Damper (Australian campfire bread)
Damper (pan de ceniza australiano)
- Date
- c. 1820 · confidence low
- Place
- New South Wales, Australia
- Credited to
- Australian drovers, stockmen and settlers
- Field
- Life & health
⚠️ Disputed: the sources disagree.
What it is
An unleavened bread of flour, water and salt that drovers and settlers baked under the campfire ashes on long journeys. It is a colonial adaptation of the seed-flour doughs and ash breads already made by Aboriginal people.
Damper is known to date from the early colonial period, but there is no precise date or place of origin, and the relationship with Aboriginal doughs is inferred. The place is a regional marker.
What it led to
- camp bread for inland stockmen
- variants with baking soda and serving with golden syrup
- an emblem of Australian bush cooking