# Communion Bread, with a focus on Shortbread



## Wayne (Sep 10, 2011)

Drawing from the Terry Johnson thread, here's a new thread on the use of shortbread as the appropriate or commonly used bread, particularly in Scotland. It might be good to keep in mind that when using the term shortbread, we're probably not talking about anything that was sugared.

[With Chris's concurrence, I think I might just write an article on this topic for the CPJ.]

Here's one authority on the subject:



> Old Scottish Communion Plate, by Thomas Burns, et al. [Edinburgh, 1892], p. 16.
> 
> The elements consisted then as now of bread and wine; but it is worthy of note that the greatest care was always taken in preparing the bread and in procuring the wine for Communion. Some kirk-sessions bought "flour" and had it baked into bread by persons in whomm they had implicit trust, for use on the hallowed occasion. Hence the bread used in different parts of Scotland was of varying quality and nature. Possibly this explains the custom, derived from ancient date and still followed in some parishes in the South of Scotland, as Kirkmaiden, Parton and Inch (Galloway), or using shortbread as the appropriate bread for the Communion [3].
> 
> [3] It is only in recent years that shortbread has been replaced by common bread. The minister at Stoneykirk affirms that at his induction in 1858 shortbread was used in all the parishes within the Presbytery of Stranraer. It was recently used in Dumfries Parish Church.


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## Wayne (Sep 10, 2011)

Here's another source on the subject:



> The Transactions and Journal of Proceedings of the Dumfriesshire & Galloway Natural History and Antiquarian Society, Sessions 1887-88; 1888-89; 1889-90. Page 10.
> 
> "Rev. R.W. Weir said he had been brought up on the East Coast, amongst people who often talked about old church customs; and he thought if they had ever themselves witnessed a dispensation of the Communion with shortbread, or had heard of others having done so, they would have certainly mentioned it some time or other in his hearing. Dr. Sprott, in his book, siad it was a custom that prevailed in Dumfriesshire and Galloway, and that the explanation of it was that shortbread was unleavened bread. He had heard of it frequently since he came to the district; and he knew that in Buittle it was still used. As to the theory of unleavened bread, he thought it very doubtful. He supposed that in this district there would be two kinds of bread, the oatbread for general use, and the shortbread for company use, and that at the Communion they naturally took the best kind of bread they knew of. In the minutes of the Dumfries Kirk-Session he had seen no notice of a change in the matter of providing the bread; the change, he supposed, would be made without any decree on the part of the Kirk-Session. Similar changes had taken place in regard to the wine. He found in old days that in Dumfries and elsewhere it had always been claret that was used at the Communion; but there came a time when claret ceased to be so popular in Scotland, and port took its place...."


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## Peairtach (Sep 10, 2011)

Aah, the Great Shortbread Question.


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## NaphtaliPress (Sep 10, 2011)

Go for it.


Wayne said:


> [With Chris's concurrence, I think I might just write an article on this topic for the CPJ.]


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## jwithnell (Sep 10, 2011)

In baking short often refers to a bread with a high fat and low protein content. (Hence the modern abomination: "shortening" for use in biscuits and pie crusts. ) Our modern biscuits are easy to make with chemical leavens, but the older variants were beaten and much harder and more time-consuming to make. (Recipes survive in the south and I think come out of a Scottish heritage.) Perhaps that is the distinction made with "common" bread that basically just required little work but time (for the yeast to work) and little necessary fat (hence less costly).

I think we are given a fair amount of freedom in the bread used for communion, and what is familiar -- but likely the best -- for a community should be used. I have tried and tried to figure out the breads used in the Old Testament, but it almost seems like the record is purposefully absent. The Jews likely came out of Egypt with knowledge of refined flour and oven baking techniques. We have OT references to measures of "fine" flour used for important guests. The bread used by Jesus would have been matzo for passover, but the use of leavened bread goes way back amongst the gentiles.


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## Peairtach (Sep 10, 2011)

> I think we are given a fair amount of freedom in the bread used for communion, and what is familiar -- but likely the best -- for a community should be used. I have tried and tried to figure out the breads used in the Old Testament, but it almost seems like the record is purposefully absent. The Jews likely came out of Egypt with knowledge of refined flour and oven baking techniques. We have OT references to measures of "fine" flour used for important guests. The bread used by Jesus would have been matzo for passover, but the use of leavened bread goes way back amongst the gentiles.



