Irish soda bread is a traditional loaf made with baking soda and buttermilk for leavening instead of yeast. It’s a much quicker way of making bread than the kneading, rising, punching, etc. method of yeasted bread. Though soda bread is usually attributed to Ireland, Native Americans were the first to document using pearl ash, an early form of potassium bicarbonate made from wood ash, as a leavening agent. It wasn’t until the 1830s that the bread gained popularity in Ireland, where the low-quality wheat flour available was better suited to baking soda than yeast. It is better to use flour with less gluten than all-purpose or bread flour when making soda bread. Pastry flour works well, but we like to use spelt, an ancient grain closely related to wheat.