Why does Ireland lack a culinary heritage?

jetsonx · 03-04-2019 9:25pm #1

Why does Ireland lack a culinary heritage?

I mean we probably have some of the finest ingredients in the world but when visitors here and ask "what's that national dish?", is "bacon and cabbage" really the answer? Thinking harder about it, you might be able to come up with something like "boxty". But ironically both of these dishes are rarely even eaten in modern Ireland.

We cannot use poverty as an excuse because anyone who has traveled to poorer regions of the world knows that some of their foods are amazingly diverse not to mention tasty. We cannot use industrialisation as an excuse because Ireland was never really an industrial nation.

So can anyone shed some light on why Ireland has no culinary heritage?

Yer Da sells Avon · 03-04-2019 9:27pm

Coddle.

GinAndBitter · 03-04-2019 9:28pm

The Brits done it.

03-04-2019 9:29pm

You're being dramatic. Irish stew is a classic staple.

odyssey06 · 03-04-2019 9:30pm

Were the finest ingredients available to the peasants though... or did they end up in the service of a different culinary heritage?

Is beef rib roast on the bone irish or english or everybodys?

Irish stew or corned beef would also be seen as national dishes.

Smoked salmon on brown soda bread... not sure if anyone else does that.

Atlantic Dawn · 03-04-2019 9:32pm

We have some of the best natriddle ingredients on the face of the earth available to us, no need to go mixing it all up to make it apetising.

OldMrBrennan83 · 03-04-2019 9:33pm

Chicken fillet roll. No other country can beat that.

Teddy Daniels · 03-04-2019 9:33pm

Well cooked irish good is very good.

Pissartist · 03-04-2019 9:33pm

Periwinkles and Guinness

Jellybaby1 · 03-04-2019 9:35pm

Some years ago I spend some time trying to research old Irish cookery books. I found hardly anything worth looking at. Everything in the online database was pretty modern. Check it yourselves:
http://catalogue.nli.ie/Search/Results?lookfor=cooking&type=AllFields&filter%5B%5D=geographic_facet%3A%22Ireland%22&page=1&view=list

odyssey06 · 03-04-2019 9:36pm

Teddy Daniels wrote: »

Well cooked irish good is very good.

Good one. Though that reminds me
John B Keane I think wrote a lament decades ago to the glory days of the mixed grill.

Gmaximum · 03-04-2019 9:36pm

When you look other national dishes they’re mostly peasant food of old. Cassoulet in France springs to mind. Our corned beef and stew fit the bill her.

We absolutely have a heritage which is focused on small regional producers of fantastic cheese, meats, fish etc. The menu in most restaurants will now tell you where the produce came from.

03-04-2019 9:38pm

The things we take for granted are the things we do best. Sausages and rashers. Soda bread. Brown bread in general. Beefy stew things. Even our sweets (shared mostly with the UK) are great and blow North Americans' minds along with our crisps. :pac: All the breakfast puddings are great.
Then of course our version of curry and the fantastic inventions of breakfast rolls and last but not least chicken fillet rolls.

The wonderful cured meats in Eastern Europe and cured hams of Spain are normal to them but fantastic to us.

ytpe2r5bxkn0c1 · 03-04-2019 9:38pm

The average person in Ireland, for hundreds of years, had little access to a variety of ingredients. Oats and dairy products initially, then potatoes. Not the makings of any culinary tradition. Those who did have access to a variety of foods followed the Saxon, then Norman influences.

farmerwifelet · 03-04-2019 9:38pm

Black and white pudding too. Though black pudding is now becoming fashionable again. Most of our dishes would be slow cooking, thus not very restaurant friendly. Stews, coddle, boiled ham. Also a lot of the cuts of meat used years ago aren't available now. My mam used to get a lamb neck made into chops and stew pieces. Can't get neck in the local butchers anymore. Beef Tongue seems to be making a comeback.

castletownman · 03-04-2019 9:38pm

Well I'm not surprised considering the mania that surrounds the opening of a branch of a US restaurant on these shores. And the amount of aping of fad dishes on instagram.

I tell ya. There was no gluten-free dishes during the famine.

Del.Monte · 03-04-2019 9:39pm

Gmaximum wrote: »

When you look other national dishes they’re mostly peasant food of old. Cassoulet in France springs to mind. Our corned beef and stew fit the bill her.

We absolutely have a heritage which is focused on small regional producers of fantastic cheese, meats, fish etc. The menu in most restaurants will now tell you where the produce came from.

