"Brown bread is as old as our country" James Beard wrote in American Cookery. During the time of the American Revolution, wheat flour was a luxury; cornmeal and rye flour were more common. So out of necessity they added these two to the wheat flour and ended up creating a tradition. Another part of the tradition is how you bake the bread. Since early American homes rarely had ovens, bakers poured this bread into a cylindrical fireproof container and steamed it over an open fire. During my mom’s era, in the 1940s, New Englanders attempted to conserve resources by using empty coffee cans as cooking vessels. In this recipe we are going to use canning jars—specifically three wide-mouth, 12-ounce canning jars. And instead of buttermilk, we’ll use kefir. Other than that, it’s pretty close to the “original recipe”