Do we know it would be matzo? Matzo are crackers, and what Jews use today. We know how Jews can take things to legalistic extremes - as can Christians, sadly.

It doesn't _need_ to be unleavened bread because the imagery has changed, as other threads on the subject deal with.

Shortbread, at least the Scottish variety, is a sweet biscuit rather than nourishing and filling bread.



> Possibly this explains the custom, derived from ancient date and still followed in some parishes in the South of Scotland, as Kirkmaiden, Parton and Inch (Galloway), or using shortbread as the appropriate bread for the Communion [3].
> 
> [3] It is only in recent years that shortbread has been replaced by common bread. The minister at Stoneykirk affirms that at his induction in 1858 shortbread was used in all the parishes within the Presbytery of Stranraer. It was recently used in Dumfries Parish Church.



This is all very interesting, and indeed fascinating. I was only speaking of my experiences of being in churches that had their main base in the Highlands, the Free Presbyterian Church and the post-1900 Free Church.

I still don't think it's a good idea to use shortbread, although whether it had any effect on the spirituality of the South West of Scotland would be another question.


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## TimV (Sep 10, 2011)

Wayne, I think the Port deal over Claret would have to do with the alcohol content. Port is half again as strong as Claret, so for those taking from a common cup it would be better for disease control.

Or, just to make the people more joyous


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## Peairtach (Sep 10, 2011)

There's also a song that goes with this that all advocates of shortnin' bread and young mothers of little babbies should learn.

Shortnin' Bread - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia



> It has been said that The Banana Splits borrowed some of the tune (the portion under "put on the skillet, slip on the lid, mammy's gonna make us some shortenin' bread") for the chorus of its February 1969 "The Tra La La Song (One Banana, Two Banana)" hit, *although this contention may be debatable*.


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## jwithnell (Sep 10, 2011)

I'm familiar with the sweet shortbread and make it fairly frequently for tea in the winter. I must have missed a beat somewhere, but I thought the communion bread reference was to a shortbread that was _not_ sweet.

I too have wondered about the cracker-like matzo of modern times. I know zilch about Hebrew, but when looking up references to bread, it seems that the word for bread in general could be transliterated lechum. And that matzah was added for an unleavened bread and challah could be used for either an leavened bread or a cake (one reference was to a dried fruit cake). I've wondered if the unleavened bread of Jesus' day was really a cracker, or a flat bread that dried into a cracker-like bread. I make both a leavened and unleavened flat bread in a mid-eastern style and both are soft and pliable on the first day and become cracker-like if they sit overnight. If my theory is correct, the best (soft-fresh) bread would have been served on Passover but the more cracker-like bread would have been well familiar to travelers who would not have had the luxury of baking fresh bread every day.


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## Peairtach (Sep 11, 2011)

Yes. Good point about thin or relatively thin flat unleavened bread becoming crunchy when it dries out which may point to the development of matzohs.

Although short_bread_ is called so, most (all?) Scots would place it under the Platonic category (?) of _biscuit_ rather than bread or even cake.

I shouldn't have brought up the subject of whether the bread should be leavened or not, or whether that matters, as that will have been dealt with _adnauseam_ elsewhere on this site.

But the fact that shortbread isn't leavened, as far as I understand, would no doubt be a factor in its use in the South West of Scotland, even although I don't think it qualifies as bread but a hard or crumbly biscuit.

I don't know if there are any churches that follow this practice still in SW Scotland or elsewhere in Scotland. The few FCs and FPCs that are there don't anyway.

That is how the cookie crumbles.


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## JennyG (Sep 11, 2011)

Scottish shortbread is one of nature's anomalies. It doesn't go floppy in its old age, so I don't think it is a biscuit. It doesn't go especially hard either, so it can't be cake. I've never seen it grow a coat of fur, so that rules out bread. It must be a species on its own. 
Perhaps that's the reason the grammarian Dr Kennedy devoted a whole handbook to it, his revered _Shortbread-Eating Primer_


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