This bread has been baked daily at the Nantahala Outdoor Center in Bryson City, North Carolina since 1979. It's been baked by me annually since 2007, when my mom found a vintage NOC cookbook titled "River Runners Special" at a yardsale for 75 cents. She and my dad used to canoe the Nantahala River when they were first dating and after they got married. When she found this cookbook, she told me how amazing and comforting this fresh, warm bread tasted with a bowl of hot soup after coming in off the river (the Nantahala is a frigidly cold river, even in summer, as it flows from the bottom of a lake). I inherited their love of the outdoors, and also their love of this bread, evidently.
I started a tradition of baking a batch right before school started back each year when I was in college, so I could freeze the loaves and take them with me. I would thaw little bits at a time, savoring them throughout the fall semester, eating it with lots of butter or dipping into soup. I would hoard it furiously as it was one of my few "luxury" foods I had as a destitute college student.
It's still one of my all-time favorite recipes to make (and eat!) and I make it around the same time every year. I just made it last week, actually, because fall is ever so slightly beginning to creep in and I couldn't wait any longer. I kept one loaf for my husband and me, and gave the other to my mom. I hope it still reminds her of the river. —Kristien
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