By Tisa Conway-Cunningham
Boxty. Potato Farls. Coddle. Black and white pudding. Yes, there will be plenty of potatoes, yet while the Emerald Isle’s unspoken food mascot is the potato, Ireland’s culinary scene is deeply versed in traditional culinary delights that are still enjoyed today.
To if by land and sea, in the beginning, whatever nature provided is what they would eat. Then settlers took root, introducing cows, goats, sheep, barley and wheat. Cue dairy, brats, stews and beers. Next was root vegetables like parsnips and leeks accompanied by soda bread, milk, butter and cheese. It was the potato that fed the boom, from 1.2 million population in the 1590s to 8.4 million by 1841.
Up to its nutritional debut in Ireland, using the potato as a cleaner plant was a standard practice in multiple countries. It was the Irish that begin exploring, manipulating and advancing the modest potato into a national staple. For some, their diet consisted solely of milk and potatoes, yet, no matter what you were eating, the potato was always on the table.
Boxty. It is shredded potatoes, mashed potatoes, eggs, flour, buttermilk and baking powder. A potato cake, but hashbrowns. Crispy on the outside and soft in the middle. A boxty is a meeting of potato worlds in the best possible bite. Griddled with butter or oil, and you have a solid potato accompaniment for breakfast, lunch or dinner. Potato Farls are like the cousin of a boxty. It contains all the makings of a boxty minus the grated potato. It is potato bread, or a savory potato pancake, split into four or more sections, ready to tag along with a traditional Irish breakfast plate.
Everyone loves a good, loaded potato, and this traditional Irish dish ups the ante. Colcannon combines mashed potatoes, cabbage and/or kale, scallions, milk, butter and seasoning. Depending on who you ask, or seasonal reference. Either cabbage or kale is used, or both. The potatoes are boiled in traditional mashed potato form with salted water. The cabbage/kale is chopped and sautéed in butter, seasoned and set aside. Prepare the potatoes into a mash. Fold cabbage and kale into mash, add scallions and season to taste. Save some of the chopped scallions for presentation and you have a traditional loaded Irish potato mash.
Ham. Salt pork. Bacon. Cabbage and potatoes. The O.G. of meat and potatoes. Before it was corned beef, it was pork, cabbage and potatoes. When immigrants from Ireland arrived in America during the potato blight, they found that pork was a more expensive meat, so they took a nod from their Jewish neighbors, and substituted pork, for corned beef, which was much more affordable. Thus, the marrying of two cultures brought about a delicious Irish staple enjoyed worldwide, corned beef, cabbage and potatoes. Both dishes delicious and tasty, yet this, salt cured beef brisket along with cabbage, and potatoes is quintessential to the fabric of St. Patrick’s Day celebrations.
Pudding. No, not the stuff that comes in a snack pack in American supermarkets. Traditional Irish black and white pudding in Ireland are sausages. To utilize as much of the animal as possible the use of less desirables ground up made for a delicious and nutritious dish. Black pudding, or blood sausages, contain blood from a pig or calf (a way to add nutrition to their diet), oatmeal, spices, pork, suet or fat, onions and spices.
This mixture is put in the casings and cooked off like bangers or brats. White pudding is identical the black sausages, minus the use of blood. The base of these sausages is reminiscent of northern Kentucky’s own Goetta (breakfast sausage style), or Scrapple (small loaf). Scrapple calls for pork scraps, cornmeal and spices, while Goetta calls for pork and beef scraps, steel cut oats, onions and spices. All are delicious on a breakfast plate, and all are worthy to be indulged in when on hand.
Bread. From potato pancakes to soda bread, and sour dough bread, with the growing up of its culinary scene, so have bread preparations. Early forms are bread in this area would have included a flatbread-like product, made with wheat or barley meal and water or milk. Irish soda bread, a quick bread, is of four simple ingredients — flour, baking soda, salt and buttermilk. With no access to ingredients like yeast or other ingredients, it was a way to make bread with what was available.
