This is my interpretation of an early American bread recipe not much eaten anymore. It's fairly heavy due to the limited amount of gluten, and the dough is very sticky. It does not seem to adapt well to bread machine use. This recipe is largely here because it's very, very hard to find an authentic recipe anywhere that's less than a hundred years old; it simply fell out of favor as wheat became cheaper, and not too many people make bread on their own anymore.
These are essentially colonial style recipes (which traditionally used equal amounts of cornmeal, wheat, and rye flours); there are a very few more modern recipes that use greater amounts of wheat flour for more lift. If you don't like heavy bread, Cooking Light magazine has a lighter version at myrecipes.com, as does the original edition of the Boston Cooking School Cook Book by Fannie Merritt Farmer (under "thirded" or "third bread").
UPDATE 2/17/2008: I've added a second recipe below, as well as more sources. The recipe is a sourdough version of this one, made a little more traditionally; the proportions are similar to the first, with a bit more wheat flour in it from a sourdough starter.
The new sources: the Old Sturbridge Village Cookbook from Globe Pequot Press and the Plymouth Colony Cookbook from the Plymouth Antiquarian Society in Plymouth, MA. Interestingly, the Plymouth version is rather more elaborate, including milk and molasses when the OSV version does not.
Straight yeasted Rye and Indian
1 c stone-ground cornmeal
1 1/2 c white bread flour
1 1/2 c rye flour
1 c boiling water
3/4-1 c room temperature water
2 tbsp molasses
1 1/2 tsp salt
1 pkt yeast
butter to grease pan
Dissolve the molasses in the boiling water and mix with cornmeal; let sit 15-20 minutes to soften the cornmeal and cool. Add cool water and the rye and wheat flours and mix in a standing mixer with a dough hook for 5 minutes, then let rise twice for an hour and a half each time, then another half hour to an hour. Preheat the oven to 400F with a cast iron frying pan; melt butter in hot pan to cover, then turn out dough into pan. Turn dough out into pan in a round loaf and bake 45-50 minutes at 375F. Cool on a wire rack and serve with something colonial.
Sourdough Rye and Indian
Adding onto the above recipe, this was done to break a ciabatta rut I'd been in. This is perhaps a bit closer to the original, and strongly resembles a very coarse honey health bread. Like any molasses bread, it mates nicely with butter, though it's also a bit strongly flavored for my taste. Good toasting bread though.
The proportions here are a little weird, but you can easily tweak them just by using a rye/wheat starter instead of a straight wheat starter like I used. The starter is roughly a 50/50 mix of flour and water, and is based on the culture from carlsfriends.org.
1 1/2 c bread flour
1 1/2 c stone-ground rye flour
1 c stone-ground cornmeal
1 c sourdough starter
1 c boiling water
2 tbsp molasses
2 tsp kosher salt
tepid water as necessary (1/2 to 1 c)
Dissolve molasses in boiling water, then add cornmeal and stir till lumps are gone. Let sit until cooled to about 100F.
In the bowl of a standing mixer, mix the sourdough starter with 1/2 cup of tepid water, then add the cornmeal mixture along with the salt, rye flour, and bread flour. Mix with a dough hook until dough comes together, adding water as necessary to form a single, slightly stretchy mass. Do not overmix.
Cover and rise at room temperature for 3-4 hours. Volume may not quite double.
Grease two loaf pans (a parchment liner is optional but suggested). Turn the dough out onto a floured work surface and form into two equally-sized logs, then place in the bread pans and allow to rise, covered, for 1 1/2 hours.
Preheat oven to 375F. Slash the tops of the loaves down the center with a razor blade. Put the bread in the oven, splashing 1/2 cup of water on the floor of the oven to provide steam (repeat five minutes into the baking process). Bake 40-50 minutes, until the internal temperature of the bread reads 200-210F.
