Food in Ireland has always been defined by invaders, the Celts of eastern, northern and southern Europe and Anatolia, the Vikings, Anglo-Normans, Saxons and Britons, by countless migrants and by the relationships coastal and river people developed as traders with seafarers and travellers.
Early food was based on grains – barley, einkorn, oats, spelt – on dairy produce, on game meat, on inshore, lake and river fish, on eggs (domesticated and wild), on honey and on wild berries and fruit.
Porridge made with milk and oats is one of the oldest traditional dishes. Oats were used in numerous ways, in soups and stews, in confections like honeycomb, and as the essential ingredient in griddle bread. They were fermented to provide the leaven for bread, before bicarbonate of soda and baker’s yeast.
Cooking, curing and curdling methods were influenced by the invaders. The Vikings specialised in air-dried fish but it is likely that the tradition of salt-dried fish was brought from the Iberian peninsula. Whatever the origin, drying fish was a tradition around the Atlantic fringe.
Cockle, eel, haddock, herring, langoustine (Dublin bay prawn), mackerel, pike, salmon, trout and winkle provided protein for coastal, lake and river communities. Sea vegetables such as dulse and sloke were eaten as snacks, and cooked in breads and soups.
Meat from domesticated and wild birds (duck and goose in particular), small animals (hares and rabbits) and large animals (boar and deer) was common, and defined traditional dishes.
The event of the potato, brought by Basque fishermen in the mid-1600s, had a profound effect on traditional food. Usually cooked whole in their skins, a method that retained minerals and vitamins, the potato was used as a thickener for soups (early chowders, for example), as a bulking agent in stews and as a companion for countless dishes – boxty, champ, coddle, colcannon, pratie.
Nothing was wasted. Offal was mixed with pig’s blood and oats to make black pudding. Pig trotter’s were served whole or as an aromatic thickener in soups and stews. Sausage making utilised pork meat and biscuit rusk in a combination that was unique (the continentals put rusk in their meatballs – a tradition that never caught on in Ireland).
Mutton became an important food in the late 18th century. The consequence was Irish stew, made initially with mutton, potatoes, onions and salt, then much latter with other root vegetables and herbs.
Bread making went through countless adaptations in the early 19th century as new ingredients were introduced, and produce and products from overseas – bicarbonate of soda, dried fruit, molasses, soft wheat, spices and sugar – led to the beginnings of many of the dishes now associated with Irish traditional food.
Cakes and confections proliferated, influenced by migrants from France, Italy and Switzerland who introduced home bakeries and ice cream parlours.
Breakfast became the most important meal of the day, and epitomised traditional food, continuing to this day. Depending on the region, breakfast included a combination of foods from bacon rashers, black and white puddings, fried eggs, pork-rusk sausages, potatoes in their various disquises, white soda bread and steak sausages followed by wheaten soda bread and scones with butter, jams and preserves, milky tea or coffee with hot milk. Fast breakfast was fadge – bacon, eggs and potato cakes.
The concept of meat, vegetables and potatoes on a plate probably started in Ireland. Now bacon / gammon / ham, cabbage and mashed potatoes / chipped potatoes or roast stuffed pork, carrots, gravy and mashed potatoes / chipped potatoes or sirloin steak, crispy onion and mashed potatoes / chipped potatoes are thought of as traditional dishes.