Modern versions of this bread may add in raisins, caraway seeds, oats or other add ins to elevate it. While Irish soda bread can be dense, a lighter product adds a bit of butter to the mix and equal amounts of plain flour and whole meal flour. Remember that too much kneading can result in a tougher dough.
By combining wets with wet/dry with dry and mixing just until all ingredients are incorporated, over kneading can be avoided. To create a tender more manageable crust, the outer dough can be brushed with butter or milk before baking, or by wrapping the loaf in a damp tea towel or damp cheese cloth while it cools, will hold in moisture and keep the crust softer. Irish soda bread serves as a stark reminder of a culinary past determined to thrive through the most limiting of times.
Barmbrack. Brack. Bairin Breac. Think magic eight ball, but a fruit cake. This fruit loaf became popular during the Ancient Celtic festival of Samhain, which bears the origin story of Halloween, All Hallows Eve. It was the day that the souls returned to the earth causing mischief and mayhem. It was a time to celebrate a successful harvest, and to ward off any evil spirit. Traditionally, this delicious loaf contained a dried pea, a piece of cloth, a coin and a ring.
• The cake holder with the pea in it would not marry that year.
• The lucky recipient of the cloth receives bad luck or will be poor.
• Good fortune to the receiver of the coin.
• While a ring, says it all. That person would be married within the year.
This last gift came with specific instructions:
Place the ring under his or her pillow, and their dreams would be filled with the person they would marry.
Today, one lucky cake slice will contain, still the ring. Keeping the possibility of a special gift of love in the cards for all who partake.
The Irish are famous for stews. It is meat, potatoes, carrots, leeks, celery, garlic, stock and spices cooked slower and longer to break down meats like mutton over a long cooking time. It was a way to make a hearty meal from the leftover fare from the week, to ensure that everyone is fed, and everything is used. Coddle is a traditional Irish stew that consists of leftover ingredients.
It may include potatoes, onions, pork sausages, bacon and other root vegetables and spices. A good Irish stew sopped up with some soda bread, would be a great ending to evening out. Add in a little Guinness or Irish Whiskey, and we have ourselves a tasty meal, with tasty roots and tasty origin stories.
This year on March 17, let us represent for our Irish friends locally and across the pond. Let’s wear our green, our rainbow colors, don our four-leaf clovers and have ourselves a pint. Also, make sure you take the time to do your own research on the pivotal contributions that Irish persons have had on America and the American culinary scene. This way, you can properly celebrate all our green friends in all of their glory. Whether near or far, through food, we can all come to the table and share a meal.
Traditional Irish soda bread
(Recipe via www.theirishmanswife.com)
Ingredients:
2 cups plain flour
2 teaspoons sea salt flakes
1 teaspoon bicarbonate soda
2 tablespoons runny honey
1 1/2 cups buttermilk
1 teaspoon rolled oats
Directions:
Preheat the oven to 425 degrees. In a large mixing bowl, combine all of the dry ingredients. Give it a 10-second whisk to aerate the flour and break up any lumps before setting it aside. In a small bowl, combine the honey and the buttermilk. Make a hole in the center of the dry ingredients. Add the buttermilk mixture to the mixing bowl with other ingredients. Using a large wooden spoon, stir just to combine, but no more. The mixture should be a bit a little sticky, but not overly so. This is completely normal. Turn the dough out onto a well-floured surface and lightly form the dough into a ball with the top flattened a little. Soda bread dough should only just come together. It should not be kneaded.
Place the dough on a floured piece of baking paper. Using a sharp knife, score the top of the loaf with a cross about 1/3 of the loaf deep.
If you have any remnants of the buttermilk in the bowl, brush it on top of the loaf. Sprinkle the top of the bread with rolled oats. Lift the soda bread (by the paper) into a small, oiled Dutch oven (without the lid) and put into the
preheated oven. Bake for 35 minutes or until golden and the loaf sounds hollow when tapped on the base.
Leave to cool on a wire rack or wrapped in a cloth tea towel.
