Real Traditional Irish Cooking

Irish Pie

2010-09-30T15:25:00.001-07:00

No. 32 Irish Pie
16 1/2 lbs. Meat
4 lbs. flour
1 lb. suet
2 lbs black pudding
2 lbs onions
4 lbs potatoes
Cut the meat from the bone into slices lengthways, and slanting against the grain, beat it well, cut the fat into pieces of about one inch in thickness, cut the puddings, onions, and potatoes into slices, place a layer of meat in the bottom of the dish, season with pepper and salt, then a layer of pudding and onion, another of meat seasoned, another of pudding and onion, until all is used, then add the slices of potatoes, and 12 Ibs. of water. Make some paste with the flour as follows : Chop up the suet or fat from the meat very fine, and roll it. Place 3 Ibs. of flour on the table, make a hole in the middle, throw in a little salt, and if the flour is good, a pint of water, mix it lightly; when well mixed, and it forms a smooth paste, sprinkle some flour on the table, roll out the paste half an inch thick, sprinkle some flour over the paste, take one-third of the suet, and distribute it over the paste, turn the paste over in two folds, throw some more flour over the table, and roll the paste out half-an-inch thick, throw some more flour over the paste, fold and roll again, and repeat this once more; now add one-third of the suet as before, fold and roll again three times ; then add the remainder of the suet, fold and roll again three times; it will thus have been folded and rolled nine times, and all the suet and flour will have been used, it should then be left in a cold place for ten minutes, then rolled out, and the pie covered.
This way of making paste is good for all kinds of paste, either made of butter, lard, or dripping, intended to be baked; the only care must be, in the first instance, when the water is mixed with the flour, the paste must be of the same hardness as the butter, &c. One pound of paste made in this manner is equal to two pounds made in any other way. The pie should not be made longer than half-an-hour before it is placed in the oven, and the oven must not be too hot, if so it is better to cover the pie with paper. The pie should first be placed in a hot part of' the oven, to prevent ihe fat becoming greasy and melting; then after about five minutes, placed in a cooler part to cook more slowly. In all meat pies a hole should be made in the paste to allow the unwholesome gas generated by the confined meat cooking to escape.

Instructions to Military cooks in the Preparation of Dinners at the Instructional kitchen Aldershot, War Office, 1878. p.37..

St. Patrick's Soup

2010-09-30T15:21:00.001-07:00

No.15 St. Patrick's Soup

6lbs meat and fat
6llbs. potatoes.
1 lb onions
1 lb. celery
1lb turnip
1lb carrot
1 large cabbage
1 lb. flour
6 ozs. salt
6ozs. sugar
6 tablespoons full of vinegar
3 1/2 gallons water
Cut the meat into pieces one inch square, the fat into smaller pieces ; place them in the boiler; when warm add the vegetables (except the potatoes) cut very small, stir them round so that they do not burn; when they are on the point of doing so add the water by degrees ; peel the potatoes, put them in a net, and place them in the boiler; when done take them out and mash them; after the soup has been boiling two hours add the potatoes, with the seasoning and flour mixed, and the vinegar ; boil slowly for thirty minutes, keep stirring it, and serve. The remainder of the meat may be either stewed or roasted.

Instructions to Military cooks in the Preparation of Dinners at the Instructional kitchen Aldershot, War Office, 1878. p.31.

Irish Method of Egg Preservation

2010-09-30T15:13:00.001-07:00

The Irish plan of smearing fresh-laid eggs with butter answers well for a limited time, but is insufficient to keep them through the winter

Wholesome fare: a sanitary cookbook, comprising the laws of food and the practice of cookery and embodying the best British and continental receipts with hints and useful suggestions for the sedentary, the sick, and the convalescent,Edmund S. Delamere, Ellen J. Delamere Crosby Lockwood, 1878, p308,

Red Dulse

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Red Dulse, or Dillisk—Rhodymeniapalmata (Harvey's Atlas, Pl . XLI. Figs. 189 and 190). Another Seaweed, mostly eaten uncooked as a salad, no doubt with benefit to the general health.
At first sight, Harvey's Synopsis of British Seaweeds tells us, it will scarcely be supposed that the specimens selected for the illustration of this species belong to the same plant; and yet these figures by no means exhibit the extreme of variation; for there are varieties more simple than the one, and more finely divided than the other.
When such varieties are seen in a dried state in the herbarium, they appear so different that one may anticipate much difficulty in tracing the limits of the species. But on the shore, the collector experiences no such difficulty. If he has once seen and tasted a piece of Dulse, the characters, irrespective of form, are too well marked to allow of his puzzling himself with mere variations in outline; and, what is very remarkable, the broad and the slightly divided varieties may often be found growing side by side with the finely cut narrow ones.
In Ireland and Scotland, this plant is much used by the poor, as a relish with their food. It is commonly dried in its unwashed state, and eaten raw, the flavour being brought out by long chewing. On many parts of the west coast of Ireland, it forms the only addition to potatoes in the meals of the poorest class. The variety which grows on mussel-shells between tide-marks is preferred, being less tough than the other forms; and the minute mussel-shells and other small shell-fish which adhere to its folds are nowise unpleasing to the consumers of this simple luxury, who rather seem to enjoy the additional gout imparted by the crunched mussels. In the Mediterranean, this plant is used in a cooked form, entering into ragouts and made dishes; and it forms a chief ingredient in one of the soups recommended, under the name of St. Patrick's Soup, by M. Soyer to the Irish peasantry.

Wholesome fare: a sanitary cookbook, comprising the laws of food and the practice of cookery and embodying the best British and continental receipts with hints and useful suggestions for the sedentary, the sick, and the convalescent,Edmund S. Delamere, Ellen J. Delamere Crosby Lockwood, 1878, p.680.

Irish Butter Melted

2010-09-30T15:11:00.000-07:00

Melted Butter, Irish Fashion, is simply made by melting the butter in milk, without the addition of any flour.

Wholesome fare: a sanitary cookbook, comprising the laws of food and the practice of cookery and embodying the best British and continental receipts with hints and useful suggestions for the sedentary, the sick, and the convalescent,Edmund S. Delamere, Ellen J. Delamere Crosby Lockwood, 1878, p.105.

Irish Cream Cheese

2010-08-21T09:02:00.001-07:00

Irish Cream Cheese. Take a quart of very thick cream, and stir well into it two spoonfuls of salt. Double a napkin in two, and lay it in a punchbowl. Pour the cream into it; turn the four corners over the cream, and let it stand for two days. Put it into a dry cloth within a little wooden cheese-vat; turn it into dry cloths twice a day till it is quite dry, and it will be fit to eat in a few days. Keep it in clean cloths in a cool place.
Bury, Lady Charolette, Campbell, The Lady's Own Cookery Book, and a New Dinner-tale Directory, 1844.
p.249

Stirrabout

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DIALOGUE XXXVII.
* STIRABOUT.
Nancy, Rose.
Nancy. I'LL lhank you for a lock of meal60. I have not enough to thicken the stirabout.
Rose. You are very welcome to it, Nancy; but did any thing happen your meal, for you laid in more than we did?
Nancy. Indeed nothing happened, but what happens to "all the victuals —it was eat—but I wonder what happened to yours, to last so long. Have you any knack of spinning it out? , ,
Rose. I have a particular method of making stirabout.
Nancy. What's that, Rose? Myself thinks you have a knack at every thing.
Rose. To be sure. I let the water boil before I stir in e'er a grain; and when once it boils fast, I put in handful after handful, till I think there is near enough, stirring it very well all the time; then I lift the pot a hook or two higher, and cover it up for a good share of half an hour, very seldom stirring it.
Nancy. Sure it must be like paste. Tim likes the stirabout short.
Rose. Stay, Nancy, till I tell you. Just before I take off the pot, I stir in one handful, and it's good, wholesome, short stirabout, and not near so heating for the children, as when it does not get it's due of boiling, as well as more nourishing for Jem, besides making the meal go a great deal farther.

- Cottage dialogues among the Irish peasantry, with notes and a preface, M. Edgeworth,
Maria Edgeworth,1811, p.190.

Household Economy

2010-08-14T10:11:00.001-07:00

Rose. Ah, never mind him! must not every poor man's wife work in and out of doors, and do all she can to help her husband? and do you think you could afford tea, on thirteen pence a day? Put that out of your head, entirely, Nancy; give up the tea for good and all.
Nancy. Rose, it is a folly to talk; I can't give up my tea; I'm so used to it now, and it was such a comfort to me when I was so hard worked at my last place.
Rose. But now you have other comforts. You have a loving husband, the best of all worldly comforts; and the way to keep him so, is to be a good wife; not only loving him, but managing and stretching his little earnings, Now if you both
take to drinking tea, (and sure you can't sit down to one thing, and he to another,) you must have a quarter of an ounce of tea, that is three halfpence at the lowest; and two ounces of sugar, that is three halfpence more; a fourpenny loaf will be tight enough; two ounces of butter, two pence; all that comes to nine pence, and hardly enough; and weak food for a man. Then a quart of oatmeal, which you will get for two pence halfpenny, and a pennyworth of milk, will give you the greatest plenty for your breakfast; and that is but three pence halfpenny; so you save five pence halfpenny every day, in that meal; and then you can afford to buy a little meat now and then, when it is cheap. You could buy a shin of beef, or a sheep's head in the season, and make very good broth, throwing in an onion, and marygolds, or whatever pot herbs you like, and thickening it with a handful of oatmeal. O, it is a comfortable dinner of a cold winter's day, for a labouring man!
Nancy. But a labouring man wants something to strengthen him of a hot summer's day too, and then meat is too dear to think about.
Rose. You could get a quarter of veal for two tenpennies, that would give you three dinners, stewed with onion, pepper, and salt, and a little fat bacon, and sliced potatoes; and that would stand you but in about seven pence a dinner. To be sure that same you could not have very often ; for there is the supper to be thought of, and the rent. Tim will work hard at his garden in the evenings; and while you are young and strong, and have no family, you will try to lay up something against a rainy day. If you could earn the price of a cow, I think you could get grass for it, and after a while, may be, take a field; and a cow would make handsomely for you, your good mistress Clinton taught you to make butter so well.
Nancy. The price of a cow! how would I earn the price of a cow? besides, Tim expects one from his father.
- Cottage dialogues among the Irish peasantry, with notes and a preface, M. Edgeworth,
Maria Edgeworth,1811, p.137.

Free Range Pigs

2010-08-14T10:10:00.001-07:00

Rose. You see, Nancy, it would have been cheaper for you to have built a separate place for your pig, as Jem advised you, and not to have given it the way of going into the cabin to be fed. Indeed I wonder you can bear to have it eat out of the same vessel that boils food for your husband and children.
Nancy. Why, the neighbours'.pigs would be eating it's victuals, if J fed it out of doors.
Rose. Not if you built a sty for it; besides, you .know I am your nearest neighbour, and my pigs are shut up. Jem is going to make an addition to their little place, but the walls of the new part will be high enough to hinder them from getting out, so that they can have light and air, and move about, without doing rawchief toourselves, or others; and their food can be put in over the wall.
Nancy. Why, what do they want with light and air?
Hose. All animals intended for food, are wholesomer, and sweeter to eat, for not being debarred from them; besides, I hate,to shut up any living creature, day and night, in a dark hole. The Almighty has given us the beasts for our service, but has forbidden us to torment them; and I think we should do all we can to save them from unnecessary pain. Indeed this is generally our interest, as well as our duty. It is very well known by the great jockies, as they call them, that a horse will thrive
and fatten twice as well with gentleness, and good treatment, as he will with ill usage and blows, though he got the same quantity of food46.
Nancy. Now, Rose, do you believe that of a brute beast?
Rose. I believe it, because I have heard it from those who have made their fortune by horses, and have the best right to know them47. Besides^ half the shocking accidents that happen from their restiveness would be avoided, if men treated them with quietness and good temper.

