Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Sift together the flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt. Stir in buttermilk, a cup at a time. You should make a fairly soft dough that will nonetheless hold its shape. Thus, you may need the full amount of buttermilk.

Turn the dough out onto a well-floured board (this is a stock phrase; do it anyway). Knead until it is smooth and soft, probably about 7 minutes. You should have to keep adding a little flour to the board for the first few minutes to keep the dough from sticking.

Are you using currants? Knead them in, then. Or don't, accordingly.

Tear the dough in half. Form each half into a ball. With a knife, slash a cross in the top. Place the balls, cross up, well apart, on a greased baking sheet. Put this sheet, bread side up, into the oven.

Bake for 35 or 40 minutes. The loaves are done when they sound hollow at a knocking hand. They should also get to be a nice light brown color. The cross will split open, and the resultant points will get hard and dark brown. Soda bread has a tendency to crack in the oven. This is no big deal.

* Two white soda loaves - This is a basic soda bread, following the Irish mode. I scaled up the recipe from one of Beard's and changed it some. It is quite crusty and really all-purpose. This soda bread takes around a third the time and a half the effort of a comparable yeast bread. Since no yeast bread is much like it, I don't know what would be comparable. People who have never tried a soda bread will note many differences, like the order you add things (flour and then the liquid...).

* You can substitute, per James Beard's recommendation, about 4 cups of whole-wheat flour for half the white. Since this will be heavier, use about 40 percent more baking powder. The bread made this way is markedly different.