Lifestyle and local products
When we think of Irish produce, we naturally think of the potato. First introduced to the country around 1580, the potato's ubiquity in Ireland is not so much a matter of taste as of politics. Indeed, when the island was under English rule, the Irish Catholics only had access to tiny plots of land and turned to the cultivation of potatoes, whose yield on small areas is far superior to that of cereals. Dependence on this root vegetable was so strong that when the late blight epidemic - a parasitic fungus of the potato - struck the island in the mid-19th century, the consequences were disastrous, causing a famine that led to the deaths of almost a million Irish and a mass exodus to the USA.
Other vegetables include kale, carrots, white cabbage and turnips, while traditionally the most widely grown cereals were rye, barley and oats. Nutrient-hungry wheat is harder to grow on moorland and near peat bogs. On the other hand, these lands are ideal for raising sheep, as well as cattle. Connemara lamb, or Uain Sléibhe Chonamara, has a PGI. Pork has also been eaten since time immemorial, and is used to make bacon, sausages and many other products. Examples include Timoleague brown pudding PGI and Sneem black pudding PGI, two black pudding recipes made with pig's blood, cereals and spices. The Irish are big consumers of dairy products. Imokilly regato PDO is a hard cow's milk cheese from the Cork region.
For an island with some 6,200 km of coastline, which is also rich in fish, seafood consumption is surprisingly low in Ireland. The reasons for this are also rooted in English colonization, when the right to sail was severely restricted for the Irish. With land plots often too small to offer decent farming conditions, locals scoured the beaches for seafood, becoming a symbol of colonial misery and humiliation. Since the end of the 20th century, however, the Irish have been reclaiming these resources: mackerel, cod, hake, haddock, but also mussels, lobster, crab and more. Galway oysters and Dublin Bay prawns are highly prized. Freshwater fish such as trout are also popular. Irish salmon - especially smoked - is highly prized, and Clare Island salmon has a PGI. Seaweed such as carrageenan and dulse are commonly used in seafood dishes.
Traditionally, breakfast is hearty, followed by a rather succinct lunch (often a sandwich), especially in the city, and an early dinner, around 6pm, followed by tea and cookies later in the evening. It's worth noting that the full breakfast was created by peasants going out to work in the fields. So it's best to plan plenty of physical activity after such a meal. Nowadays, it's considered more as a kind of brunch eaten by Irish city-dwellers at weekends, rather than as a real breakfast eaten every morning.
The classics of Irish cuisine
The Irish breakfast is similar to the full English breakfast, and consists of eggs, bacon, sausages, toast, white beans with tomato, mushrooms, grilled tomato, whitepudding and blackpudding, with a few more local items: soda bread, boxty (potato pancake), etc. Potatoes are still a staple at most meals.
Potatoes are still a staple at most meals. Colcannon is a rich mashed potato of potatoes, cabbage with a generous dose of butter (or cream), flavored with green onions. The field - very similar - contains no cabbage. Another emblematic recipe, Irish stew(stobhach Gaelach) is a lamb-based stew, with potatoes, onions and carrots simmered for a long time in black beer (Guinness). Historically, this traditional St. Patrick's Day dish was made with mutton, but today lamb or beef is often substituted. At Christmas, the Irish serve spiced beef, which is then simmered and sliced like a cold roast.
Pork is also an important ingredient in the famous Bacon & Cabbage, smoked bacon with potatoes and boiled cabbage, served with a white parsley sauce. Or try skirts and kidneys, a meat and pork kidney stew, or coddle, a dish of pork sausage, bacon, potato and carrot in a broth. Crubeens are simply pork trotters simmered for a long time, then braised or breaded and fried. In addition to black pudding, white pudding is made with lean pork, liver and barley. Fish and seafood dishes, on the other hand, are relatively rare and often very simply prepared. A notable example is the refined Dublin lawyer, lobster cooked in a creamy whisky sauce.
Breads, desserts and drinks
You'll discover that the Irish are very fond of bread, known locally as soda bread. The taste of this bread is very different from those we know. Both soft and crusty, it owes its name to the baking soda that replaces baker's yeast. Its consistency is close to that of a cake. The dough is made from white and wholemeal flour, enriched with butter. It requires only light kneading and no resting time. Originally, soda bread was baked in a pot in the family fireplace. Each Irish baker has developed his own variant of soda bread: wholemeal, brown, oatmeal, baked in a mold. Delicious with butter and jam.
Another traditional pastry is barmbrack, a kind of brioche cake with raisins, candied peel and spices. And let's not forget the blaa, a type of small, very soft brioche. Of course, you'll also find more modern sweets from the rest of the British Isles: carrot cake, scones, cupcakes, apple pie and more. As well as a host of more modern cakes featuring local produce, such as Guinness brownie or Baileys cheesecake.
These pastries are always served with a good cup of tea. Ireland is the world's second biggest consumer of Guinness, after Turkey and just ahead of the UK, with over 2 kg per capita per year. The product was first imported by the English in the early 19th century, but often of variable quality, the tea was usually mixed with a good quantity of milk, as is still the case today. Irish breakfast tea is a robust blend of Assam and Ceylon black. Historically, coffee wasn't exactly the country's great specialty, but the Irish are consuming more and more of it, and cafés - crowded with curious and demanding city-dwellers - are springing up like mushrooms. The local classic is the Irish coffee, made with coffee and whiskey, topped with whipped cream, created in the 1930s.
Between beer and whisky
The Irish are great beer lovers, and pubs are frequented with fervor. Beer is served in pints(pint) or half-pints(half-pint or glass). The most famous is, of course, Guinness, an almost black, very bitter stout with a coffee-like aftertaste. If you prefer a milder beer, try Murphy's (brown) or Smithwicks (red). Lagers are not very common, but the most famous is Harp, brewed in the Guinness Brewery, but you'll also find many international beers.
In December 1759, 34-year-old Arthur Guinness decided to take over a small disused brewery in Dublin's St James's Gate. At the time, rural Ireland drank mostly whisky and gin, and the existing beers were of poor quality. Arthur Guinness's dark ale was such a success that it supplanted all English dark ales and drove them out of the Irish market. What's more, it was a huge success in England. Guinness beer is characterized by its dark color, due to extremely roasted barley. Around 1820, the word "stout" was added to describe this type of dark beer. In 1825, Guinness stout was introduced abroad. By 1833, the Guinness brewery was officially Ireland's largest, and by 1914, it had become the world's largest.
But the island's liquid gold is whiskey, a PGI product since 1980. In fact, "whiskey" is the correct term in Ireland and the USA. The rest of the world uses the term "whisky". There are several categories, such as pure pot still whiskey, made from barley and malted barley (germinated) and distilled in a still. Single malt whiskey is produced in asingle distillery from malted cereals, barley or rye. Only Bushmills and Cooley produce single malt in Ireland. Single grain whiskey is traditionally a whiskey made from unmalted barley, often replaced today by a corn-based cereal blend that also includes barley, malted barley (maximum 30%), rye and wheat. Only Cooley and Midleton produce grain whiskey.
Bushmill, Tullamore Dew and Jameson are the best-known distilleries. But whisky is also available in a multitude of products, such as Bailey's or Waterford Cream (whisky creams), Irish Mist (a liqueur made from whisky, honey and plant extracts) and Hot Port (hot port diluted with whisky and a slice of lemon with a clove).