- Cottage dialogues among the Irish peasantry, with notes and a preface, M. Edgeworth,
Maria Edgeworth,1811, p.137.

Kitchen Tools

2010-08-14T10:09:00.001-07:00

Nancy. Now what need you bother yourself with so many things to take care of++, your gridiron, and your frying-pan, and your pots of different sizes, and your saucepans? Indeed I don't wonder at your having a tea-kettle; but it looks as if you did not use it often. I may say the same of every thing else, they.
look as if they were just come out of the shop.
Rose. Indeed, Nancy, I have none of these things for pride; I have use for them all.
Nancy. Then T can do well enough with less. My big pot does to boil our potatoes, and feed the pig in, and. heat the water to wash, and wash in after; and I want no gridiron; I can broil a herring on the tongs. What's that thing with the cover for?
Rose. To stew a bit of meat in, when we can get it. It gets the good out of it finely.

- Cottage dialogues among the Irish peasantry, with notes and a preface, M. Edgeworth,
Maria Edgeworth,1811, p.133.

Bread and servitude

2010-08-14T10:08:00.003-07:00

DIALOGUE IX.
SERVITUDE.
Rose, Nancy.
Rose. DON'T you bake all your bread at Mr. Clinton's?
Nancy. vEvery bit, indeed!
Rose. How do you manage to get barm, it's very scarce, and I believe you have no brewery near you?
Nancy. Why then, I'll tell you that; for my mistress never wants barm, and I have so often made the mixture by her directions, that I can't but remember it. She gets a quart of good barm, and then she boils flour and water together very well, till it is a nice, smooth, thinnish paste; when that is about blood warm, she mixes the barm with it, and puts all together into a vessel large enough to let it work, and keeps it in a place neither hot nor cold, and covers the vessel close.
Rose. And how much of that works the bread?
Nancy. At first very little more than if it was all barm, but it takes more time to rise the flour. Every few days add as much more paste, and you may do so fof a month, or more, in mild weather, till the strength of the barm is gone. But, according as you add paste, it will take more and more of the mixture to rise the flour. A pint of the strongest, left in a spunge, like batter, for some hours, does a stone of flour. If you leave it all night, let the batter be the thicker. After you work the bread, leave it a few hours more.
Rose. Well, I'm obliged to you; this may be of use sometime or other to me.
Nancy. I don't like the trouble of it, if I could help it. I'd rather put in a good dash of barm at once, to hurry up the bread; but my mistress won't allow that, she says it makes the bread bitter, and wastes the barm.
Rose. Sure you are happy to have such a good housekeeper for a mistress, especially if she be goodhumouretl, which I believe good housekeepers often are, because they time business for themselves and their servants, and things go on so regular that there is no room for fretting.

- Cottage dialogues among the Irish peasantry, with notes and a preface, M. Edgeworth,
Maria Edgeworth,1811, p.46.

Butter=Kitchen

2010-08-14T10:08:00.001-07:00

From Notes:
P. 129. 41' Onions are very good to help ' out kitchen.'
Kitchen means butter, or any kind of sauce that is eaten with meat or vegetables, to make them more palatable. Two kitchens to one bread,— means butter and milk eaten with one piece of bread. 1

- Cottage dialogues among the Irish peasantry, with notes and a preface, M. Edgeworth,
Maria Edgeworth,1811, p.169.

Cottage Cookery

2010-08-14T10:07:00.001-07:00

COOKERY.
Nancy, Rose.
Nancy. WE are just after dining off the nice stew that you showed me how to make; and now can you tell me any thing else, for I am so light and happy, after rising out of that scrape, and so thankful to Tim, that I can do any thing now.
Rose. Well, Nancy, these pease that you think so little about, make a fine dish, when they are too old for boiling.
Nancy. I thought pease were never fit to eat after they were turning their colour.
Rose. Then I assure you they are. Take two quarts of old pease, and stew them in four quarts of water, on a slow fire, for two hours. Take them up then, and put to them a little pepper, salt, and onion; and also throw in bits of meat, either fresh or salt; if you have not meat, a little butter rolled in flour, or nice lard will do instead. Then stew half an hour longer. It is very good; and then you have it when the new potatoes are scarce; for you know one don't like to run over the ridge too fast, but to spare them to grow as long as one can. There is also another way of dressing pease and beans when they are old; first, by soaking in water for twenty four hours; then put them into a jug, or pitcher, which will hold them, and hold a bit of fat bacon too, or a pig's foot, taken out of the pickle, with the salt sticking to it. The meat is put at top, and a piece of greasy brown paper tied over the pitcher. At night, put it on the hearth, and turn a pot over it; or, put it in a pot, and leave in the fire, and hang it high over the fire. In the morning it is sufficiently done; and keep it on the hearth, hot, till dinner, when the meat will he tender, and the juice got among the pease and beans: then it is eat with spoons. The common gray pease, and the small horse beans, are what answer best for this dish; some put a few leeks, or onions cut small, and a little pepper, into the pitcher, before it is baked. And I find great use in my French beans, which you thought I was very conceited for sowing in my little garden. Instead of eating them as the quality do, pods and all, when they are young, and but an insipid dish, I let them grow till the beans are ripe, then shell them, and lay them by. They are very good and nourishing, particularly when you're nursing, boiled with a bit of butter, or lard, and some herbs chopped through it, or even without the herbs; and they are very nice under a bit of bacon, and will keep all the winter. I learned this of Mr. Browne's French cook.
Nancy. Ay, Rose, you are always ready and willing to learn, and managing and saving every thing; and yet you are not stingy, but you are a good warrant to share with a neighbour, or give a bit to a poor traveller.
Rose. It's by saving, and not wasting any thing, that poor people are able to share their bit with a friend, or with a poor fellow-creature. There's a fine way of making soup, and I believe next winter, when I can get a beef's head, I'll make it of a Saturday, and sell, to the neighbours. A pint of it and a bit of meat, will give a man his dinner.
Nancy. Do, Rose, dear, I am sure Tim will be glad to buy it; and then I need not be slaving myself of a Sunday, dressing his dinner.
Rose. I'll tell you how to make it, whether you will buy it or not. It's half a beef's head put down in about twenty gallons. of water, with half a stone of potatoes, a good handful of onions, and pepper, and salt with any garden stuff you like, or can get. This is boiled till about one third is boiled away, and then you have your comfortable soup. . •
Nancy. But where will you get a pot to boil so much in?
Rose. My big pot, that I boil my linen and my yarn in, I believe, will do; it will be good use to put it to in the winter. If I had not that, I could begin on a less quantity, in a smaller pot, till my soup would earn a big one for me". There's a way of dressing herrings too, that gives a little variety on a fast day, and makes them go farther.
Nancy. How is that?
Rose. Put three salt herrings in a pipkin, fill it with sliced potatoes, and a little water. Put it on a griddle, and turn a pot over it, and bake it that way; or, I believe, putting it on the warm hearth, when the ashes are swept out of the way, and covering it with the pot, will do. When I happen to have a bit of fresh meat, I put the bones into a dish, with some potatoes peeled, or the skin grated off, and put plenty of water, the potatoes take so much; I make a crust with hog's lard, for it makes it better than butter, put it over the bones and potatoes, bake it under the pot, and you can't think how nice a pie it is.

- Cottage dialogues among the Irish peasantry, with notes and a preface, M. Edgeworth,
Maria Edgeworth,1811,p.173.

Irish Potato Pudding

2010-08-14T09:09:00.001-07:00

Irish Potato Pudding.

One pound of mashed potatoes, three quarters of a pound of butter, three quarters of a pound of sugar, seven eggs beaten light, a gill of brandy and one of rose-water. Beat the butter and sugar together, and add the other ingredients, and whites last of all. Bake in paste.

-Dixie cookery; or, How I managed my table for twelve years:A practical cook-book for southern housekeepers, Maria Massey Barringer,Loring, 1867, p.67.

