- So y'all, this is celebrating the beginning of St.
Patrick's week for us. And I don't know if y'all know this, but Savannah is a huge
Catholic population. And let me tell you something right now, they take it so serious,
and one is standing over Eddie's shoulders.
(Theresa laughs) Theresa was born and raised here, and she lives and dies
by St. Patrick's Day. So tell us what you do. (Paula laughs)
- Oh, gosh. - I couldn't believe it when
she told me everything she did. - [Theresa] Well, it is a
big Irish Catholic community- - Yeah.
- And St. Patrick's Day has become a very traditional
for the Irish families- - Yes, yes.
- In Savannah. And we actually have Irish communities that have Irish organizations that the men and women are part of. They march in the parade. We're idiots and many of us get up at 4:30 (Eddie laughs)
in the morning and set up our parade.
- Well, I'm Scot-Irish. Can I get in with y'all?
- Absolutely. - (laughs) And I'm married to a Catholic. - [Theresa] I hate to say
because it is a big party- - It is.
- But it's also a very traditional celebration
for us, it's not just about, St. Patrick was-
- Right, it's a religious holiday.
- It was, and St. Patrick was the saint-
- For the Catholics. - Who is supposed to be known for driving out the snakes in Ireland, and they laugh about it because
they say it's very cold. The water all around Ireland is very cold-
- It's very cold. - And snakes don't really live in there, but the concept is
(Paula laughs) he got rid of, I guess, all of the evil. - Okay.
- So the shamrock is actually the Irish sign, and it's three almost hearts-
- Yeah. We're shamrocking today, y'all. - [Theresa] It's the Father,
Son, and Holy Spirit. - Okay, okay.
- Is the meaning behind that, so that's become really big.
- Okay, okay. - [Theresa] So some of the dishes that we're gonna be cooking this week are all very traditional- - Yes, yes.
- In Ireland. - [Theresa] But we in Savannah think that we're pretty spiffy.
- We still making a biscuit, y'all, (laughs)
(Eddie laughs) but in Ireland, they make soda bread. And Theresa being an expert on Saint Patrick's Day things, this all started with the big famine that took place in Ireland. They wanted their bread, but there were so many things
that they couldn't get, so they had to come up
with a way to make bread without all the leavenings and all that. - [Theresa] This was a
Native American recipe to start with.
- Okay. - [Theresa] And then
when the famine came in, they built around it, and this has become a
basis of a four ingredient- - So they actually learned it from the American Indian-
- Right. - Or Native Americans-
- Right. - Whatever the correct term is.
- But they made it really big. I mean, the Irish, it's
served with everything. - Yes, really, and they use this bread to sop up anything, don't they? - And you can make it sweet or savory, and of course, we've chosen
to make it a little sweet. - Yes, we got a little sugar here. And so thank you, Native Americans, for sharing the recipe with these Irish folk. It meant a lot to them. And so we have got four cups of all-purpose flour right here, y'all. I think a half a cup of
sugar, I can't remember. - I'll help with you-
- Let me put on my eyes. (laughs) Oh, you wanna help me? Okay, yay.
- I will. So it's gonna be four
cups of all-purpose flour. We're gonna put in a
third of a cup of sugar, two teaspoons of baking soda-
- Okay, in go the sugar. - The baking soda.
- In goes the baking soda, not powder, because
we're using buttermilk. - [Theresa] Right, and a
half a teaspoon of salt. - And, like everything else I got, y'all, (laughs) my pastry cutter's in storage. - [Theresa] I went looking
for a pastry cutter. - Did you?
- I should've gone to Walmart, but I tried the grocery
stores, I tried other places. - Yeah-
- The Dollar Store- - I'm surprised-
- Other places, nothing. - Because the grocery stores, really, they have a pretty good
little kitchen department now. All right, so next goes- - [Theresa] Now you're gonna add the butter.
- A fourth of a cup of butter.
- You didn't do the salt yet. - Ooh, thank you, Eddie! Takes a village to (laughs) keep this nut bucket going. (laughs) - [Theresa] So now you do
the butter and you cut in. - Okay, so-
- With the fake pastry cutter. - (laughs) We're putting
in a fourth of a cup of cold butter, and this is probably the way a lot of folks did it way
back when, I don't know. Just used what they had, a
knife and a fork, and we wanna- - We're gonna need to make
that down to a pea size, because this is probably-
- Yes. - [Theresa] The most intense part of it. - Yes. (laughs)
- So I say we let them, we'll come back and see them in a few minutes.
- Okay, yes. We want it like most bread recipes, when it comes to the butter and the flour. We want it to look like about
the size of an English pea. - So we'll be back.
