Damper

"think of it as one giant scone"

Souvlaki for the Soul

I succumbed to my unhealthy love of Woolworth's 'damper' rolls today. And I have written about this before. Let me categorically state here that they are not damper. Not by any stretch of the imagination really, neither is the damper loaf that they also sell. It's just soft white, floury rolls and bread. 'Real' damper is a kind of soda bread - it's unleavened and cooked in the coals of a campfire and at it's most basic is just flour and water.

It's now considered to be an iconic Australian dish although of course there are versions of this very same thing all around the world. From all those Middle-Eastern and Asian flatbreads, to pizza. These days the Australian Aborigines are also claiming it as their own - and I am absolutely sure that they did indeed make a kind of bread made from grinding various seeds and nuts into flour, mixing with water and cooking over the coals of a fire. The Japinkga Gallery has a page devoted to it if you want to know about how the Aborigines used to make bread. They have called it Damper seed dreaming and it is accompanied by some great Aboriginal art. But with all due deference to their bread, it is not what we new Australians call damper. I think they should find a better name for their own version - which, considering the ingredients for the flour could become a really big thing in today's health conscious world.

Damper as we know it was an Australian stockman thing. The drovers and stockmen who travelled the bush with the cattle and sheep made bread in cast iron pots in campfires. Sometimes it was wrapped around a stick too.

damper 1

damper 2

on stick 2

on stick 1

And if you want to see a good demonstration of the method have a look at this video from Curtis Stone doing his thing for Coles. It's very Aussie.

Now his version has a more modern day acceptable face, in that it includes cheese and butter and the liquid is buttermilk. Not to mention the amount of baking powder that he puts into it. The stockmen might only have had flour and water mixed and kneaded together. Plain flour at that. Even the plainest recipes that I found seemed to always use self-raising flour. However, the video is really pretty good at showing you the technique and it's not very long. I think if you only have flour and water you might have to knead the dough rather more than Curtis Stone does. I saw one recipe that said you kneaded it until it was springy and elastic - as you do for all of those Indian flatbreads.

You can, of course, put whatever other flavourings you like into it - it is after all just a scone really. Even the very authentic looking version shown in the pictures above - the finished product shown below - has bush tomatoes in it - which I guess is a nod to the move to making it an Aboriginal dish. You can find the recipe here (and a video too). And you can vary the liquid for damper too - I saw beer suggested in one recipe.

In my searches for rather more modern updates I came across a couple of recipes from Donna Hay - Rosemary, cheddar and damper muffins (really not damper) and Warm Australian damper with truffle butter

donna hay damper muffins

donna hay

I was intrigued by the second one because it came from Waitrose - the English supermarket chain. And then I found that Donna Hay is actually on a bit of a mission to change the image of Australian food. Apparently the majority of the English - well those who have not actually been here think:

"we're a monocultural culinary backwater of burnt barbecue meat and cheap plonk. They rate us worse than the United States or Germany, not generally considered foodie destinations." Good Food

Well if she has got her recipe for damper into the Waitrose website she must be doing something right. It is interesting though isn't it that, that image, from a country that itself does not have a good foodie image (mistaken by the way), is so bad.

To me I think the defining things about damper are simplicity - don't tart it up with other ingredients - it becomes something else then even if it is delicious - and cook it in the coals. Otherwise it's not authentic.

This version on the left is from Christmas Cooking with the Weekly and it's a very basic recipe - just made from self-raising flour and has a few pepitas on the top. Although it is cooked in an oven. It does not look anything like Woolworths' damper bread.

And by the way: "Damper got its name due to the fact that the fire is damped to allow the bread to be cooked over the ash."

So you see you do have to cook it in the fire.