The Irish Kitchen help 187s

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THE MORALS AND MANNERS OF THE KITCHEN.
R. FROUDE'S attempt to secure from the American public a favorable judgment on the dealings of England with Ireland has had one good result—though we fear only one—in leading to a little closer examination of the real state of American opinion about Irish grievances than it has yet received. He will go back to England with the knowledge—which he evidently did not possess when he came here—that the great body of intelligent Americans care very little about the history of "the six hundred years of wrong," and know even less than they care, and could not be induced, except by a land-grant, or a bounty, or a drawback, to acquaint themselves with it; that those of them who have ever tried to form an opinion on the Anglo-Irish controversy have hardly ever got further than a loose notion that England had most likely behaved like a bully all through, but that her victim was beyond all question an obstreperous and irreclaimable ruffian, whose ill-treatment must be severely condemned by the moralist, but whom no sensible, man can be expected to weep over or sympathize with. The agencies which have helped to form the popular idea of the English political character are well known; those which have helped to deprive the Irish of American sympathy—and which, if Mr. Fronde bad judiciously confined himself to describing the efforts made by England to promote Irish well-being now, would probably have made his lectures very successful—are more obscure. "We ourselves pointed out one of the most prominent, and probably most powerful—the conduct of the Irish servant girl in the American kitchen. To this must, of course, be added the specimen of "home rule" to which the country has been treated in this city; but we doubt if this latter has really exercised as much influence on American opinion as some writers try to make out. A community which has produced Butler, Banks, Parker, Bullock, Tweed, Tom Fields, Oakey Hall, Fernando Wood, Barnard, and scores of others whom we might name, as the results or good Protestant and Anglo-Saxon breeding, cannot really be greatly shocked by the bad workings of Celtic blood and Catholic theology in the persons of Peter B. Sweeny, Billy Mcmullen, Jimmy O'Brien, Reddy the Blacksmith, or Judge McCunn. Let us give the devil his due, and refrain from all sham and hypocrisy. It is in the kitchen that the Irish iron has entered into the American soul; and it is in the kitchen that a great triumph was prepared for Mr. Froude had he been a judicious man. The memory of burnt steaks, of hard-boiled potatoes, of smoked milk, would have done for him what no state-papers, or records, or correspondence of the illustrions dead can ever do; it had prepared the American mind to believe the very worst he could say of Irish turbulence and disorder. Not one of his auditors but could find in his own experience of Irish cooking circumstances which would probably have led him to accept without question the execution of Silken Thomas, the massacre of Drogheda, or even the Penal Laws, as perfectly justifiable exercises of authority, and would certainly have made it easy for him to believe that English rule in Ireland at the present day is beneficent beyond example.
Nevertheless, we are constrained to say that in our opinion a great deal of the odium which surrounds Bridget, and which has excited so much prejudice not only against her countrymen, but against her ancestors, in American eyes, has a very insufficient foundation in reason. There are three characters in which she is the object of public suspicion and dislike—(1) as a cook; (2) as a party to a contract; (3) as a member of a household. The charges made against her in all of these have been summed up in a recent attack on her in the Atlantic Monthly, as " a lack of every quality which makes service endurable to the employer, or a wholesome life for the servant." And the same article charges her with " proving herself, in obedience, fidelity, care, and accuracy, the inferior of every kind of servant known to modern society." Of course, there is hardly a family in the country which has not had, in its own experience, illustrations of the extravagance of these charges. There is probably nobody who has long kept servants who has not had Irish servants who were obedient, faithful, careful, and even accurate in a remarkable degree. But then it must be admitted that this indictment is a tolerably fair rendering, if not of the actual facts of the case, at least of the impression the facts have left on the mind of the average employer. This impression, however, needs correction, as a few not very recondite considerations will show.
As a cook, Bridget is an admitted failure. But cooking is, it is now generally acknowledged, very much an affair of instinct, and this instinct seems to be very strong in some races and very weak in others, though why the French should have it highly developed and the Irish be almost altogether deprived of it, is a question which would require an essay to itself. No amount of teaching will make a person a good cook who is not himself fond of good food and has not a delicate palate, for it is the palate which must test the value of rules. "We may deduce from this the conclusion, which experience, justifies, that women are not naturally good cooks. They have had the cookery of the world in their hands for several thousand years, but all the marked advances in the art, and indeed all that can be called the cultivation of it, have been the work of men. "Whatever zeal women have displayed in it, and whatever excellence they have achieved in it, have been the result of influences in no way gastronomic, and which we might perhaps call emotional, such as devotion to male relatives or a desire to minister to the pleasure of men in general. Few or no women cook a dinner in an artistic spirit, and their success in doing it is nearly always the result of affection or loyalty—which is of course tantamount to saying that female cookery as a whole is, and always has been, comparatively poor. As a proof of this, we may mention the fact—for fact we think it is—that the art of cooking among women has declined at any given time or place—in the Northern States of the Union, for instance—pari passu with the growth of female independence. That is, as the habit or love of ministering to men's tastes has become weaker, the interest in cookery has fallen off. There are no such cooks among native American women now as there were fifty years ago; and passages in foreign cookery books which assume the existence among women of strong interest in their husbands' and brothers' likings, and strong desire to gratify them, furnish food for merriment in American households. Bridget, therefore, can plead, first of all, the general incapacity of women as cooks; and, secondly, the general falling off in the art under the influence of the new ideas. It may be that she ought to cultivate assiduously or with enthusiasm a calling which all the other women of the country ostentatiously despise, but she would be more than human if she did so. She imitates American women as closely as she can, and cannot live on the same soil without imbibing their ideas; and unhappily, as in all cases of imitation, vices are more easily and earlier caught than virtues.
She can make, too, an economical defence of the most powerful kind to the attacks on her in this line, and it is this: that whether her cooking be bad or good, she offers it without deception or subterfuge, at a fair rate, and without compulsion ; that nobody who does not like her dishes need eat them ; and that her defects of taste or training can only be fairly made a cause of hatred and abuse when she does work badly which somebody else is waiting to do better, if she would get out of the way. She has undertaken the task of cooking for the American nation, not of her own motion, but simply and solely because the American nation could find nobody else to do it. She does not, therefore, occupy the position of a broken-down or incompetent artist, but of a volunteer at a fire, or a passer-by when yon are lying in the ditch with your leg broken. The plain truth of the matter is, that the whole native population of the United States has almost suddenly and with one accord refused to perform for hire any of the services usually called "menial" or indoor. The men have found other more productive fields of industry, and the women, under the influence of the prevailing theory of life, have resolved to accept any employment at any wages sooner than do other people's house-work. The result has been a demand for trained servants which the whole European continent could not supply if it would, and which has proved so intense that it has drawn the peasantry out of the fields en masse from the one European country in which the peasantry was sufficiently poor to be, tempted, and spoke or understood the American language. No such phenomenon has ever been witnessed before. No country before has ever refused to do its own " chores," and called in an army of foreigners for the purpose. To complain bitterly of their want of skill is therefore, under the circumstances, almost puerile, from an economical point of view; while, to any one who looks at the matter as a moralist, it is hard to see why Bridget, doing the work badly in the kitchen, is any more a contemptible object than the American sewing-girl killing herself in a garret at $3 a week, out of devotion to " the principle of equality."
As a party to a contract, Bridget's defects are very strongly marked. Her sense of the obligation of contracts is feeble. The reason why this particular vice excites so much odium in her case is, that the inconveniencies of her breaches of contract are greater than those of almost any other member of the community. They touch us in our most intimate social relations, and cause us an amount of mental anguish out of all proportion to their real importance. But her spirit about contracts is really that of the entire community in which she lives. Her way of looking at her employer is, we sincerely believe, about the way of looking at him common among all employees. The only real restraint on laborers of any class among us nowadays is the difficulty of finding another place. "Whenever it becomes as easy for clerks, draughtsmen, mechanics, and the like to " suit themselves " as it is for cooks or housemaids, we find them as faithless. Native mechanics and seamstresses are just as perfidious as Bridget, but incur less obloquy, because their faithlessness causes less annoyance; but they have no more regard in making their plans for the interest or wishes of their employer than she has, and they all take the " modern view" of the matter. What makes her so fond of change is that she lives in a singularly restless society, in which everybody is engaged in a continual struggle to " better himself"—her master, in nine cases out often, setting her an example of dislike to steady industry and slow gains. Moreover, domestic service is a kind of employment which, if not sweetened by personal affection, is extraordinarily full of wear and tear. In it there is no real end to the day; and in small households, the pursuit and oversight, and often the " nagging," of the employer, or, in other words, the presence of an exacting, semi-hostile, and slightly contemptuous person is constant. This and confinement in a half-dark kitchen produce that nervous crisis which sends male mechanics and other male laborers engaged in monotonous callings off "on a spree." In Bridget's case it works itself off by a change of place, with a few days of squalid repose among " her own people " in a tenement house. •
As regards her general bearing as a member of a household, she has to contend with three great difficulties—ignorance of civilized domestic life, for which she is no more to blame than Russian mouzhiks; difference of race ond creed on the part of her employer (and this is one which the servants of no other country have to contend with); and lastly, the strong contempt for domestic service felt and manifested by all that portion of the American population with which she comes in contact, and to which it is her great ambition to assimilate herself. Those who have ever tried the experiment of late years of employing a native American as a servant, have, we believe, before it was over, generally come to look on Bridget as the personification of repose, if not of comfort; and those who have to call on native Americans, even occasionally, for services of a quasi-personal character, such as those of expressmen, hotel clerks, plumlbers, we believe are anxious to make their intercourse with these gentlemen an brief as possible. Most expressmen are natives, and are freemen of intelligence and capacity, but th«y carry your trunk into your hall with the air of convicts doing forced labor for a tyrannical jailer. If the spirit in which they discharge their duties—and they ore specimens of a large class—were to make its way into our kitchens, society would go to pieces.
In short, Bridget is the legitimate product of our economical, political, and moral condition. We have called her, in our extremity, to do duties for which she is not trained, and having got her here have surrounded her with influences and ideas which American society has busied itself for fifty years in fostering and spreading, and which taking hold of persons in her stage of development work mental and moral ruin. The things which American life aud manners preach to her are not patience, sober-mindedness, faithfulness, diligence, and honesty, but self-assertion, discontent, hatred of superiority of all kinds, and eagerness for physical enjoyment. Whenever the sound of the new gospel which is to win the natives back to the ancient and noble ways is heard in the land, it is fair to expect that it will not find her ears wholly closed, and that when the altar of duty is again set up by her employers, she will lay on it attractive beefsteaks, potatoes done to a turn, make libations of delicious soup, and will display remarkable fertility in " sweets " and an extreme fondness for washing, and learn to grow old in one family.

-The Nation, Volume 16,The Nation Company, 1873, p.6.

Irish Sauce

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Irish Sauce.—E. R.—Take five or six hundred green walnuts, according to the quantity of juice they will yield; scoop out all the whites, beat them in a mortar, and strain the juice through a cloth; let it stand a day and night, strain it, and pour it off clear; to a pint of this liquor put one pound of anchovies and half a pint of vinegar, and to each pint thus made a clove or two of garlic, two or three shalots, some horseradish, and one onion cut in quarters; boil it two hours, and then strain it off. When strained add to every pint of liquor half a quarter of an ounce of mace, the same quantity of cloves, of nutmeg, and of whole black pepper, half a pint of portwine, and two tablespoonfuls of soy. Boil them together for half an hour. Then pour it off into an earthen jar, and let it remain covered until it is cold; then bottle it off into clean dry bottles, distributing the spice equally in each; cork it down closely, and take care in boiling to keep the saucepan covered

.-A new system of domestic cookery: formed upon principles of economy…, Maria Eliza Ketelby Rundell, 1808.

Irish Puffs

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Irish Puffs.—
E. R.—Pound a quarter of a pound of sweet, and an ounce of bitter almonds, but not too finely; take a quarter of a pound of loafsugar pounded and sifted, the whites of two eggs, beaten to a thick froth; mix all together, and put the puffs into pattypans covered with paste; then sift powdered sugar over them thickly, and bake them a light brown. The flavour may be improved by pounding the almonds with orange-flower water, or a little essence of lemon.

-A new system of domestic cookery: formed upon principles of economy…, Maria Eliza Ketelby Rundell, 1808.

1836 Cutlets A La Irish Stew

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CUTLETS A LA IRISH STEW.
Take the best end of a neck of mutton, remove the under bone, and cut it into chops; season them with pepper, salt, a little mushroom powder and beaten mace. Put them into a stewpan, add a large onion sliced, some parsley and thyme tied in a bunch, and a pint of veal broth. Simmer the chops till three parts done, then add some whole potatoes peeled, and stew till done. Serve in a deep dish.
Let the parsley and thyme be taken out before serving.
- The Art of Cookery, Whittaker and Co., 1836.

Mrs. Beeton's Irish Recipes 1888

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Not the first edition so many of these may pre-date 1888

1092.—IRISH STEW. (Fr.—Mouton a I'lrlandaise.)

(Another Mode.)

Ingredients.—3 Ibs. of the breast of mutton, :£ pint of water, salt and pepper to taste, 4 Ibs. of potatoes, 4 large onions.

Mode.—Put the mutton into a stewpan with the water and a little salt, and let it stew gently for an hour; cut the meat into small pieces, skim the fat from the gravy, and pare and slice the potatoes and onions. Put all the ingredients into the stewpan in layers, first a layer of vegetables, then one of meat, and sprinkle seasoning of pepper and salt between each layer; cover closely, and let the whole stew very gently for ur.e hour or rather more, shaking it frequently, to prevent its burning.

Time.— Rather more than two hours. Average Cost, 2s.

Sufficient for 6 or 8 persons.

Seasonable.—Suitable for a winter dish.

Note.—Irish stew may be prepared in the same manner as above, but baked in ajar, instead of boiled. About 2 hours, or rather more, in a moderate oven, will be sufficient time to bake it.

-p497

i246.-IRISH STEW.

Ingredients.—2 Ibs. of Australian mutton, 3 large onions, 12 mealy potatoes, i^ pint of stock, No. 274, or water, pepper, salt.

Mode.—Peel the onions and put them to stew in the stock until tender, add salt and pepper and the potatoes. Simmer for 15 minutes, then add the mutton, cut into neat square pieces, and simmer 5 minutes longer, then turn into a deep dish and serve. Keep a few potatoes whole to garnish with.

Time.—1 hour altogether. Average Cost, 1s 8d.

Sufficient for 6 or 7 persons.

Seasonable at any time.

-p571

i6o3.-IRISH (AND BEST) WAY TO BOIL POTATOES. (Fr.—Pommes de Terre a I'lrlandaise.)

Ingredients.—Potatoes, water.

Mode.—Wash the potatoes clean, but do not peel them. Let the water boil, then put in the potatoes, and as soon as they are soft enough

Boiled Potatoes.

for a fork to be easily thrust through them, dash some cold water into the pan, let the potatoes remain two minutes, then pour off the water. Then half remove the lid, and let the potatoes remain on the slow fire till the steam has evaporated; then peel them, and set on the table in an opin dish. Potatoes of a good kind thus cooked will always be sweet, dry and mealy. A covered dish is bad for potatoes, as it keeps the steam in, and makes them soft and watery.

Time.—20 minutes. Average Cost, id. per lb.

Seasonable at any time.

-p.766

2800.—IRISH MOSS OR CARRAGEEN.

Mode.—This seaweed has a reputation as a remedy for chest diseases. It should be first soaked and washed in cold water, and then boiled for a quarter of a hour in fresh water, allowing half an ounce of moss to a pint and a half of water. Strain, and when cold it will set to a jelly. If required as a drink, it should have double the quantity of water, or milk can be used.