- So we won't torture y'all. So while I was cutting in that
butter into our flour, y'all, I went to get me a spatula, and look, Theresa had these for me, so
I'm gonna put that one back, let the chick stay. So let me tell y'all
what I wound up doing. Since I didn't have a pastry cutter, I wound up, finally, just
doing this with my hands. And there's not much
butter for this much flour, so it worked out good doing it that way. All right, now I'm gonna
put in our caraway seeds. How many are we putting in, Theresa? - [Theresa] That's a tablespoon. - And the raisins?
- It says the buttermilk, raisins, and caraway seeds.
- Okay, so maybe I better stop right there and go ahead. It's been so long since
I've made this recipe. All right, our oven. Looks like a bunch of fleas in there. Doesn't it, almost? (laughs) All right, I'm gonna start with one cup of buttermilk, and I'm gonna add another
three fourths of a cup of buttermilk and I'm gonna
start mixing, mixing, mixing. So that was one and three
fourths cup of buttermilk. And now I'm gonna add my cup of raisins. I just love, love, love,
love, love oatmeal cookies because of the raisins. They really give it a
wonderful, sweet taste, and I love it in regular oatmeal, oatmeal cookies, carrot cakes. (laughs) So we're just gonna mix this up until it's like a shaggy biscuit. (laughs) So I guess we just have to imagine our dog looking shaggy, and that's the way we're gonna try to get our biscuit dough. Okay, so this is what I
would call a shaggy biscuit. Got a little dry flour in the bottom. So now I'm gonna bring it over here to our cutting board, and I'm gonna spread a little flour out. And I tell you to need this for 20 seconds. So we're definitely not
gonna over-knead this bread. So I wonder what they
would put in this, Theresa, if they were making a savory. - [Theresa] I bet they wouldn't, well, I don't know if you would- - I mean, would it be garlic?
- Really have to put, well, yeah.
- I'd love to know. - [Theresa] Well, they do say, 'cause I read a little bit
about the Irish soda bread before we made it. They say that this is like,
I call it a pound cake, because, in my world, everybody
I know has a pound cake- - Has their own.
- Has their own version of a pound cake. They say in Ireland that every
family has their own version of how they do it.
- Yes, I bet. - [Theresa] I think we do
it mostly in the States with the sweet because, again, we're doing it around celebrations, and they do say that the Irish soda bread, it gets made the most during the St. Patrick's Day.
- The St. Patrick's Day. - [Theresa] Working up
to St. Patrick's Day. I don't know if that's true or not. Somebody from Ireland might
be able to tell us that. - [Paula] Okay, well, this is
looking really, really good. - [Theresa] I think I
love St. Patrick's Day because, for me, it's
all about traditions- - Yes.
- And I feel like everything that we're gonna be doing this week are a lot of the traditions that- - I bet, when you were in high school, St. Patrick's Day, I would say you could not
count the fun y'all had, (laughs) between the beach
and downtown and parades. - [Theresa] When I worked for Disney, it was more important for me
to get St. Patrick's Day off than it was, and this sounds
bad and I love my family, but Christmas and Thanksgiving
(Paula laughs) because, honestly, it was
the one time of the year that I knew I was gonna
get to see everyone, from my grandparents all the way down- - Yes, and your friends.
- To my best friends. - [Theresa] And then
all the way in between. - [Eddie] Well, when I first
moved here, I had no idea that Savannah celebrated
(Paula laughs) the way they did. And I remember, I mean, I was
just a college student, and- - Yeah, poor little old
Yankee boy college student! - [Eddie] I walked outside and there were (Paula laughs)
just a gazillion people on the street that just
(snaps fingers) appeared, and I was like, "Where are
these people coming from, "and what are they (laughs) doing here?" - [Theresa] Well, and some people think it's like a Mardi Gras, and it is. If you're down on River Street- - It kinda is.
- And you're not a local, you're gonna see an entirely wild side of what St. Patrick's Day is-
- Yes. - But I am here to tell you-
- Which is totally different from the locals. - [Theresa] There is
a very local tradition that is picnicking and it is merriment. There's merriment involved-
- Yes. - But the parade-
- There's some highballs, ain't it? (laughs)
- There's some, little beer, malt. It is the best day of the
year, and I'm so upset this'll be the second year
in a row we haven't had it. - I know, and it's been
called off this year because of that dad-gummed
COVID, but I lived on Abercorn on Calhoun Square. I was the first house in the parade, and, course, I had the balcony. - [Theresa] See, if I
had known you back then. (Theresa exclaims)
- Honey, I'd have had you in. Well, let me tell you something. I invited everybody and his brother to my house for breakfast. I woke up St. Patrick's
Day morning so excited about getting in my kitchen and cooking. I had the worst stomach virus, probably, of my life, but somehow, I got that breakfast cooked, and I said, "There, y'all have at it," and I had to go to bed,
just throwing up, I mean, and the one St. Patrick's Day that I was so, so, so excited about sharing it with my friends. - Well, don't worry-
- I spent it in bed. (laughs) - [Theresa] I shared many
for you with many friends. - But what a perfect house that little house was.
