4 Must-Try New England Bread Traditions, From Parker House Rolls to Boston Brown Bread

Anadama Bread

On the Paul Revere Heritage Site in Canton, Massachusetts, Northern Spy is not just a restaurant, it’s a living history museum for food geeks. Co-owner, executive chef, and food historian Marc Sheehan interprets many New England traditions, including anadama bread and Boston brown bread, sometimes called New England brown bread. As Sheehan describes it, the similar ingredients of anadama and brown bread speak to several historical developments, including the use of cornmeal, which Europeans traded for or stole from Native Americans when the new arrivals’ initial wheat plantings failed; rye, one of the first European grains to successfully grow in the United States; wheat, once that could be traded for or grown; and molasses, a key product of the transatlantic slave trade.

Anadama bread is a savory baked loaf with a hint of sweetness, often sliced for sandwiches, and still made at a fair number of top spots, including A&J King Artisan Bakers in Salem, Massachusetts; Abigail’s Bakery in Weare, New Hampshire; Night Moves in South Portland, Maine; and Puritan & Company in Cambridge, Massachusetts, where owner Will Gilson loves it for toast because the cornmeal makes the bread a little denser and the molasses complements a good salty butter.

Brown Bread

Modern New England brown bread is much sweeter, a phenomenon that developed over time as high-society types added extra molasses to show off their wealth. It’s also steamed more like a British pudding, though it still gets used in savory settings. The Industrial Revolution led to brown bread being canned for longevity; the best-known example is made by B&M, which also produced baked beans at its iconic cannery in Portland, Maine, for decades before moving production to the Midwest in 2021. Amy Traverso, senior food editor of Yankee magazine and co-host of the PBS series Weekends with Yankee, notes that R.E. Kimball & Company still makes a version locally, welcoming the public to its factory outlet in Amesbury, Massachusetts, as well as co-packing for businesses like Calef’s Country Store in Barrington, New Hampshire.

Cut off both sides of the can, slide out the bread, slice it up, and serve it with franks and beans for a classic New England “bean suppah.” Sheehan dials back the sweetness of his steamed brown bread and serves it with smoked bluefin pate, crème fraîche, and pickled onions — it’s based on the combo of smoked salmon and cinnamon-raisin bagels, which he had “a weird thing for” as a kid and has turned into a professional signature.

Parker House Roll

The Parker House Roll was invented at Boston’s storied Parker House hotel, now the Omni Parker House, in the 1870s. The soft, butter-filled and -brushed roll that often graces the dinner table at holiday celebrations gets its distinct dimpled shape from being folded before baking, which helps you pull it apart for buttering. It was “the inspired creation of an in-house German baker named Ward,” according to Susan Wilson, the Omni Parker House’s historian. Imitators popped up quickly, but “the rolls’ precise ingredients, incidentally, remained a well-kept secret until 1933, when, according to legend, Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt requested the recipe be forwarded to them in Washington.” Bakery supervisor Laura Figueroa goes through about 220 Parker House rolls per day, selling them by the dozen at the hotels’ two dining venues, Parker’s Restaurant and the Last Hurrah.

The Parker House roll is one of the easiest historical breads to find in New England these days, especially if you’re not finicky about the fold, as many recipes now skip it. The beloved New Rivers rolls, topped generously with Parmigiano-Reggiano at New Rivers in Providence, Rhode Island, aren’t technically Parker House rolls, but they’re at least spiritual descendants. Same with the ones at Puritan & Company, which goes through 30,000 Parker House rolls per year — they’re made with plenty of milk, eggs, butter, and potato flour to ensure they’re as pillowy as expected even without the characteristic seam, and they’re served warm with whipped cultured butter.

Suzy Sapir, founder of seasoning company Hippy Pilgrim in Plympton, Massachusetts, recommends the rolls at A&J King Artisan Bakers, which stone-mills its grains in-house. Northern Spy serves Parker House rolls on weekends with rotating add-ons like hot buttered lobster or smoked braised beef. You’ll also find fluffy Parker House rolls at Harvey’s Bakery & Coffee Shop in Dover, New Hampshire, and some of Traverso’s favorites with whipped maple butter at The Red Rooster at the Woodstock Inn & Resort in Woodstock, Vermont.

Shaker Squash Bread

The recipe for Shaker raised squash bread came from Canterbury Shaker Village in Canterbury, New Hampshire. These soft, rich yeasted rolls get their beautiful yellow hue and slight sweetness from pureed squash, a cornerstone of the Three Sisters, the Indigenous method of agriculture in which squash grows harmoniously with corn and beans. Now that the Shakers, a celibate religious order, only have two living members left — at Maine’s Sabbathday Lake Shaker Village — this bread has become hard to find, but The Crust and Crumb Baking Company in Concord, New Hampshire, still makes them under the name Shaker Squash Rolls, especially around Thanksgiving. Otherwise, you’re more likely to see seasonal pumpkin dinner rolls at bakeries, which are arguably the same thing — a pumpkin is a squash, after all.