-p.1241

Dr. E. Smith says 104 Ibs. daily ; 31/2 Ibs at each meal. Potato, however, besides starch and water, contains much ash or salt, and is for that reason, an excellent anti-scorbutic. So long as potatoes hold out, sailors at sea escape scurvy, and are not dependent upon their daily rations of lime juice. Our people on land have often to thank Sir Walter Raleigh for such immunity as they enjoy from this class of disease. It is a strange fact that many English people, from one week's end to another, eat no vegetable except potato, an exotic, acclimatised here at the cost of much pains and perseverance.

-p.725

-The Book of Household Management, Mrs. Beeton (Isabella, Mary) 1888

Irish Soup Marigold and Mutton Broth

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Mutton Broth.

Any description of trimmings of mutton may be used for broth, but the scrag ends of the neck are usually chosen. Put two scrags into a stewpan (having previously jointed the bones), with three onions, three turnips, and one carrot; fill up the stewpan with a gallon of water, and place it upon the fire; when boiling, set it at the corner, where let it simmer for three hours, keeping it well skimmed; then cut a small carrot, two turnips, an onion, with a little leek and celery, into small square pieces, which put into another stewpan, with a wine- glassful of pearl-barley; skim every particle of fat from the broth, which pour through a hair sieve over them; let the whole boil gently at the corner of the fire until the barley is tender, when it is ready to serve; the meat may be trimmed into neat pieces, and served with the broth, or separately with melted butter and parsley, or onion sauce. Half or even a quarter of the above quantity can be made by reducing the ingredients in proportion.

Irish Soup Made of Mutton Broth.

This soup is made similar to the last, adding ten or twelve mealy potatoes cut into large dice, omitting the other vegetables, which being boiled to a puree thicken the broth; just before serving, throw in twenty heads of parsley, and at the same time add a few flowers of marigold, which will really give it a very pleasing flavor.

-Soyer's Standard Cookery.Nicolas Soyer, 1912.

Balnamoon Skink, an Irish Soup

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727. Balnamoon Skink, an Irish Soup.—Clean and cut into pieces two or three young cocks, or fowls. Have one larger neatly trussed as for boiling. Boil the cut fowls till the broth is as strong and good as they can make it; but do not overboil the uncut fowl. Strain the broth, season it with parsley, chives, and young onions chopped, and, if in season, a few tender green peas. Add white pepper and salt, and serve the whole fowl in the tureen, or separately.—Obs. This soup may be immensely improved in quality and appearance by adding, before serving, a liaison of two beat eggs, and a little cream. It is another variety of the Scottish Friars' Chicken, or Cock-a-leeHe; dishes which, under some name, are, with whatever modification of seasonings, familiar in every country where a backward system of husbandry renders indifferent poultry plentiful, and shambles-meat scarce.

N.B.—Without desiring to innovate on these national preparations, we would recommend, for the sake of the ladies' dresses, and the gentlemen's toil in fishing it up, that the fowl be carved before it is served in the tureen.

-The Cook and Housewife's Manual. Christian Isobel Johnstone, 1847.

Bretton laws and Scalding

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The Brehon Laws while honouring cooks stated that the cook cannot be held responsible for a person getting scalded when he is serving food from a cauldron if he shouts out in a loud voice a warning to those a round him. (Danaher, K 1972)-

A History of Irish Cuisine (Before and After the Potato)

John Linnane BSc, MSc.

Corn Cake-the Yellow Indian and the Famine

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William Bennett and his son had visited that part, in March, distributing donations at his own expense mostly, and his painful descriptions had awakened a strong desire to see for myself, and though I had no means in hand, had reason to hope that there might be some on the ocean. I took the coach for Derry, a few miles from that town. The mother of Miss Hewitson was to meet me in her own carriage, and conduct me to her house in Bossgarrow. Derry had not suffered so much as many other towns, and a stranger passing through would not notice anything peculiar from the condition in past years. But this little relief was but to make what followed appear the more painful. Mrs. Hewitson met me with her son, and we took tea at a delightful little mansion on the sloping side of one of Ireland's green lawns, looking down upon a beautiful lake. And is there, I asked, on this pretty spot, misery to be found ?—" Come and see," was the answer of my kind friend. It was twilight when we stepped into the carriage, and few painful objects met us till we reached her dwelling.

Her paternal cottage was nestled in a pretty wood, its roof thatched, and its windows shaded by the creeping vine in front. On one end, a window gave one of the most beautiful peeps upon a lake that can be imagined ; and the back contained a garden which was one of the most pleasant retreats I had met, for the gooseberry was just ripe. Here had this discreet, this "virtuous woman," lived, and by precept and example trained a family of sons and daughters, which will, which do arise and call her blessed. Her husband had been an officer, and was then receiving a small pension, and during the first season of the famine had been employed by government as an overseer of the Board of Works. His heart had become sickened at the scenes which came under his eye, some sketches of which have been before the public.

The morning lighted up a pretty cottage, well ordered, and the breakfast-table presented a treat unseen before by me in Ireland. Instead of the bread, butter, tea, and egg, which are the height of the best Irish breakfast, there was a respectable corn-cake, made as it should be, suitable accompaniments of all kinds, with the best of cream for me ; and were it not that the hungry had then commenced their daily usages of assembling in crowds about the house for food, that breakfast would have been a pleasant one. When I had ascertained that her husband had been in America, and from him she had been told of the virtues of corn-cake, and that her skill had been exercised till she had brought it to perfection—it was valued if possible still more. Had the Irish mothers throughout Ireland managed as did this woman, their task in the famine would have been much lighter—the poor, many more of them, would have been saved, and multitudes who have gone down might have retained their standing. Had the higher classes known how to have changed the meal into the many palatable shapes as did this economical housekeeper, when the wheaten loaf was so high, immense money might have been saved to all parties. It was brought in such disrepute by bad cooking, that many would be ashamed to be found eating it, and one man who was begging most earnestly for food, when offered some of this prepared in the Irish style, turned away in contempt, saying, " No, thank God, I've never been brought to ale the yeller indian."

- Lights and Shades of Ireland. Asenath Nicholson, 1858.

About Potatoes-Irish Peasant Style

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Potato boiled.—Meg Dods says there are great varieties of potatoes, and fully as many ways of cooking them, but recommends boiling in preference to steaming. Mrs. Rundell prefers steaming, or, if boiled, in plenty of water, and when half done, some cold water and salt thrown in, and boil until not quite done, and then left in the pot near the fire.*

* This is the Irish peasant's way (if he wishes to fast for six hours), as it leaves the bone or moon in it. The origin of the word in Irish, an ghealeach , is that, when a half-cooked potato is cut in two, the centre shows a disk, with a halo around it, like the moon. This does not digest so quick, and allows the person who eats it to go longer without food, which I consider a great detriment to the of the stomach.

-A Shilling Cookery for the People.Alexis Soyer, 1855.

Irish Pudding

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Irish Puddings.

Take one egg, and its weight in sugar, in flour, and in butter. Add a very little lemon juice, and grated lemon peel.

Beat it well and lightly for nearly a quarter of an hour ; pour it into small tins and bake for twenty minutes.

This quantity makes three cup puddings.

-Reeve, Mrs. HenryCookery and Housekeeping: A Manual of Domestic Economy for Large and Small…1882, p. 395

Irish Rock

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Irish Rock.

A sweet for dessert. Wash the salt from half a pound of butter, and beat into it a quarter of a pound of finely powdered sugar; blanch a pound of sweet almonds and an ounce of bitter; pound these in a mortar, reserving enough of the sweet almonds to spike for ornamenting the dish when sent to table; add the butter and, sugar, with a quarter of a glass of brandy, and pound until smooth and white; when, after having become firm, it may be molded into a large egg-like shape, and stuck full of almond meats. Il should be placed high on a glass dish, with a decoration' of green sweetmeats and a sprig of myrtle, or garnish with any green fruits

or sweetmeats.

The Successful Housekeeper: A Manual of Universal Application…, Milton W. Ellsworth, 1882, p.117

Irish Plumb Pudding

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Irish Plum Pudding

2 1/2 cups stale bread crumbs

4 eggs

1/2 pound raisins

1 cup milk

1/2 pound citron

1/2 pound beef suet

1/2 pound currants

1/2 cup sugar

3 tablespoons flour

1/2 cup maple syrup

2 teaspoons baking powder

1 1/2 teaspoons salt

1/3cup brandy

Put bread crumbs in double boiler, add milk and cook until milk is scalded. Chop suet and work with the hands until creamy; then add sugar gradually, while working constantly. Add maple syrup, salt, eggs well beaten, and raisins stoned and cut in pieces, citron cut in thin strips, and currants mixed and dredged with flour mixed with baking powder; then add brandy. Turn into a buttered mould, cover and steam twenty-four hours. It may be steamed twelve hours one day and twelve hours the next. Re-heat in steamer for serving; the time required being about one and one-fourth hours. Turn on a hot serving dish, insert sparkers and garnish with holly (if used at Christmas dinner) and Brandy Sauce (see p. 262); also accompany with Yankee Sauce (see p. 259).

-A New Book of Cookery, Fannie Merritt Farmer, 1917, p. 255.

Irish SANDWICHES.

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No. 361.—IRISH SANDWICHES.

Between slices of very thin crisp toast place alternate layers of very thin slices of roast game, shred celery, and Tartar sauce; dish up on a napkin,-The cook's guide, and housekeeper's & butler's assistant: a practical ...Charles Elmé Francatelli 1867, p.124

Irish Potato Pudding

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IRISH POTATO PUDDING.

One and a half pints of fine mashed potatoes, one pint cream, one nutmeg, one and a half pounds sugar, one and a half pounds butter, ten eggs. Bake in paste; then spread on meringue and brown.

IRISH POTATO PUDDING.

Two tea-cupfuls sugar, two tea-cupfuls butter, one tea-cupful sweet cream, eight eggs, two and a half pints mashed potatoes, one nutmeg grated.—Mrs. Henry Buckner. -Housekeeping in the Blue Grass: a New and Practical Cook Book Southern Presbyterian Church (Paris, Ky.).1881, p.80.

The Cooking-Places of the Stone Age in Ireland

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"The Cooking-Places of the Stone Age in Ireland"

John Quinlan

Mr. John Quinlan read the following Paper on "The Cooking-places of the Stone Age in Ireland," and exhibited a number of stone implements, &c. :—

While ample reference has been made by writers to the raths, cashels, crannogs, monoliths, and round towers of Ireland, no one seerns to have treated specially of "the ancient cooking places" of some race of people who dwelt, certainly in the counties of Waterford and Cork, indeed probably throughout all Ireland, as far back as the Neolithic, if not a still more remote period. Sir William Wilde in one of his lectures mentions that no matter how far you may go back, there is reason to believe that the Irish were very bad cooks. There is no country in Europe which presents amid its relics and remains so few and such rude specimens relating to the culinary art; even at a comparatively late period when the precious metals—gold and silver—were worked with great beauty of design and exquisite taste, cooking utensils, whether of metal or pottery, appear to have been as scarce as articles of ornamentation and weapons were abundant.

Far as we may search back into the records of Ireland, we are confronted with the assurance, that each and every people who visited our shores, invariably found other people here before them; but how they could have been all bad cooks it is really difficult to understand. A great Frenchman has said that " nothing shows the proficiency and advancement of a people in all the arts of civilization more than their superiority in the art of cookery;" and although the French have been known to do very eccentric things, no one ever heard of their sending to Ireland for a cook. But I am digressing. What I have to do with are Irish cooking-places of the stone age, and roofed by the vault of heaven. I am told that these ancient kitchens are to be found all over Ireland; but in this Paper I confine myself specially to those I have seen in the county Waterford, and in particular to one which I have opened and laid bare to view, such as it had been at the time it was in use,

" When wild in woods the noble savage ran."

