Irish recipe - help request

[Jane Gillett]

Found an interesting book in a charity shop - recipes from Irish markets -
need a little help using some of them. Would be grateful if if anybody here
is Irish (or US) or can help anyway?

"My Mother's Brown Bread" (Hannie Leahy) Fethard Market uses:
3 cups of wholemeal
2 cups of flour
and also
Buttermilk
1 tablespoon bread soda
Fist of flake meal
Fist of bran
and melted butter and salt

Mix all dry ingreds.
Add buttermilk and melted butter and mix lightly.
Bake approx 190C for 45-50 mins.

I gave the published recipe first, with quantities, then changed it in case
there were any problems of copyright.

Queries:
Is "wholemeal" ground wholemeal flour or whole grains? Flaked?
Usual query about buttermilk; I would assume it's low fat milk ie after
butter fat removed (rather than cultured whole milk used in US).
Bread soda is presumeably bicarbonate of soda. 1 tablespoon seems a lot but
that's what's written.
What is a "fist" of bran & of flake meal and what is flake meal? Google
suggests use rolled oats for "flake meal" in US.

Now my query:
Could you bake and freeze?

Cheers
jane

[Mike.. . . .]

Following a post by Jane Gillett

Post by Jane Gillett
What is a "fist" of bran

fist is an old irish measurement of lenth, 4 or 5 inches, in this
context handful?

[Stephen Wolstenholme]

On Thu, 01 May 2014 09:34:58 +0100, Jane Gillett

Post by Jane Gillett
Is "wholemeal" ground wholemeal flour or whole grains? Flaked?
Usual query about buttermilk; I would assume it's low fat milk ie after
butter fat removed (rather than cultured whole milk used in US).
Bread soda is presumeably bicarbonate of soda. 1 tablespoon seems a lot but
that's what's written.
What is a "fist" of bran & of flake meal and what is flake meal? Google
suggests use rolled oats for "flake meal" in US.

It is a fairly basic soda bread but some measures look a bit odd. I
use yogurt rather than milk and I only use a rounded teaspoon of
bicarbonate and it works quite well. Yogurt and bicarbonate produce
enough fizz to make the bread light. A "fist" of is probably a
handful. Flake meal is porridge oats.

Steve