PEOPLE PLACE PRODUCE
Antrim Dexter Beef
Aran Sweet Beef
Ardagh Castle Goats Cheese – goat’s milk
Armagh Apple Juice
Atlantic Battered Hake
Atlantic Carrageen
Atlantic Crab
Atlantic Dulse
Atlantic Pan-Fried Mackerel
Beal Cheddar – cow’s milk
Ballyhooly Blue Cheese – cow’s milk
Beara Blue Cheese – cow’s milk
Beara Pan-Fried Mackerel
Belfast Bap
Belfast Bookies Sandwich
Bellingham Blue Cheese – cow’s milk
Brotchán Foltchep (leek and oatmeal soup)
Cais Dubh Cheese – cow’s milk
Cais Rua Cheese – cow’s milk
Carlow Cheese – cow’s milk
Carrowholly Cheese – cow’s milk
Cape Clear Mackerel
Cavan Boxty (potato cakes, potato dumplings)
Cleire Goats Cheese – goat’s milk
Connemara Chowder (carrageen, dulse, potatoes, mussels)
Connemara Hill Lamb*
Connemara Potato Cakes
Connemara Rowanberry Jelly
Connemara Scallops
Connemara Scones
Connemara Scones made with buttermilk
Coolattin Cheddar Cheese – cow’s milk
Cooleeney Farmhouse Cheese – cow’s milk
Cork Drisheen (black / blood pudding)
Corleggy Cheese – goat’s milk
Creeny Cheese – ewe’s milk
Dexter Beef / Marshalls’ Dexter Beef
Dilliskus Cheese – cow’s milk with seaweed
Dingle Smoked Mackerel Pâté
Donegal Champ / Stelk (mashed potatoes and scallions)
Donegal Potato Faros
Donegal Dexter Beef / Marshalls’ Dexter Beef
Donegal Oysters
Drumlin Cheese – cow’s milk
Dublin Coddle (modern version)
Emerald Cheese – cow’s milk
Galway Bay Lobsters
Galway Bay Oysters
Glebe Brethan Cheese – cow’s milk
Hibernia Cheese – cow’s milk
Inismaan Chowder (sea vegetables and potatoes)
Irish Breakfast Bap / Roll
Irish Coffee*
Irish Stew
Irish Fry
Irish Sea Battered Prawns (scampi)
Kerry Blue Cheese – cow’s milk
Kerry Salt Cod
Kilcummin – cow’s milk
Killary Mussels*
Knockanore Plain Cheese – cow’s milk
Knockatee Cheddar Cheese – cow’s milk
Knockatee Gouda Cheese – cow’s milk
Leitrim Fadge
Limerick Ham*
Lough Neagh Eels
Lough Neagh Pollan
Louth Spelt Berries
Louth Spelt Flour
Maighean Cheese – cow’s milk
Millhouse Cheese – sheep’s milk
Mount Callan Cheddar Cheese – cow’s milk
St Brigid Cheese – cow’s milk
St Brigid Beag – Cheese cow’s milk with green peppercorns
St Gall Cheese – cow’s milk
Tipperary Barm / Round Brack*
Tipperary Pies
Triskel Dew Drop Cheese – goat’s milk
Triskel Gwenned Cheese – cow’s milk
Ulster Fry
Ulster Steak Sausages
Waterford Blaa Bread
Waterford Blaa Steak Sandwich
Wexford Honey Mousse
*Indicates potential Geographic Indicator Status
SELECTED INDIGENOUS PRODUCE
Apple (Bramley, Crab)
Beef
Brown Trout / Sea Trout
Cabbage
Carrageen
Carrot
Cauliflower
Crab
Duck
Dulse
Eel
Egg
Goose
Haddock
Hake
Kale / Curly Kale
Lamb
Lemon Sole
Lobster
Mackerel
Mussel
Onion
Oyster
Pea
Plaice
Pollan
Pork including belly and trotter (cruibín)
Potato
Poultry
Prawn
Rowanberry
Salmon
Scallop
Spring Onion / Scallion
SELECTED TRADITIONAL CUISINE
Baked Crusted Salmon
Baked Crusted Salmon
Baked Sea Trout
Black (Blood) Pudding (drisheen) and White Pudding
Bookies Sandwich rump or sirloin steak with onions in a bread roll
Boxty potato cakes / potato dumplings
Burren Smokehouse Salmon
Buttermilk Scones
Cabbage and Bacon / Gammon / Ham
Carrageen Jelly*
Carrageen, Mackerel and Potato chowder
Carvery roast beef / roast pork with potatoes, leaf and root vegetables
Champ / Stelk mashed potatoes and scallions
Coddle bacon, gammon, ham hock, onions, potatoes, sausages with kale
Colcannon buttermilk, kale and potatoes
Cruibín (pig’s trotters)
Fadge bacon, eggs and potato cakes or boxty
Farm Eggs
Farmhouse Cultured Butter
Pan-Fried Mackerel
Pan-Fried Sea Trout
Pork Sausages
Porter Cake
Potato Farls
Potted Crab
Roast Chicken
Rowanberry Jelly
Scones – Spelt
Scones – Wheat
Smoked Mackerel
Smoked Salmon
Soda Bread – Spelt
Soda Bread – White Wheat
Soda Bread – Wholewheat
Spelt Bread
Steak and Chips with Crispy Onions
Steak Sausages
Stiffner mashed potatoes with buttermilk
Sultana Scones
Tea Brack
Wheaten Bread
Wild Garlic Soup
Yellowman sugar confection
RECIPES
… to follow
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