A Co Antrim woman has told how she is keeping the north’s soda bread tradition alive from her kitchen on the shores of Strangford Lough.
Tracey Jeffery set up Tracey’s Farmhouse Kitchen in 2016, inviting visitors to her converted barn at Ballymorran Bay to make their own soda bread while learning about its history.
“It was really important to me to do something that is truly of Northern Ireland, something that’s just unique to us,” she told The Irish News.
“I’d been to loads of cookery classes where you sat back and watched but didn’t take part. I wanted people to be able to roll up their sleeves and actually do it themselves.”
Tracey said baking soda bread gives her a chance to introduce visitors to a part of the north’s food history that many of them know little about.
Tracey in the kitchen
“I did research and learned things myself, like the word ‘farl’. I didn’t realise it meant one of four, or a quarter, because we cut the bread into four farls.
“A lot of Americans think soda bread is made the same way across the whole island of Ireland. I tell them that in the south they call brown bread soda bread, but they don’t make it on a griddle the way we do here and they’re always fascinated.”
Visitors from Northern Ireland are often more surprised by how quickly they can make it.
“People wouldn’t necessarily know that it’s as quick as anything to make,” Tracey said. “By the time you’ve gone to the shop to buy bread, this is ready.”
The eldest of five children, Tracey grew up helping her mother bake for the family at home in Co Antrim.
Freshly made soda and wheaten bread served at Tracey’s Farmhouse Kitchen.
“We didn’t have much money, so my mum was constantly making things that were quick, easy and would last for a while, like corned beef hash and things like that.
“Or sometimes we’d come in from school and she’d have made all sorts of traybakes for us which were amazing.
“And I think my love for baking stemmed from there, I just loved being in the kitchen making sweet things with her.”
Tracey went on to study languages at Queen’s University Belfast and trained as a teacher, although she admits her desire to do something with food was always at the back of her mind.
While studying, she worked in a patisserie in France, where she learned to make macarons.
It was really important to me to do something that is truly of Northern Ireland, something that’s just unique to us
— Tracey Jeffery
When she returned home, she began making them for weddings and farmers’ markets. But the precision required was a far cry from the baking she most enjoyed.
“You had to be perfect about your measurements, down to the last gramme,” she said. “I did it for weddings for a while, but I found it quite stressful.”
Eventually Tracey began looking for a way to share her love of local food. A friend suggested holding classes at home, but she was unsure whether people would make the trip to Ballymorran Bay.
“My worry was that I was stuck out in this rural part of Co Down,” she said.
“I thought, ‘Will coaches come down here? Will people find this, or will they just give up?’
Tracey Jeffery demonstrates how to make traditional soda bread at Tracey’s Farmhouse Kitchen.
“But it’s worked. Now tour operators bring people here as part of their itineraries. By the time they get down here on a coach, they’re like, ‘Where are we?’ because it’s so rural. Then I bring them into my home and they just love it.”
Visitors make soda bread, eat around the kitchen table and take their own baking home with them.
Americans and Canadians are among Tracey’s regular guests, and she said many keep in touch once they have gone home.
“The first thing they say is, ‘I want to do this when I go back home.’
“If I could show you the number of emails and pictures I’ve had from people who’ve made it at home, it’s amazing.”
Ten years after she began, Tracey’s Farmhouse Kitchen has received a five-star visitor experience rating from Tourism NI and been shortlisted for Best Food and Drink Experience (Small) at its Giant Spirit Awards.
The experience has also featured in Tour de Fred: Northern Ireland, with Tracey welcoming First Dates star Fred Sirieix into her kitchen and teaching him how to make soda bread.
Tracey welcomed First Dates star Fred Sirieix into her kitchen and teaching him how to make soda bread. PICTURE: Instagram
“It really doesn’t feel like 10 years,” she admitted.
“I was looking through newspaper articles and thought, ‘Oh my God, I can’t believe 2016 is when I actually started.’”
As a result of the business’s success Tracey and her husband Joe have also expanded what they offer at Ballymorran Bay. Visitors can now go canoeing or paddleboarding with Joe on the lough before returning to the farmhouse for pizzas he makes in their pizza oven.
“We’re right beside the water, so it made sense,” Tracey said.
“They go out around the little islands with Joe, then come in and sit down to a piping hot pizza.”
The couple have also recently launched Strangford Zero Gin, having made their own fruit-infused gins from sloes, damsons and rhubarb for years.
Visitors to Tracey’s Farmhouse Kitchen enjoying their host’s hospitality
“We thought, wouldn’t it be great to have something that is a gin, but you don’t get a sore head the next day?” she said.
“People think it’s just flavoured water, but it’s distilled in a copper pot still with juniper, cardamom and all the ingredients you would get in gin, just without the alcohol.”
An Invest NI innovation grant helped the couple develop the drink, although Tracey said perfecting the product and its packaging had been a long process.
They hope to keep building that side of the business, but she has no plans to stop welcoming people into her kitchen.
“If anybody had told me at 50 that I was going to be making soda bread, I would have said, ‘Wise up, that will never happen,’” she said.
“But I get such a buzz out of it. I feel passionate about it.”
For more information on Tracey’s Farmhouse Kitchen visit traceysfarmhousekitchen.com.