I ate canned brown bread so you don’t have to (2024)

Canned brown bread, like many New England traditions, makes no sense to someone who hasn’t witnessed it for at least 20 years. It’s like drinking a “regular” iced coffee in January or saying “No suh” instead of “no way.” It’s evidence that we’re all maniacs and yes, you will get yelled at if you question it.

The bread-in-a-can being examined here is specifically B&M Brown Bread. You can find it in both “raisin” and “original” varieties next to the baked beans in the supermarket and -- I can not stress this enough -- is not actual bread.

B&M brown bread, like banana bread and muffins, are baked goods who are lying to you about what they are. This is cake. It’s not good cake, mind you. It’s like a giant bran muffin that comes in a suit of armor. You have to open up both sides of the can and then slide it out to even access it. Once you do, it comes out molded with ribbed lines along the side -- like a glutenous molasses-infused cousin of canned cranberry sauce.

Like Moxie soda or a chow mein sandwich, canned brown bread is a New England tradition that you’ve either never heard of or have strong feelings about. Usually, it can start family disagreements in about 10 seconds.

Canned brown bread

Seeing as how I had the good fortune of avoiding canned bread for most of my life, I had to go to an expert on the subject -- my dad. He’s not a fan.

“We used to have it on Saturdays with franks and beans,” he said. “It’s gross.”

However, it seems that there was not a consensus at my dad’s house growing up. Seeking a second opinion about Grandma O’Malley’s Saturday brown bread, I asked my dad’s older brother, Bobby.

“I’ve been dying to have brown bread and I get overruled every time we go to the grocery store,” Uncle Bobby said, while my dad shook his head while listening over speakerphone.

There was one point they agreed on: It’s got to be the raisin version, and you’ve got to heat it up.

So what does it taste like?

There are a few ways to describe brown bread. It tastes dense like banana bread without the banana. It’s also reminiscent of bread-y raisin bran without all the raisin and sugar (even in the raisin version). The whole thing is like a big, heavy bran muffin that was transmogrified into a log and stuffed into a can.

The flavors here aren’t exactly complex. Brown bread is a pretty simple baked concoction of wheat flour, rye flour and molasses. There is a mild amount of sweetness that comes the molasses, giving that bran-adjacent flavor.

The brown bread comes out of the can in a dense tube that peels in sections like a cake taken off an under-oiled pan. That heaviness is really the key feature. It has the texture of thick, slightly dry unsweetened brownie. It is really begging for something to dress is up -- or just a glass of milk.

I tried both the original and raisin versions both toasted and untoasted. The toasted raisin version is definitely the way to go. The raisins are key in providing a little extra sweetness and go a long way in breaking up the otherwise monotonous brick of brown.

The B&M can label provides multiple cooking methods. I went with toasting because the oven directions suggest putting it in at 300 degrees for over 30 minutes. At that point, I might as well just make actual bread.

The label also suggests that you can put it in the microwave. I did not do that because if I saw someone putting breadcake into a microwave, I’d assume they were a robot that just learned what food was.

Toasting the brown bread gets a nice little crisp on the edge that works well with butter. It’s reminiscent of a grilled muffin in that way. The mild sweetness from the molasses gives this very old-school Irish soda bread vibe that’s pretty nice in the right setting.

So is it any good?

Despite my immediate misgivings about consuming breadcake from a can, I have to admit it’s actually not bad. It’s best served with cream cheese, jam or some other more dynamic topping to balance out the flavor. By itself, it’s perfectly satisfactory -- once you get past the idea that it came from a can.

If you’re looking for a heavy, cakey bread that needs flavorful toppings to stand out, then brown bread may be for you.

Honestly, I’d eat it again if I had it in front of me. I wouldn’t go out of my way to buy it at the store. It feels like the sort of thing that was a treat in a world where everyone didn’t have immediate access to actual bread.

The final word

While I wouldn’t actually call this stuff real bread, Uncle Bobby did have a story about eating actual canned bread. When he was in the army stationed in Germany in 1972, he used to get leftover C-rations from World War II. Now that was actual canned bread. It was also made in 1945.

And yes, the canned brown bread was better.

Like MassLive’s Facebook page and Instagram Account for more.

---

“I ate it so you don’t have to” is a regular food column looking at off-beat eats, both good and bad. It runs every other Thursday-ish at noon-ish.

You can send any praise/food suggestions to nomalley@masslive.com. Please send all criticisms and questions about weird things New Englanders do to hadams@masslive.com. She’s from Missouri. She’ll love it. You can check out the rest of the series here.

Related content:

• I ate it so you don’t have to: Moxie, Tab and Diet Moxie
• 15 foods only New Englanders eat: Fluffernutters, chow mein sandwiches and more