Food Of The Auld Sod

Irish food is usually put into the same category as British food - ugh. Yet this island is rich both in beef and seafood, lamb and dairy. Irish food is taken from ancient recipe sand local farms. The combination is a rich melding of tastes and flavors, traditions with a modern twist. This is what makes modern Irish foods tasty and rich.

Modern Irish cooking or Nouvelle Irish cuisine consists of a lot of the island‘s salmon and trout along with mussels and oysters. These are served with the traditional greens of cabbage and kale. The early Irish had a more land based diet of cattle, sheep and fowl. This is true today in some regions where rich stews and roasts still rule. Pork plays an important part in the cooking , especially in the breakfasts. Pork sausage figures in th traditional one as does white and black sausages, eggs and tomatoes. The Irish also like their sausages cooked with fatty or streaky bacon along with potatoes and onions. Bacon figures heavily in some dinner dishes as well.

The Irish love sweets too. In fact they are the purveyors of the world’s best chocolate , Butler’s, founded and still based out of Dublin. The Irish are excellent bread bakers and sometimes make sweet ones for dessert. Honey, one of the oldest ingredients in Irish cuisine, is used frequently (it was first used to flavor mead for the tribesmen) as well as oats and apple. Tarts are popular as after dinner treats. One, the sinfully rich Connemara tart is made with cream eggs and apples and then dusted with cinnamon and nutmeg. Guinness makes an appearance in Guinness Cake, a kind of fruitcake that is redolent with raisins. Apple duff, mentioned in James Joyce’s Ulysses is a rich variation of a baked apple but it's encased in puff pastry and served with cream..

Irish cuisine is as ancient and rich as the Gaelic heritage itself. Traditional ingredients are blended together to form cooking that is both traditional yet modern . It' s not just simply corned beef and cabbage but much much more. It’s as varied and a textured as the country’s history and literature.