- Oh, yeah. - And when I say little, I mean little. All right, now we're gonna take our bread. - And the X is a big thing.
- Yes, yes. - After you brush it.
- Yeah, I'm gonna flour my knife, and I'm actually using a knife, it's like a little steak knife. All right, I have got my egg. (laughs) It's now stuck. And my cream. - [Theresa] And that's one tablespoon. - [Paula] Yeah, one
tablespoon, just enough to make our bread pretty and shiny. And that egg yolk is gonna make it turn a pretty light brown. That yolk had dried a little bit while we were sitting
here talking, all right. So just like any other
bread we were making, we're gonna just brush in
with a little bit more love. So this was great that the Irish learned how to make this bread, and they probably made it
with even fewer ingredients than we've made this today. - [Theresa] Yeah, I think they
soured milk back in the day. - Yeah, yeah.
- So that that would've been the buttermilk, and then
it would've just been- - Yes.
- Your flour. - [Paula] Yes, and I wonder if they really used caraway seeds. I don't know.
- Oh, no. I think those were all added to set them off.
- Yeah, yeah. Where they would've gotten a caraway seed. Okay, so this is beautiful. - [Theresa] That's about a loaf
for Eddie and a loaf for me. - Yes!
- We left Paula out. - Oh, that's all right. Fat girl don't need no
bread, (laughs) all right. So we're gonna do a big X, and that blade comes in handy. I'm wondering if, maybe, I'm gonna see which works the best. It's tit for tat. I think the blade, though, works the best, so I'm going back to the blade. (exclaims) I'm cutting
through those raisins. (Paula sings) There's nothing like the
baking of fresh bread. Okay, that looks pretty good, doesn't it? - [Theresa] Now it tells you to bake it at 400 for 30 minutes, but it does say you need to watch it. - [Paula] Absolutely, this
oven cooks so fast, Theresa. - [Theresa] And they also say that your top could start
turning a little brown, so if it does, not to panic, to just put some tin foil over it.
- Just cover it. - [Theresa] But that
you want your cake stick to come out clean.
- I'm coming back and pouring a little of the yolk and cream because you could see where the flour was, so I want that to all get
toasty brown down in there. Let me see what I've done. Okay, so in the oven it goes. Whoa, we got to find something to sop up with this (laughs) bread, y'all. Okay, so, whoa, uh-oh. I was thinking I had it on the big tray, but I decided to use the little one, which is just perfect. And we're gonna put that on our middle rack of our oven, preheated at 400 degrees. All right, y'all, our bell just rang, and like they say, the
proof is in the pudding! Look at that, Eddie. - It smells so good.
- Look. And I came over with my bread knife, 'cause you know what I'm gonna do. I stuck it with a toothpick
and it came out clean, so it's probably best to let this cool a little bit. All right, let's see. There we go, we got it out. It has been so long since I had this. Look at that, y'all. Come look, Theresa. It just turned out
beautiful, and remember, we made the sweet version- - (exclaims) Lots of butter.
- With a little sugar and the raisins, and I think we used five
tablespoons of butter, gotta be three quarters of buttermilk, four cups of flour. - [Theresa] Tablespoon
of the caraway seeds. - [Paula] Yes. - [Theresa] Little salt. - [Paula] (laughs) That butter is so hard, but I'm gonna try to cut us a bite. It's very, very hot. So there's not much butter in this recipe, so y'all know we gotta
have some butter. (laughs) Let me get out my good China. (laughs) And we'll have some. Uh-oh, it's so hot to cut, all right. Who would like some? (laughs) Look, Eddie got the piece
with a chunk of butter. - I did, it's falling apart.
- Get it, Eddie. - Good stuff.
- Yum, and look how moist it is. - And that's surprising, with
that little bit of butter. Now from what I understand, like biscuits or pound
cake here in this country, everybody's got their own version of this soda bread, but this is our version, so check it out. You can go on the web and-
- We'll have a link. - And I know they were so proud
learning how to cook this. It's delicious, there you go, Eddie. You get the last piece. And I love the caraway
seeds, what they do to it. A nutty little taste. So Happy St. Patrick's Day. Y'all go kiss a Blarney Stone? (laughs) Go kiss a Blarney Stone. Do you know Savannah has the
second largest celebration of St. Patrick's Day in the country? People are so surprised by that, but everybody will be
cutting back this year, (smacks lips) but Happy St.
Patrick's Day to all of y'all!