Here, wherever a strong well or spring develops into a rivulet, you will not travel far before coming on a mound by the side of the stream; it is usually hemispherical in form, and having an opening towards the stream, unless its configuration has undergone alteration from tillage or such like operations; this mound is generally covered with a stunted crop of Irish furze, and is composed of broken and burned freestone—some pieces being about the size of a goose-egg, others somewhat larger, but most of them smaller—all, however, undoubtedly broken by man, and subjected to an intense heat.

The greater number of these mounds have been broken up and scattered about by plough and harrow; but very many of them, that were situated in bogs and moors have never been interfered with, and here in their more perfect state they present in shape the appearance of a horse's foot with the shoe on; the shoe itself being represented by the protecting wall, and the sole by the flagged floor of the hearth, where the small stones were heated by fire; the heel may be considered as represented by the opening in the protecting wall with the descending step adjoining and overlapping the trough, by which the stream from a well ran, and into which the meat was thrown. In this instance the trough is composed of an oak-tree hollowed out, and when cleared of the burned stones and rubbish was found to be very much decayed at the sides and rim, and altogether rotten at the lower end near the water; it is in colour like any ordinary bog oak. The floor of the hearth is composed of heavy sandstone blocks, which appear to have been dressed and neatly fitted

into each other, and the steps are well put together and very smooth ; the upper end of the trough goes in under the descending step which is about eight inches high, and was kept in its place by large stones wedged in between it and the soil of the field, which forms the foundation of the whole structure. The length of the trough to where it is rotted away is given, and also its breadth, in the sketch. The floor of the hearth, the steps, and the trough, all have a decline towards the water.

The theory which suggests itself is, that these people, having lighted a great fire, the stones made red hot thereby, were easily moved down the incline into the trough holding water from the stream ; that these stones when cooled were taken out and flung back all around the fireplace, to be again heated and returned to the trough, until the water boiled, when, the meat was put in, and kept simmering or boiling by a continuance of the process. At the present time we know that many tribes of savages cook their food in a similar manner.

The cooking-place in question had been often tilled like the rest of the field, and the stones had, doubtless, been scattered about by the plough and harrow. It is situated on the townland of Clonkerdon (where I reside) barony of Decies-Without-Drum, county Waterford, and was opened by me in November, 1885, remaining open with the trough in situ, for inspection of any one who might wish to see it. The whole mound, with the hearth and trough in the middle, has a diameter of fifty-two feet. There were about four feet of broken stones and black ashes over the floor and trough.

I made a section through the mound, and only cleared away sufficient of the small burnt stones to lay bare the rooking plnce itself, viz. hearth, steps, and trough. Js'o weapon, looking iiti-nsil, or ornament, was found in the small section dug out—they would be more likely to be discovered near to, than actually within, a spot that had been so greatly heated.

These cooking-places are invariably situated close to running streams or rivers, and no matter how wet the land may be, I have found them all the same. If what are swamps and bogs now had been such in those ancient days, it is not likely the people lived in them; but the Lmd, which is admittedly sinking, particularly along the south-east of Ireland, may have undergone such a depression since that period as to convert dry land into swamp and bog. We find trunks of oak still remaining in the position in which they originally grew in what, in the present day, is the subsoil of our bogs, but which is too low and wet now for the growth of any kind of timber. These cooking-places are called by the country people Fcllocx-feea, or Fullogh-Feea, which, I believe, means " the boiling-place or fire-place of the deer."

The three celts here exhibited by me were found at Clonkerdou within a few feet (in each case) of the burned stones of disturbed and nearly obliterated cooking-places, which suggests the theory that the people to whom they originally belonged used the cooking-places; and as the celts are Neolithic, these cooking-places probably belong to the same period.

The grooved stone exhibited may be one of those stones attached by a thong to two sticks, and used (like a flail) in battle, and to which some allusion is made in the account of the feuts of the Ulster champion, Cuchulainn. This stone is 4£ in. by 2£ in., with three grooves running around it, and one down the side from top to bottom.

The double stone chalice, to which I draw attention, is 8 inches high, and 5£ inches across the cup.

Journal of the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland, 1887 p.390

Irish Pancakes 1833

2009-02-14T17:52:00.001-08:00

Irish Pancakes.

Beat eight yolks and four whites of eggs, strain them into a pint of cream, put a grated nutmeg, and sugar to your taste : set three ounces of fresh butter on the fire, stir it, and aa it warms pour it to the cream, which should be warm when the eggs are put to it: then mix smooth almost half a pound of flour. Fry the pancakes very thin ; the first with a bit of butter, but not the others. Serve several on one another. New-England Pancakes,

Mix a pint of cream, five spoonsful of fine flour, seven yolks and four whites of eggs, and a very little salt; fry them very thin in fresh butter, and between each strew sufar and cinnamon. Send up six or eight at once.

A New System of Domestic Cookery: Formed Upon Principles of Economy, and Adapted to the Use of Private Families., Maria Eliza Ketelby Rundell,J. Murray, 1833

To Boil Potatos 1845

2009-02-14T17:51:00.000-08:00

To Boil Potatoes; (agenuine Irish Receipt.)

Potatoes, to boil well together, should be all of the same sort, and as nearly equal in size as may be. Wash off the mould, and scrub them very clean with a hard brush, but neither scoop nor apply a knife to them in any way, even to clear the eyes.* Rinse them well, and arrange them compactly in a saucepan, so that they may not lie loose in the water, and that a small quantity may suffice to cover t£em. Pour this in cold, and when it boils, throw in about a large -teaspoonful of salt to the quart, and simmer the potatoes until they are nearly done, but for the last two or three minutes let them boil rapidly. When they are tender quite through, which may he known by probing them with a fork, pour all the water from them immediately, lift the lid of the saucepan to allow the steam to escape, and place them on a trevet, high over the fire, or by the side of it, until the moisture has entirely evaporated; then peel, and send them to table as quickly as possible, either in a hot napkin, or in a dish, of which the cover is so placed that the steam can pass off. There should be no delay in serving them after they are once taken from the fire: Irish families usually prefer them served in their skins. Some kinds will be done in twenty minutes, others in less than three quarters of an hour. We are informed that " the best potatoes are those which average from five to six to the pound, with few eyes,

* " Because," in the words of our clever Irish correspondent, " the water through these parts is then admitted into the very heart of the vegetable; and the latent heat, after cooking, is not sufficient to throw it o$f: this renders the potatoes very unwholesome."

but those pretty deep, and equally distributed over the surface." We cannot ourselves vouch for the correctness of the assertion, but we think it may be relied -on.

20 minutes to j hour or more.

O6s.—The water in which they are boiled should barely cover the potatoes.

Modern Cookery, in All Its Branches: Reduced to a System of Easy Practice, for the Use of Private Families : in a Series of Receipts, which Have Been Strictly Tested, and are Given with the Most Minute Exactness : to which are Added Directions for Carving, Garnishing, and Setting Out the Table ...

Eliza Acton, Sarah Josepha Buell Hale

Lea and Blanchard, 1845

Two Rival Spiced Beef Recipes from 1845

2009-02-14T17:50:00.000-08:00

Spiced Round Of Beef ; (very highly flavoured..)

Rub the beef well in every part with half a pound of coarse brown sugar, and let it remain two days; then reduce tfl powder, and mix thoroughly before they are applied to the meat, two ounces of saltpetre, three quarters of a pound of common salt, a quarter-pound of black pepper, three ounces of allspice, and four of bruised juniper-berries. Rub these ingredients strongly and equally over the joint, and do so daily for three weeks, turning it at the same time. Just wash off the spice, and put the beef into a tin, or covered earthen pan as nearly of its size as possible, with a cup of water or gravy; cover the top thickly with chopped beef-suet, and lay a coarse thick crust over the pan; place the cover on it, and bake the meat from five to six hours in a well-heated oven, which should not, however, be sufficiently fierce to harden the outside of the joint, which, if properly managed, will be exceedingly tender. Let it cool in the pan ; and clear off the suet before it is dished. It is to be served cold, and will remain good for a fortnight.

Beef, 20 to 25 Ibs. weight; sugar, 3 ozs.: 2 days. Saltpetre, 2 ozs.; common salt, j Ib.; black pepper, 4 ozs.; allspice, 3 ozs.; juniper- berries, 4 ozs.: 21 days. Baked 5 to 6 hours.

Obs.—We have not ourselves tested this receipt, but the meat cured by it has received such high commendations from several of our friends who have partaken of it frequently, that we think we may safely insert it without. The proportion of allspice appears to us more than would be agreeable to many tastes, and we would rather recommend that part of it should be omitted, and that a portion of nutmeg, mace, and cloves should be substituted for it; as we have found these spices to answer well in the following receipt.

Spiced Beef ; (good and wholesome.)

For twelve pounds of the round, rump, or thick flank of beef, take a large teaspoonful of freshly-pounded mace, and of ground black pepper, twice as much of cloves, one small nutmeg, and a quarter teaspoonful of cayenne, all in the finest powder. Mix them well with seven ounces of brown sugar, rub the beef with them and let it lie three days; add to it then half a pound of fine salt, and rub and turn it once in twenty- four hours for twelve days. Just wash, but do not soak it; skewer, or bind it into good form, put it into a stewpan or saucepan nearly of its size, pour to it a pint and a half of good beef broth, and when it begins to boil, take off the scum, and throw in one small onion, a moderate- sized faggot of thyme and parsley, and two large, or four small carrots. Let it simmer quite softly for four hours and a half, and if not wanted to serve hot, leave it in its own liquor until it is nearly cold. This is an excellent and far more wholesome dish than the hard, bright- coloured beef which is cured with large quantities of salt and saltpetre: two or three ounces of juniper-berries may be added to it with the spice, to heighten its flavour.

Beef, 12 Ibs.; sugar, 7 ozs.; mace and black pepper, each, 1 large teaspoonful; cloves, in powder, 1 large dessertspoonful; nutmeg, 1; cayenne, J teaspoonful: 3 days. Fine salt, £ Ib.: 12 days. Beef broth (or bouillon), ij pint; onion, 1 small; bunch of herbs; carrots, 2 large, or 4 small: stewed 4J hours.

Obs.—We give this receipt exactly as we have often had it used, but celery and turnips might be added to the gravy; and when the appearance of the meat is much considered, three-quarters of an ounce of saltpetre may be mixed with the spices; the beef may also be plainly boiled in water only, with a few vegetables, or baked in a deep pan with a little gravy. No meat must ever be left to cool in the stewpan or saucepan in which it is cooked; it must be lifted into a pan of its own depth, and the liquor poured upon it.

Eliza Acton, Sarah Josepha Buell Hale

Lea and Blanchard, 1845

Irish Moss Drink 1908

2009-02-14T17:49:00.001-08:00

Irish Moss Drink Ingredients—

A teacupful of Irish moss. Castor sugar to taste.

One pint of cold water. A little lemon juice.

A glass of sherry or Marsala.

Method.—Wash the moss very thoroughly, then let it soak overnight in cold water. Next day strain out the moss, put it in a clean saucepan with the pint of water, and let it boil gently for an hour. Strain off the liquid, add the lemon juice, sherry, and sugar to taste. Great pains should be taken in the flavouring, so as to disguise the somewhat unpleasant characteristic flavour of this seaweed.

The Complete Cook.,Lilian Whitling,Methuen & Co., 1908

Soda Scones 1908

2009-02-14T17:47:00.000-08:00

Soda Scones

Ingredients—

Three and a half level breakfast- Half a pint of milk.

cupfuls of flour. Two tablespoonfuls of sultanas.

Three rounded tablespoonfuls of Five level teaspoonfuls of cream

butter or good dripping. of tartar.

