[SECProto]

That's a weird (or perhaps regional) definition. Brown bread I've had is always molasses sweetened. Source: ontario and provinces east.

The boston canned brown bread i always assumed was a touristy thing, not something regularly consumed.

[nucleardog]

Lived in BC, SK, and ON. I'm far enough east that I regularly hit up both Ottawa and Montreal.

In my experience "brown bread" is a synonym for whole wheat bread. If you go order a sandwich and they ask what bread you want it on and you say "brown", you're getting whole wheat (or maybe 60% whole wheat... just not white).

I'd be very confused if I ever got this molasses-sweetened bread everyone is talking about.

[qualeed]

BC, AB, ON. Same as you, brown bread = whole wheat. Not sure I've even heard of molasses-sweetened bread, let alone eaten it.

[switchbak]

https://www.crosbys.com/sarahs-molasses-brown-bread/

It’s made with ungodly amounts of molasses. My grandmother used to make it with lard or shortening, yikes.

[SECProto]

I would note that's a recipe on a molasses website. My family recipe uses one quarter cup of molasses, which is ~48g sugar in two loaves. Leave the spoonful of sugar out your morning coffee and you'll be even with the sugar in your couple slices of toast.

[sellmesoap]

Molasses has a lot of minerals in it, and the notion that eating fat makes you fat is a lie purpitrated by big sugar/grain that has lead to a lot of diabetes and heart desease, your grandmother knew where it was at! Also Big Sugar is an underrated band from Canada IMO

[switchbak]

That isn’t just fat, it’s heavily saturated fat. Lard in particular is nasty stuff.

And yeah molasses has minerals in it … and a ton of sugar. It’s no health food.

I’ve loaded up on this stuff as a kid. You’re basically eating cake. That’s fine for a treat, not for eating every day.

[sellmesoap]

Would you expand on how nasty lard is? I had a quick search and the top result was a reddit thread of people breaking down the different fatty acids in lard and coming away surprised that the good outweighs the bad. I don't eat a lot of lard personally, but I'm not as concerned about it compared to microplastics or highly processed foods. Looking at the nutritional info on the side of the blackstrap molasses carton indicates a small amount of it covers a significant portion of daily intake for a few key minirals against less surgar then one puts in their coffee. I agree it's cake, but does a slice of generic sheet cake get part of your daily dose of iron, potassium, b2, b6, magnesium?

[bee_rider]

I bet you knew it was a treat, though. Compare to some folks’ daily sugar cereal diet… I dunno, unhealthy habits are usually unhealthy because they are habits.

[bee_rider]

I found a sort of fun blog post that points out that technically, it could be considered a pudding rather than a bread, because it is steamed rather than baked.

https://www.britishfoodinamerica.com/A-Number-of-Historical-...

Although the consistency is more like a dense, very moist bread. It wouldn’t be great for a conventional sandwich. Could reasonably steal the English muffin’s job, though. Or a regular muffin. Maybe a bit messier.

[SECProto]

Yeah when I think further on it, I've never heard of it here in Ontario. In Atlantic Canada though, it's definitely made with molasses. Google search results [1] suggests this is a regionalism (Atlantic Canada and new england states)

If I was offered brown bread and got a boring whole wheat, I'd be sorely disappointed.

[1] https://my-mothers-cook-books.ca/2021/05/29/brown-bread-vs-p...

[switchbak]

Nova Scotian here: it’s definitely made with molasses. It’s really moist and doughy when it’s fresh. Goes very well when dipped in a chowder.

Or do like my Mom did: mix a little peanut butter with molasses into a slurry on top.

All of this will kill you, of course, but it does taste good!

[drdec]

Massachusetts native, we regularly are brown bread from a can as a kid. Not a touristy thing.

[bee_rider]

My family were definitely not tourists, but come to think of it I don’t recall seeing the canned stuff in my friends’ houses. So maybe we were just locals who fell for a prank that was being played on the tourists, or something.