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OldMrBrennan83 · 03-04-2019 9:40pm

Del.Monte wrote: »

Used to be the king of cheese and they ****ed it up. Actually health and safety probably ****ed it up.

Force Carrier · 03-04-2019 9:41pm

In the great pantheon of Irish culinary contributions include the crisp sandwich. Coddle and Stew already mentioned and then there is the Spice Burger. And not to forget the Breakfast Roll.

biko · 03-04-2019 9:41pm

Irish Stew is the national dish of Ireland. Lovely when done right.
For Iceland it's Hákarl, frigging digusting..

odyssey06 · 03-04-2019 9:42pm

farmerwifelet wrote: »

Black and white pudding too. Though black pudding is now becoming fashionable again. Most of our dishes would be slow cooking, thus not very restaurant friendly. Stews, coddle, boiled ham. Also a lot of the cuts of meat used years ago aren't available now. My mam used to get a lamb neck made into chops and stew pieces. Can't get neck in the local butchers anymore. Beef Tongue seems to be making a comeback.

I have read a few different recipes for irish stew that recommend lamb neck. Dunno where the necks go, hardly ever see it, maybe the modern sheep are no necks like rugby forwards.

grindle · 03-04-2019 9:42pm

Curry cheese chips.

Seriously though, we were repressed for ages - of course we have ****e cuisine.

The Netherlands apparently had a wideranging internationally-inspired cuisine to rival the French until their empire started dying off, then once WW2 ended all they were left with was unbuttered bread and rubbery tasteless cheese - they still eat that flavourless muck day-to-day despite international cuisine making a huge comeback thanks to globalisation. And pork chop dinners with veg and no seasoning bar salt. Not. Even. A sauce or gravy. Anybody 60+ in the Netherlands, that's most of the crap they eat.
Their meat is terrible too, dry and lifeless steak unless paying through the hoop for imports.

Tayto sandwich?

Doctors room ghost · 03-04-2019 9:44pm

I used to watch a program called the druid chef Celtic tv.he was all about Irish food dishes.he used to dress as a druid and all.great program was on Irish tv.he used to shout “bringing the food to the people and the people to the food”.
If ye can find it it’s worth a watch

Franz Von Peppercorn · 03-04-2019 9:44pm

jetsonx wrote: »

Why does Ireland lack a culinary heritage?

I mean we probably have some of the finest ingredients in the world but when visitors here and ask "what's that national dish?", is "bacon and cabbage" really the answer? Thinking harder about it, you might be able to come up with something like "boxty". But ironically both of these dishes are rarely even eaten in modern Ireland.

We cannot use poverty as an excuse because anyone who has traveled to poorer regions of the world knows that some of their foods are amazingly diverse not to mention tasty. We cannot use industrialisation as an excuse because Ireland was never really an industrial nation.

So can anyone shed some light on why Ireland has no culinary heritage?

Most of what is considered the culinary heritage elsewhere is only a hundred or so years old. Tomatoes were first eaten in the late 19C and look at Italy now.

Like the british though, we never needed much in the way of spices which act as a preservative and by causing a sweat cool people in hotter climates.

Doctors room ghost · 03-04-2019 9:46pm

odyssey06 wrote: »

I have read a few different recipes for irish stew that recommend lamb neck. Dunno where the necks go, hardly ever see it, maybe the modern sheep are no necks like rugby forwards.

No bother getting neck from the butcher whole.most of it is diced now and minced.its a nice and cheap cut

Franz Von Peppercorn · 03-04-2019 9:46pm

The RTE series called lords and ladles documents a few hundred years of Irish culinary history. Tellingly though it’s mostly set in elite aristocratic houses, since they were the ones eating.

Pissartist · 03-04-2019 9:46pm

Magic mushroom soup is a classic

mistersifter · 03-04-2019 9:48pm

Like an aul boxty meself.

Stacksofwacks · 03-04-2019 9:48pm

The Irish in general were never healthy eaters, when I see what my parents generation eat and how they cook it I wonder how so many of them are still with us

OldMrBrennan83 · 03-04-2019 9:52pm

Stacksofwacks wrote: »

The Irish in general were never healthy eaters, when I see what my parents generation eat and how they cook it I wonder how so many of them are still with us

At least if they weren't they'd have enjoyed something while they were around.

mistersifter · 03-04-2019 9:54pm

what we do have is brilliant quality of ingredients.

e.g. Our dairy products are second to none and our meat is very good too.

Oh yeah, and we invented the Italian chipper. Who needs anything else?!

Why does Ireland lack a culinary heritage?

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