One rounded tablespoonful of Two and a half level teaspoonfuls

castor sugar. of carbonate of soda.

Metlwd.—Have ready a flat baking tin slightly buttered. Sieve the sugar, cream of tartar, carbonate of soda, and flour. Rub in the butter finely, add the cleaned sultanas, and mix to a soft but not sticky dough with the milk. More or less milk may be required. Turn the dough on to a floured board, knead lightly, make it into two rounds, and roll them out half an inch thick. Mark them deeply across in four with the back of a knife. Put them on the tin, and bake in a quick oven for about three-quarters of an hour. When done, brush them over with a teaspoonful of butter melted in a tablespoonful of milk, and break the scones apart; on no account cut them, or they will be heavy.-

The Complete Cook.,Lilian Whitling,Methuen & Co., 1908

19th Century Sweet Scones

2009-02-14T17:46:00.000-08:00

Sweet Scones 445

Take 1 lb. flour, and mix with it one teaspoonful of cream of tartar, half a teaspoonful of carbonate of soda, and a little salt. Then rub in 1 oz. butter and 2 oz. lard, and add 3 oz. sugar and the same quantity of currants. Mix the whole to a smooth dough, with about half a pint of milk ; cut into shapes, and brush over with egg. Bake from twenty to thirty minutes.

Ten Shillings a Head Per Week for House Books
Dorothy Constance Peel, C. S. Peel,Contributor Constable, Archibald, and Co, Butler and Tanner,
A. Constable, 1899

Oat Cakes 19th Century

2009-02-14T17:43:00.000-08:00

Healthy! And Ancient!

Oat Cake 433

Mix two or three tablespoonsful of oatmeal with a pinch of salt and a little cold water; knead it well round and round with the hands for some minutes, then roll it on a pastry board, and strew meal on and under it; move it by means of a baking spoon on to the bake stone, and bake it on both sides over a clear fire. It is well to mix only sufficient batter for one cake, for it soon dries. Time, two or three minutes to bake the cake.

-Ten Shillings a Head Per Week for House Books, Dorothy Constance Peel, C. S. Peel
Constable, Archibald, and Co, Butler and Tannerm A. Constable, 1899

How Irish Soldiers Cooked Beef

2009-02-13T16:19:00.000-08:00

But not only were the Irish soldiers in those days accustomed to catch their cows in a strange manner, but they had an equally strange manner of cooking them. They in fact boiled them in their skins ; having skinned a cow, they formed a bag or trough by lashing the skin firmly at tlie four corners to trees or stakes, and then having poured water into the trough, they kindled a large fire at one side, and they boiled the water and cooked the meat by heating stones to a great heat and throwing them into the trough. This seems to have been an adaptation of the manner of cooking adopted in the old Irish cooking places, called " the Boiling-places or Fire-places of the Deer." So that between the catching and the cooking, we cannot be surprised that the French were not a little astonished.

-Journal of the County Kildare Archaeological Society.,County Kildare Archaeological Society,Ponsonby., 1899,p. 43.

Irish Cockles

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In Ireland, the common cockles are cooked in their shells over the fire, and eaten with oaten cake. The shells are separated by twisting them apart, and a little butter is put into the shell, which is then placed on the turf-fire till the fish inside is fried.

The Edible Mollusks of Great Britain and Ireland, with Recipes for Cooking Them.,M. S. Lovell, Reeve & Co., 1867

Leekie Manglam

2008-05-16T10:01:00.000-07:00

Leeks have always occupied a favored place in Irish cooking-and with
good reason. Their popularity dates back to the days of St. Patrick.
One day, so the story goes, a chieftain who was being driven out of his
mind by his pregnant wife's demands for leeks (then out of season),
implored the saint's help. St. Patrick took a few juicy rushes, blessed
them, and turned them into leeks which immediately cured the unfortunate
woman's "longing sickness" and brought peace to her harassed husband.
There and then St. Patrick ordained that any woman suffering from the
"longing sickness" (modern doctors call it "pica" or "morbid craving")
shoudl be cured if she ate any member of the onion family.

Leekie Manglam (leek pasty) is well worth trying even if one is not in
an interesting condition.

Ingredients: 1/3 recipe for Lardy Cakes, (see this blog) ,3 large leeks,
4 slices streaky bacon, 1/2 cup breadcrumbs, 1/4 cup milk, pepper and
salt to taste, 1 egg.

Method: Parboil the leeks, drain, and cut them into very thin slices,
add the diced bacon, mix in crumbs, milk, and seasoning. Divide the
pastry in two. Use half to line a pie plate. Fill with the leek
mixture. Brush edges with water. Cover with a lid of pastry. Press
edges firmly together and flute. Brush with beaten egg and bake in a
425 degree oven.

-Maura Laverty, Feasting Galore.

Johnny McGorey Jelly

2008-05-16T09:50:00.000-07:00

"Johnny McGoreys" is one name for rose hips, the seed pods of the wild
rose. "Sticky-backs" is another name which derives from the fact that
children who arefull of devilment liketo crush the pods and push them
down the back of an unsuspecting victim; the prickly fibers can be very
irritating.

Ingredients: Take equal parts of Johnny McGoreys, crab apples,
blackberries, and damsons. Cut up the crab apples (including peels and
cores) comb ine with blackberries nad damsons and add water to cover.
Simmer until tender and strain through a jelly bag. Simmer the rose
hips separately in cider to cover. Strain through flannel to insure
that none of the fibers get into the jelly. Combine juices, measure,
and place in preserving pan. Add 1 cup heated sugar for each cup of
juice. Boil until the jelly will set when tested.

-Maura Laverty, Feasting Galore

Crab Apple and Bramble Jelly

2008-05-16T09:45:00.000-07:00

Use 2 parts of blackberries to one of crab apples. Wash and cut up the
crab apples. Cook the fruits separately, with just enough water to
cover. When tender, strain through a jelly bag. Combine juices and
measure. Allow 1 cup sugar to each cup of juice. Bring the juice to a
boil, stir in the heated sugar, stir until dissolved. Bring again to a
boil and boil rapidly until the jelly will set when tested. Skim and
pour into heated jars.

-Marura Laverty, Feasting Galore

Nested Eggs

2008-05-14T08:10:00.000-07:00

For each person allow 3/4 cup potato mashed with butter and cream, 1
tablespoon cooked peas, 1 egg, 2 teaspoons butter.

Method: Place the potatoes in mounds on a greased baking sheet. Press a
cup into each to make a hollow. Place a tablespoon of cooked peas in
each "nest," carefully break a raw egg over the peas. Season with
pepper and salt and dot with butter. brush with beaten egg and bake 20
minutes in a 375 degree oven. Serve with buttered par sliced carrots.

-Feasting Galore, Maura Laverty

Mealie Greachie

2008-05-14T08:06:00.000-07:00

On fast days this is served as an accompaniment to the fried breakfast
eggs. Melt a tablespoon butter or bacon fat in frying pan. Add as much
flake oatmeal as will absorb the fat, and fry until the meal is toasted.
Some people like to include a little chopped onion.

-Feasting Galore, Maura Laverty.

Don't play with your food but play during the meal!

2008-03-15T07:35:00.001-07:00

When I talk of games to mind will come all of the famous board games-
endless sessions of monopoly, then the endless sessions of card
games....for the non player tedious as they can do nothing else but run
errands for the players. Nothing wrong with a games evening if everyone
is on board for the game but not for general feasts and celebrations
where a diverse audience is present. For this you need to consult the
solutions brought about through centuries of cultural adaptation.

The Irish tradition is filled with many many games. These were developed
by families waiting for others to reach them over the poor roads of the
time on foot or slow horse. It took several days for people to get to
their wakes and weddings. While the prepares and keeners were busy with
their work the children and others needed to be entertained. So out came
the short energetic and often violent games.

The games specialize in being short. They also were filled with
surprises. Acting and counting skills were required but no boards or
cards. Today one is amazed at the ability of participants to withstand
the penalties- being stuffed in the dung heap, hit on the
shins....covered with mucky ash.

Today we must be more careful or else risk being locked up-such is
freedom! However, all is not lost. The games can be modified with the
muck being substituted with allergy free powder etc....

Games of recitation can be done around the table between courses. The
food will settle better and the minds will be working. The host will get
a break and the energy of the children otherwise spent in causing
destruction and chaos will be burned off.

The dramatic games will take place between courses. Another way to add
to the event. A bit of high drama, acting and fun. Laughter is the best
medicine and the best course of the good feast as well!

For Great games go to the Wake Page where they are kept!

http://mysite.verizon.net/cbladey/wake.html

Watch this space as I provide all manner of diversion through games. Put
the instructions on cards and have someone select the game of the moment
from the deck. Let that person set it up and be the judge. Soon there
will be more room for that wondrous dessert!

Stories - the between course for the feast

2008-03-15T07:25:00.000-07:00

Some oft complain that they do hours of cooking for only a short period
of time used for eating. Well that can happen but it is their own fault-
savoring food takes time. If you have nothing to entertain you whilst
savoring the food or letting it settle then you will move on to the next
course too quickly! Your body will not appreciate it. As a host you need
to have a break. Draw out the meal. Draw out expression, creativity,
have your guests show off.

But beware! Demons will try to raise their ugly heads. By this I mean
Politics, Religion, Family, Money and the lead demon Sports. We no
longer have an oral tradition. The only things in peoples heads are the
demons. You know this though after having perfectly good feasts erupt
into arguments and fights or into score reports and stock tickers. And
then there is the frequent case of loosing them to the television
entirely. To avoid prying them from the tube cut the cord, unplug it or
tape a nice picture on the screen for the evening.

Now what to put in place of the demons. Well not hard to say....Go find
cards- print short traditional stories on them and hand them out. Have
guests read stories and get the bones of them then tell them to each
other. This works. Go to this web page to find loads of five minute stories. Some are very very short others longer. Have guests pick them but if they are too long they can exchange. The point is not to read or memorize but just to read through and get the bones of the story and tell it in their own words-

http://mysite.verizon.net/cbladey/irish/blackbx.html

It will be music to the ears with a room full of people telling
traditional stories and wondering with the century old spark of ancient
time lighting the space.

In addition to stories the Irish are famed for their short knowledge- that is, ranns, proverbs, sayings and triads and jokes... you will find loads of these here. But remember you have to print out the texts for them but that is easy enough

http://mysite.verizon.net/cbladey/irish/verse.html

Another thing to do is to invite your guests to bring stories of their
own. Banish the deamons and let the ancient sun shine! The meal will
take its proper pace, the host will be entertained and rested- a
treasure worth the time of preparation and clean up.

The Musical Dimension of Food-

2008-03-15T07:10:00.001-07:00

Of course there is a musical dimension of food and you don't have to
have a cake dance either! Food and music go together and depend on each
other as foundations of the larger cultural experience-music is the
window that you open to get fresh air. As the palate and the stomach
work it is their accompaniment. It frees the mind to wander and provides
dance to work it off! In this spot recommendations for music will be
posted from time to time. Stop in frequently.

While music which is recorded is fine and good the best music is that
which comes out of the guests themselves. In order to avoid having the
music of bodily functions alone one must take a few steps.

The first thing to do is to get rid of any concept of quality. It simply
does not matter. The human mind is able to straighten out the bumps of
any performance. Traditional music is a music that is known- you will
know the tune so if played a bit off you can still follow it in your
mind. Yes there are pros but if you wait till you can afford them you
may wait for a longtime.

Second- you must make everyone welcome. Especially those learning. No
preasure...just sit in the corner and play. No one has to study you. You
just play. This is the essence of all good traditional gatherings.
Always let people know that they can bring whatever they wish. From food
and drink to music to whatever. You just coordinate.

Once everyone is welcome and tolerated you need only provide a few
resources. Most people today have not been brought up in the oral
tradition. That means that they do not have the songs in their heads
that they would have had had they grown up say for 10 or 15 years within
a culture singing regularly.

