Irish food is more than potatoes, and much more than the caricature of corned beef and cabbage with a pint or two of Guinness (although any meal is improved with a pint or two of Guinness). Ireland is a land of hearty pub food, diverse international flavors, fresh local ingredients and world-renown alcohol. Never one-dimensional, Irish food demands reverence, attention, and a giant appetite.
Traditional Irish dishes are most often based on root vegetables, fresh fish, grains, high quality cream and butter, and locally raised beef, lamb. Ancient monasteries popularized the cheese mongering trade in the early centuries, pairing various hard cheeses with dark wheat bread and even darker beers. This played a crucial role in a great deal of the epicurean delight on the Emerald Isle: As simple as it sounds, a couple slices of chewy soda bread slathered with sweet butter and washed down with a creamy pint of Guinness is true Irish food – fresh, simple and oh-so tasty.
The slow food movement now gaining prominence in the U.S. is a well-developed phenomenon in Ireland. Countless restaurants across the country boast of local ingredients and often list vendors and proximity to farms in great detail on menus. The famous Ballymaloe Cookery School has, in the past twenty years, labored to re-familiarize the Irish with the food of their heritage, and the efforts have been met with great enthusiasm from both tourists and locals.
Seafood chowder, lamb-and-beef stew, fish and chips fried to a golden hue, potatoes mashed and fried in every variation…these are just a few examples of the traditional Irish fare found in every pub. However, Ireland has relied heavily on her British-colony heritage and her immigrant population for culinary inspiration.
Borrowed from the Brits is the lauded tradition of afternoon tea: cafes abound on every Irish street corner, featuring scones and crumpets, tea and excellently brewed espresso. Orange marmalade is present everywhere – in bed and breakfasts, tiny gourmet restaurants, pastry shops, grocery stores – though it is not indigenous to Ireland, or England for that matter. During England’s reign in much of South Asia, spices and exotic produce were imported to the home country, oranges being one of the most desired delicacies. In order to preserve the copper orbs so prized for their vitamin content and taste, the Brits boiled them down in a bit of sugar and created yet another tasty spread for topping biscuits at teatime. Thankfully, they imparted their fruit-wisdom to the Irish who still cling to the marmalade tradition.
Indian food is another food genre derived, in a roundabout way, from England. Countless Indian “take-away” restaurants are present in Irish culture, along with their sister shops of Thai and Chinese food. Much Italian and French cuisine has made its way across the Atlantic to rest in Ireland’s eager stomach, as well as the expected “American” burgers, hot dogs and fried chicken. Most out-of-place of all are the Tex-Mex restaurants in Ireland, with names like “La Salsa” and “Jalapeños.” And these serve quesadillas, enchiladas, tacos and nachos like all of the rest of them.
A big trend in Irish food has, for many years, been French cuisine, although a return to traditional local fare has gained prominence. Yet, the Irish can’t completely shake the French influence – creperies are a common sight and crepes a common treat, filled with everything from the Nutella and Snickers bars to spinach and mushrooms. The inside matters not. Crepes are delicious, so matter how you stuff them.
Banoffi pie is one notable dish in the plethora of desirable Irish sweets. Made with a base of crumbly crust, layers of bananas are topped with a river of golden caramel-toffee cream sauce, and then capped with fresh whipped cream and cinnamon. It’s really unfair how delicious Banoffi pie is; sure, America has apple pie, but that is nothing compared with the rich-fluffy-dairy-sugar-crumble concoction in Ireland’s dessert cache.
Many strange food combinations have resulted from the cultural diversity of the cuisine in Ireland. Bailey’s ice cream may be viewed by some as a bastardization of the country’s creamy aperitif, but it’s too darn tasty to be ignored, even by the most strict of food purists. A common snack after a night of pub hopping is a mess of curry cheese chips: hot, crispy fries, soaked in a sweet-spicy curry sauce and topped with cheddar cheese. Greasy? Yes. Delicious? Absolutely.
One sector of the dining experience that cannot be ignored is that of Irish Drink, around which an entire social milieu has been concocted. Most famous for Guinness, Ireland has a bevy of microbreweries that produce pale wheat ales, robust porters, and stout lagers. Hard ciders are another drink developed within the monastic tradition, and have expanded from simple apple ciders to flavors like pear and berry. Whiskey is produced with similar gusto, although most of the malts fall into one of two teams: Jameson or Busch Mills. (A barfly’s choice between them automatically aligns him with the Catholics or the Protestants of Ireland, unbeknownst to him and often regardless of his personal religious preferences.) Irish cream liqueur cocktails like the Irish Flag Shot are a tasty and cheerful means of celebrating Irish heritage. The Irish Flag is composed of crème de menthe, Bailey’s Irish Cream and brandy, layered in an attractive green-white-orange representation of the national flag. Gaelic (or Irish) coffee is a standard in pubs across the country: made with strong black coffee, whiskey, sugar and chilled whipped cream, this is a perfectly sweet-and-stout drink to end the evening.
Guinness is definitely the star of the Irish pub. The pouring process is complex and takes a few minutes to come to completion. The beer must be poured twice, with ample time in between pourings to allow the body to swirl and the head to form. Variations of the typical pint have developed, like the Blackcurrant Guinness (beer plus blackcurrant juice) and the Black Velvet (beer plus champagne). Yet, nowhere in the U.S. does Guinness taste the same as when poured fresh from the tap, only a few hours away from its original birthplace.
If Ireland could be summed up by one particular taste, one single dish or drink, a full Irish breakfast would be what would best encompass the diversity of the Irish epicurean experience. Not for the faint of heart, the Irish breakfast consists of poached eggs, rashers (thick strips of dry-cured bacon), grilled tomatoes, sausages, black pudding (blood sausage) and potato cakes. Alongside that protein-packed plate is usually a spread of toast and jam, tea, porridge with cream and brown sugar, scones and pastries, fresh fruit and yogurt with muesli. It is daunting. It is intense. It is diverse but, by faith, it is absolutely scrumptious.