Mills). Mix it up a bit thick for a stick, or like normal for the pan. It is pretty basic, ground buckwheat flour mix. I would imagine back in the day it wouldnt have been uncommon to mix up your own bread/flapjack flour well ahead of time to use as needed. Just like today, come meal time, the less preparation when hungry the better.

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I’ve read a lot of those folks carried a sour dough starter. A bit torn off and mixed with fresh flour and water and the good bacteria did it’s thing.

i have a sourdough starter that is 150 years old. can't imagine carrying it on a trek and trying to use it properly. of course my trekking days are over anyhow!
for pan bread i use a biscuit mix. set it with a starter the night before and its bubbling in the morning. wonderful tang to the first bite!

Well cast iron is a little heavy for the trail. I bought a steel pan a year and a half ago for $7 and now I see the same thing is $30.
https://www.webstaurantstore.com/vo...MIgaSf8MLa-AIV1seGCh0y-AcKEAQYDiABEgLpEfD_BwE
It looks like baking powder was invented in 1856. So actually pre- Civil War. I think what Teddy Roosevelt was referring to was either bannock or cowboy bread/ pan de campo.

Yes, cast iron is heavy. The stamped sheet metal fry pans are much lighter. I dont know their actual history but one i saw was patented in 1876. I have several, antique shops often have them cheap and in very good shape. Ive seen them in a number of paintings of hunting camps from the late 1800s to early 1900s period.

Whughett said:

Pancakes or as some say Flap Jacks.
As a kid long ago my mother made a cornbread that was fried in a black iron skillet. New Englanders call that Johnny Cakes. Corn meal based.

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No historical context, but I love making pancakes from corn bread mix. They are pretty dense and crumbly, but rather good. Always up for sourdough, and Navajo fry bread is very good, but made by frying in oil. Not sure of its history.

I need to make some bannock bread.

Red Owl said:

I'm reading Teddy Roosevelt's books on hunting, this was 1880's. He speaks about eating frying pan bread. Now sure what he is talking about. I know NDN's have some kind of fried bread but in Canada they had what they called bannock, which was sort of a flour dough, to fried the bottom a little to get a crust and then flipped it and propped it up near the fire to cook. I've never run across any pre-1840 reference. I've often wondered why mountain men, etc. didn't eat it.

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He doesn't give you more than the name, right? Such is the quandary that many of us into "food/recipe history" find ourselves....

So a Bannock, you are correct, especially when made with oats as would the Scots, was simply a very large biscuit baked in the frying pan, then, as you pointed out, it was flipped and baked on the other side.

He might also be referring to biscuit made by the fire, "reflector style". You put formed biscuits into the pan, and cook the side that is against the bottom. Then..., you use a stick and prop up the frying pan so that the heat from the fire will brown the tops and finish the baking process. The key is... that you use the stick against the bottom of the pan, and the handle of the frying pan against the ground maintains the frying pan position. About half-way done, you rotate the frying pan handle to the other side, thus inverting the biscuits' position relative to the fire..., and you get a more even result.

A third type of bread, is fried on bacon grease or lard. Same dough as biscuits, and some folks add sugar to this dough, then this is fried on one side in hot grease, and then flipped and finished. Fried Quoits is the same thing but with a hole in the middle like a donut, and you can more easily turn them using a fork or green stick by utilizing the hole in the middle (Most donut dough recipes use yeast, not baking powder as this would. )

Finally, there is also a method of simply baking biscuits or even a yeast, or salt-rising bread, using two frying pans, with one inverted over top of the other to make a make-shift Dutch Oven.

Although it was published in 1910, all of the above breads and methods are in Camping and Woodcraft by Horace Kephart (1907) and he published just the recipes in Camp Cookery a few years later.

Camp Cookery (1910)

LD

Malamute said:

Yes, cast iron is heavy. The stamped sheet metal fry pans are much lighter. I dont know their actual history but one i saw was patented in 1876. I have several, antique shops often have them cheap and in very good shape. Ive seen them in a number of paintings of hunting camps from the late 1800s to early 1900s period.

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No historical context, but I love making pancakes from corn bread mix. They are pretty dense and crumbly, but rather good. Always up for sourdough, and Navajo fry bread is very good, but made by frying in oil. Not sure of its history.

I need to make some bannock bread.

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I use those type pans, I take a dremel with a cut off disc remove the stamped handle,then take a piece of 1/2 in. or 3/4 in. flat steel (depends on the size of the skillet) and make a handle, Rivit the handle to the pan. ( I have used copper two piece rivits or take a proper sized nail and make rivits) You can put a twist in the handle and bend a hook on the end for hanging and to fancy it up a bit. A coulple trips cooking to the camp fire they take on a nice look.

andy52 said:

Could have been bannock bread.

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I did a lot of backing packing as a kid. The older guys we went with...guys in their 20's who were climbing/backpacking bums...taught us to make bannock. However it was just bisquick and water mixed stiff and wrapped on a stick. Sometimes in a pan.

fireman1 said:

I did a lot of backing packing as a kid. The older guys we went with...guys in their 20's who were climbing/backpacking bums...taught us to make bannock. However it was just bisquick and water mixed stiff and wrapped on a stick. Sometimes in a pan.

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Pretty close but Bisquick may have sugar in it whereas the homemade stuff won't.
I pan cook most of mine but have done the stick-wrapped also.

I have no issues with some sugar or honey or whatever in a bread used in outdoor living. Sitting around being civilized it easy to get fluffy eating stuff like that, being out in cold weather and working hard and moving around you can burn a lot of fuel.

I'm just going on the history of bannock bread, it was brought to the colonies by the Scottish very early. A person in the outback would have been lucky to have just the basic ingredients to make the bread, sugar not so much. Sugar in those days was nothing like we have today, it was rather raw and came in cones as hard and dry as a desert bone.

In the outback they used Beer for raising the bread.

NeilMacleod said:

In the outback they used Beer for raising the bread.

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What a waste!

I recall jolly Friar Tuck,
‘This is barley, from which any fool can make bread
But for one God has reserved a greater purpose
Let us give thanks and learn about Beer’