There is no way that you will have a singing crowd when you assume that
they know the words. But, all is not lost. You will have a singing crowd
immediately after providing song sheets or little booklets made up of
the songs you expect your guests to play. A little work done every so
often will see you prepared.

Another thing to keep in mind is that the tradition is growing every
day. Find a few ancient songs-the Grand Airs of Connemara but then
include others which have been added right down to the present day. You
want all generations to be welcome so mix it up for them. I am sure
that the younger folk will tolerate the Clancys and the Dubliners a lot
better with a bit of the Pogues and Flogging Molly thrown in.

Here are a few musical resources- enjoy!

http://mysite.verizon.net/cbladey/irish/music.html

So....add the musical ingredient to your cookery. Put a spring in your
step and song in your heart.

Nun's Cake

2008-03-12T14:19:00.001-07:00

Ingredients: 3/4 cup butter, 1 cup sugar, 3 eggs, 2 tablespoons corn
starch, 4 cups sifted flour, 1 teaspoon vanilla, 1/2 teaspoon salt, 3
teaspoons baking powder, 1/2 cup mil. 1 strip citron peel.

Method- Sift flour with cornstarch and baking powder. Cream butter. Add
sugar, one tablespoon at a time, beating well. Add beaten eggs one at a
time, beating well after each addition. Just before beating in the last
egg, sprinkle a little of the flour mixture. Add vanilla. Fold in dry
ingredients alternately with milk. Place strip of citron peel on top.
Bake in a greased lined tin for one hour in a moderate (350 degree)
oven. When done let stand 5 minutes in the tin before turning out onto
a rack

-Maura Laverty, Feasting Galore

Lenten Cake

2008-03-12T14:15:00.000-07:00

Ingredients: 4 cups sifted flour, 1/2 cup (1/4 pound) butter, 3
tablespoons molasses, 1 cup milk, 3/4 cup sugar, 3 teaspoons allspice,
1/2 cup raisins, 2 teaspoons baking powder, 1 teaspoon baking soda, 1/2
teaspoon salt.

Method: Melt butter, add molasses and milk and cool. Sift flour, spice,
baking powder, baking soda, and salt. Stir butter mixture into dry
ingredients. Add raisins and mix well. Pour into buttered tin and bake
1 1/2 hours in 350 degree oven.

-Feasting Galore, Maura Laverty

Gur (or Chester) Cake

2008-03-09T11:16:00.000-07:00

I imagine this cake owes its name to the fact that tuppence worth of
inferior baker's Chester Cake is the usual provender of boys who are "on
gur," i.e., playing hookey. But a grand way to use up stale bread or
cake is in making good homemade gur.

Ingredients: 1/2 recipe for Lardy Cakes, 2 cups sifted flour, 2 cups
fine cake or bread crumbs, 2 teaspoons baking poweder, 1/2 cup corn
syrup (about) 1 cup currants, 1 teaspoon ground ginger, a little beaten egg.

Method: Divide the pastry in two and roll thin. Use half to line the
bottom of agreased jelly-roll pan (shallow baking pan about 112'' x
9""). Now sieve flour, baking powder, and ginger. Mix in currantws nad
crumbs. Add corn syrup to make a stiff paste. Mix thoroughly and
spread evenly in tin. Cover with remaining pastry. Brush with beaten
egg nad mark in squares. Bake 40 minutes in a 375 degree oven. When
cold, cut into squares.- Maura Laverty, Feasting Galore

Lardy Cakes

2008-03-09T10:59:00.001-07:00

These are a delicacy associated with pig-killing time when the "flead"
or leaf lard is plentiful,

Ingredients: 3 cups sifted flour, 1 1/2 cups (2/3 pound) leaf lard, 1
teaspoon salt, 1 egg, cold water to mix.

Method: Sieve flour and salt together. Scrape 1/3 of the flead and rub
lightly in. Mix to a dough with cold water and roll out on a floured
board. Scrape another third of the lard and spread it over the paste in
flakes. Fold in three and beat out with the rolling pin. Repeat with
remaining lard and beat again. Roll out 1/4- inch thickness, cut in
small rounds, brush with beaten egg, and bake 12 minutes in a 450 degree
oven. Eat hot with butter.

N.B.: This makes good shortcrust pastry for pies.

-Maura Laverty, Feasting Galore.

Nettle Soup

2008-03-09T10:51:00.001-07:00

For many a long year nettles were to the Irish what spinach is to other
peoples. And many of us still feel that young tender nettles more than
equal the best of spinach. "One feed of nettes in the spring will keep
you healthy for the year" is a belief which persists in country parts
where the blood purifying qualities of nettles are still appreciated.

Ingredients: 6 cups (tightly packed) chopped nettle leaves, 2 medium
onions, 4 tablespoons butter, 3 cups white stock, 3 cups milk, 4
tablespoons flake oatmeal, 1 leek (chopped). For seasoning: a teaspoon
salt, 1 teaspoon pepper, 1/2 teaspoon grated nutmeg. For binding: 1 egg
yolk and 1/2 cup medium cream.

Method: Melt butter in a heavy stewpan over moderate heat. Saut/e the
chopped onion in the fat (without browning), add nettles and chopped
leek. Stir in flake oatmeal. Add combined stock and milk and simmer 50
minutes. Remove from heat and stir in egg yolk beaten with cream. Add
seasoning reheat but do not allow the soup to boil.-Maura Laverty,
Feasting Galore.

Consomm/e Befinn

2008-03-09T10:43:00.001-07:00

This soup can be nothing but ancient. Simple foods but with the alspice
flavour of the middle ages....A great use for bones.

Maybe consomm/e by any other name would taste as good, but this clear
soup is rather special. It is full of the zest of ham and beef and
vegetable juices. This particular soup inherits its name from a famous
heroine in Irish mythology. The reason we connect the lady with ham is
this: When King Midir was cajoling her to accompany him to Tir na n-/Og,
the Land of the Young, he promised her, among other things, that she
should feed on unlimited supplies of pork.

O lady, if thou comest to my valiant people,
A diadem of gold shall be on thy head;
Flesh of swine, all fresh, banquets of new milk and all
Shalt thou have with me there.

-O'Curry: Book of the Dun Cow)

Ingredients: For stock: 1 ham bone, 1 beef shin bone, 2 medium onions, 4
outside stalks of celery, two medium carrots 1 teaspoon allspice. For
garnish: 6 tablespoons each of ham, carrots, and celery cut in julienne
strips; 1 tablespoon chopped parsley. Salt and pepper to taste.

Method: Place all stock ingredients in pot, cover with water and simmer
three hours. Season to taste with salt and pepper. Garnish each bowl
with strips of ham, carrots, and celery just before serving sprinkle
with parsley.-Maura Laverty, Feasting Galore.

Brothch/an Buidhe

2008-03-08T21:44:00.001-08:00

This is pronounced "Brohawn Bwee" and it means Yellow Broth. A savory
concoction of vegetable stock, thickened with oatmeal and enriched with
milk, Brothch/an Buide was the favorite pottage of St. Columba.

There is a story that when Lent came around the saint decided to mortify
himself with ersatz broth, so he instructed his cook to put nothing into
the broth except water and nettles, with a taste of salt on Sundays.

"Is nothing else to go into it, your Reverence?" asked the cook in
horror. "Nothing except what comes out of the pot stick," the saint
replied sternly.

This went on for two weeks. The saint grew thinner and weaker, and the
cook grew more and more worried. And then, all of a sudden, St. Columba
started to put on weight again and the worried look left the cook's
face. The devoted lay brother had made himself a hollow pot stick down
which he poured milk and oatmeal. Thus he was able to preserve his
master from starvation and himself from the horrible sins of
disobedience and lies.

When questioned by the saint he was able to assure him honestly that
nothing went into the broth save what came out of the pot stick.

Ingredients: 45 cups chicken stock, 4 tablespoons butter, 1/2 cup flour,
2 tablespoons flake oatmeal, ,1 medium onion, 1 stick celery, 1 small
carrot, 1 3/4 cups spinach, 2 tablespoons cream, pepper and salt to
taste, 1 tablespoon parsley.

Method: To stock add chopped celery, onion, carrot and salt and pepper
to taste. Cook 30 minutes. Knead butter and flour together and add to
stock. Sprinkle in oatmeal and add chopped spinach. simmer 15 minutes.
Pass through a sieve, correct seasoning, stir in cream. Sprinkle with
minced parsley.-Maura Laverty, Feasting Galore., 1952/61.

Brigid's Broth

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Ingredients: 2 pounds lean mutton, 4 tablespoons barley (soaked
overnight in cold water), 4 tablespoons each chopped carrot, turnip,
onion, celery and cabbage; 2 chopped leeks, 2 tablespoons butter, pepper
and salt to taste, 1 tablespoon chopped parsley, 5 cups cold water.

Method: Cut the mutton in 1/2 inch cubes, season and cover with cold
water, bring quickly to boiling point, skim, and add the barley; simmer
1 1/2 hours or until the meat is tender. Fry the diced vegetables in
butter for five minutes without browning. Add to soup with salt and
pepper to taste and continue cooking until vegetables are tender.
Finally, add the parsley. Shin of beef may be treated this way , too, to
make a very good broth known as Hough Soup. Use 6 tablespoons of rice
instead of the barley.-Maura Laverty, Feasting Galore, 1952/61.

Irish Bacon-Boiling Bacon that is....the Wiltshire Cure

2008-03-08T08:49:00.001-08:00

Corned beef found in the USA is not something which has a long tradition
in Ireland- certainly it has made its way there as with everything else
but not a long tradition. If you wish to work with beef then use the
spiced beef recipe- much more flavour but similar to a corned beef. If
you wish to cook something with cabbage you should use boiling bacon
generally available from web based importers of which there are several.
This is not generally pork belly but a joint, boned above the ham or
collar. This is nothing at all like American bacon. It has a sweet
rather than a salty flavour and is in texture slightly like corned beef
but not as rough or fatty as when brisket is used.

The process of making the ham is not all that complex. The process is
known as a "wet cure" or Wiltshire Cure. The steps are laid out below.
You can purchase cure mixes ready made. The essence of it all is being
very clean, measuring out the ingredients properly to create a proper
brine and then watching the time and controlling the storage temps.

Generally sugar is added-treacle-or molasses and at times beer. All must
be thoroughly boiled first. Spices seem to vary. Spices noted are
nutmeg, juniper berries etc...

The meat can be smoked but is generally not smoked. In Wiltshire- a pork
producing region of England they also do a salt dry cure but this is not
what you want for boiling bacon. Recipes are often closely guarded. Farm
workers on holiday would bring their own prized bacon with them.
Although they used a common pot each man would tie his bacon with a
special identifiable string.

Some recipes and sources to get you thinking-
Steps for performing a Wiltshire Cure

1. Start with pork sides

2. Brine injection

2.. NaC3 placed in scapula

3. cover brine 3-5 days 4-5 degrees C.

4. Drain

5. Maturation 5 days 4-5 degrees C

-A Colour Atlas of Food Quality Control
By Jane P. Sutherland, A. H. Varnam
1986 (see Google Books)

A typical cure follows:

250 gms salt

150 gms Molasses or Demerara sugar

10 gms Saltpetre (Potassium Nitrate) – Anti bacterial, provides pink colour.

Method:

Use 40 gms of cure mix per ½ Kg of pork hind leg. Add the mix to enough
liquid to totally cover the meat. The liquid typically can consist of 3
parts water and 1 part ale.

Pickle the meat for 4 days. Remove the meat from the pickle and hang for
a further 2 weeks in a cool room.

Traditionally, the Wiltshire cure does not require smoking.

