True Irish soda bread or wheaten bread (made with stone ground wheat flour) has no fruit in it. Fruit and and a little sugar are added to make a "tea cake", the sort of thing to serve with a nice cup of strong Irish tea in the afternoon. Wheaten bread, still warm from the oven, is grand with fresh Atlantic mackerel, dusted with coarse oatmeal, and fried in a pan. Soda farls, triangular in shape, are quite often cooked on a griddle. I often made soda bread, served with butter and cheese, to cut some of the booze after my husband and his friends had been out on the town. By the way, I am Irish born and bred, and I don't think I ever had soda bread with fruit in it. Barm brack (speckled bread) is made with dried fruit and yeast, and is lovely cut in wedges, split, toasted and spread with lashings of butter.

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