Jane Grigson's English Brine Ingredients:
7 pt Water
1 1/2 lb Sea or coarse salt
1 lb Dark brown sugar
2 oz Saltpeter
1 Bayleaf
1 Sprig thyme
10 Juniper berries; crushed
10 Peppercorns; crushed
________________________________________
Jane Grigson's English Brine Instructions:

Boil hard for 5 minutes.
Leave to cool.
Clean crock or bucket and lid with soda dissolved in boiling water,
rinse well, and leave to DRAIN dry.
Pour in cold brine, though a muslin lined strainer.
Immerse the meat (duck, pork, beef, mutton) and keep it below the
surface by laying a piece of boiled wood, or scrupulously clean plate on
top.
Cover and keep in a dry place at a temperature below 60Â°F Salting time.

This depends on the thickness of the meat.
Trotters, 24 hrs, a leg of pork can take 10 days.
NB.
Joints required for roasting rather than boiling will be improved by a
12 hour soak in brine, without tasting too salty afterwards.
In home conditions, in a cool larder, meat can be kept in brine for up
to a fortnight or three weeks, sometimes longer.
The moments islands of white mould begin to float on the surface, remove
meat and throw away the brine.
The crock will need washing in boiling soda again.
The meat will be OK.
Recipe Charcuterie and French Pork Cookery - Jane Grigson

And another.....

2kg course salt
50g saltpetre (You can get this at the pharmacy)
6 ltr water.

Bring all of above to the boil and then boil for 10 mins.

Allow to cool completely and then place in a container which can be
glass, plastic or earthenware but definately not metal. Put the meat
into the liquid and make sure it is fully submersed in the brine by
placing a board on top of it. Allow to cure for 12 hours per kilo.

When you take them out dry them with a cotton cloth and hang them in a
cool place to dry. ( I hang mine in the fridge) They must be hanging and
not touching anything else. Dry for at least 24 hours and then they can
be stored in the fridge for up to 2 weeks.

There are further recipes for Wiltshire cure which involves molasses,
beer and is lovely or a Suffolk cure which involves vinegar, cloves and
brown sugar.

And another....

Wiltshire Ham Cure

Course : Pork
From: HungryMonster.com
Serves: 1
Ingredients:
Amount Measure Ingredient -- Preparation Method
-------- ------------ --------------------------------
1 1/2 pounds cooking salt
4 ounces saltpeter
2 ounces prunella
1/2 ounce juniper berries
2 pounds treacle
1/2 pound bay salt
1 ounce black pepper
2 quarts beer
Preparation:
Mix together 1 1/2 lbs cooking salt, 4 oz saltpeter, 2 oz sale prunella,
1/2 oz juniper berries, 2 lbs treacle, 1/2 lb bay salt, 1 oz black
pepper, 2 qts beer. Boil together, cool slightly & pour over ham, which
has been sprinkled with cooking salt, left 12 hours and wiped dry. Turn
& rub pickle in each day for 1 month. Dry well before storing. I said
some time back that I would post these ham & bacon cures. They are all
traditional methods, and assume for the most part that you have a whole
pig to deal with. I have not used all of them, but have based cures on
some. If you need any further info, let me know. Some scaling will be
needed, and some modification. I have not bothered to update units or
nomenclature, but that will add to the fun :-)

Cure sources:

http://www.sausagemaking.org/acatalog/Brine_Cures_for_Ham.html

http://www.sausagemaker.com

I have found the greatest difficulty with available recipes is that they
tend to assume that you know how to make the cure brine and adjust it
properly for the cut of meat you are using. Perhaps the best way to go
is to select a prepared mix which will have proportions laid out
correctly. Enloy!

Convent Loaf

2008-03-07T15:03:00.001-08:00

Convent Loaf

Ingredients: 4 cups sifted flour, 1 cup (1/2 pound) butter, 3/4 cup
sugar, 3 teaspoons baking powder, 2 teaspoon caraway seeds, 2/3 cup
candied peel, 2 eggs, a little milk, 1/2 teaspoon salt.

Method: Sift together flour, baking powder, and salt. Rub in butter;
add sugar, seeds, and thinly sliced peel. Add beaten eggs with enough
milk to make light dough. Place in a well-greased tin and bake 1 1/2
hours in a moderate (375 degree) oven.

-Feasting Galore., Recipes and Food Lore from Ireland., Maura Laverty,
1952/1961

Oaten Health Bread

2008-03-07T13:10:00.001-08:00

A concept dating well back into ancient times:

Oaten Health Bread

Ingredients: 4 cups each flour, whole meal, and flake oatmeal; 1
tablespoon salt, 2 cups milk, 1 cup boiling water.

Method: Sift together flour, whole meal, flake oatmeal, and salt. Mix
the yeast with the sugar. Dissolve the butter in the boiling water and
add to the milk. Add a cupful of the tepid milk and water to the yeast
sugar mixture. Make a well in the center of the flour and pour in the
yeast. Sprinkle a little flour on top and set in a warm place until the
yeast honeycombs. Add the remainder of the tepid milk and water, mix
well, turn out onto a floured board, and knead well for at least 10
minutes. Return to the bowl, cover with a cloth, and leave in a warm
place until the dough doubles its bulk. Cook 50 minutes in a hot (475
degree ) oven.

-Feasting Galore., Recipes and Food Lore from Ireland., Maura Laverty,
1952/1961.

Sunday Tea Cakes from Maura Laverty

2008-03-07T12:51:00.000-08:00

Always good to be prepared for a traditional tea-time.

Sunday Tea Cakes

Ingredients: 4 cups sifted flour, 2 teaspoons salt, 1 package dry yeast,
2 teaspoons sugar, 4 tablespoons lard, 1/2 cup boiling water, 1/2 cup
milk, 1/2 cup currants, 1/3 cup candied peel, 1 cup white seedless
raisins, milk and sugar for glaze.

Method: Sift flour with salt. Mix yeast with 2 teaspoons sugar, add 1/2
cup lukewarm milk. Make a well in center of four, pour in yeast mixture,
sprinkle a little flour on top, and leave to honeycomb in a warm place
about 20 minutes. Dissolve lard in boiling water, add milk mixture.
Leave until lukewarm. Add this mixture to flour and mix to a smooth
dough. Turn onto floured board, sprinkle with fruit, and knead well.
Divide the dough into 6 balls, flatten, and pierce with fork. Place on
greased and floured baking sheet, cover, and leave to rise 30 minutes in
warm place. Bake 20 minutes in hot (450 degree) oven Five minutes
before the cakes are done, brush with milk and sprinkle with sugar.

-Feasting Galore., Recipes and Food Lore from Ireland., Maura Laverty,
1952/1961.

Irish Soda Cake

2008-02-25T19:31:00.000-08:00

SODA CAKE.— Take one pound of flour. half a pound of moist sugar and rub
in half a pound of butter, lard, or dripping. Then take four eggs well
beaten, a teacup- full of milk a little warm, and half a tea- spoonful
of soda dissolved in the milk. Mix all together, and put It Into the
oven immediately.
Flour, 1lb. ; sugar, 1/2 lb. ; butter, lard, or dripping, 1/2lb. ;
eggs, 4 ; milk, 1 teacup full soda 1/2. • teaspoon full. . Two hours will bake it In a quick oven.

-Source:The Dictionary of Daily Wants.,Robert Kemp Philip, 1861

Recipes from Maura Laverty

2008-02-25T11:50:00.000-08:00

Recipes from Maura Laverty

Source: Maura Laverty's Cookery Book.,Longmans, 1946-48.

Maura Laverty was an Irish author and playwright who brought wonderful
descriptions of life in Ireland and her experiences to her recipes. The
cook book has modern or one might say internationally inspired recipes
but also contains a number of Irish standards.

Every time Ireland is put in the dock, I feel our diplomats are sadly
lacking as a counsel for the defense that they don't bring forward in
mitigation of our crimes the fact that we have given a four-leaved
shamrock to the world. One leaf is W. B. Yeats, another is boiled
potatoes in their jackets, another Barry Fitzgerald. The fourth is
Soda-bread. And the greatest of these is soda-bread. Spongy white
soda-bread with a floury, brown crossed crust…flat sweet griddle-bread
with an inch-and-a-half of tender well baked dough sandwiched between
thin crisp crusts…wholesome brown bread with growth and health and
energy in its pleasantly rough nuttiness…dark spicy treacle bread that
has been left for twenty-four hours to become firm and mellow and is
then sliced thinly and spread with good country butter---current bread
and buns, Indian meal bread, "spotted dog" rich with raisins, seedy
bread- there seems to be no end at all to them. The queer thing is that
in its native habitat soda-bread is never so called. We call it "cake"
or "cake bread." A loaf of bread comes out of the baker's van, but a
cake of bread comes out of the pot-oven. The secret of good cake-bread
is 3-day old buttermilk, a light hand for mixing and kneading and a
brisk oven. Buttermilk is not always easy to come by. In the winter
when the cows are not milking some people use instead the water in which
potatoes have been boiled. Far better is the "winter buttermilk" which
they used in Cork and Meath and this is how it is made.

Winter Buttermilk

Mix 1/4 lb flour to a smooth paste with 1 cup cold water. Put this in
the bottom of a large jug or crock. Add 2 grated raw potatoes and 2
mashed cooked potatoes. Now mix in 7 cups cold water. Cover and leave
it on the kitchen mantelpiece or in some such warm place for 2 days.
When you are baking pour off carefully, and without disturbing the
sediment, as much liquid as you require. This can be used in exactly the
same way as buttermilk and will give you lovely light bread. Add fresh
water to make up for what you have3 used. Stir up the contents of the
vessel, cover it and put it by for the next baking. The one lot of
potatoes and flour will give you a fortnight's supply of winter buttermilk.

Buttermilk Plant

There is another way of making sure of a constant supply of buttermilk.
You can start a buttermilk plant with yeast, sugar and skim milk, or
milk and water. The buttermilk plant is a kind of fungus like the
vinegar plant. After a few weeks it will grow and grow and you'll be
able to supply all your friends with a cutting. The milk it produces is
very good for the blood, particularly in rheumatic cases. It is
pleasant to drink too. (I first heard about this miraculous plant form
Miss Florence Irwin, of Belfast who is the best cook in Ireland). To
start the plant, you'll need:--
1 oz. sugar,
1 oz, yeast
1 quart tepid milk and water.

Cream the yeast with the sugar, gradually add the tepid milk and water.
Put the mixture in some vessel that may easily be washed and scalded,
cover it, and leave it in a warm place for a couple of days or until the
milk smells and tastes like butter-milk. When you want to use the
buttermilk, put a piece of muslin in the bottom of a strainer and strain
the milk through this. The funny-looking thing like lumpy corn flour
which remains will be the plant. Rinse every drop of milk off it, by
pouring a cup of tepid water over it. Let the water run through the
strainer into the buttermilk- it will all make excellent liquid for
mixing cake-bread. To start a new lot of buttermilk, scrape the plant
off them muslin and put it back into the scalded and well-rinsed vessel.
Add another quart of tepid milk and water, cover it and leave it as
before to increase and multiply.

That first ounce of yeast will go on growing and multiplying giving you
buttermilk until the end of time. But the plant needs a certain amount
of care.

1.--It must be strained at least every five days. If you don'
t want the milk for baking, you can always drink it. I knew a woman so
crippled with rheumatics that she couldn't kneel down to say the Rosary.
After six months of drinking this buttermilk, she was able to do the
Lough Derg Pilgrimage on her knees.

2.--Make sure the milk-and-water is never more than lukewarm. Strong
heat kills yeast.

3.--Cleanliness is very important. That careful rinsing after
straining, and the scalding of th container must be done if the plant is
to live.

Basic Recipe for Soda Bread

1 lb flour
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon sugar
1 teaspoon bread-soda
Buttermilk to mix.

Sift the dry ingredients several times through your fingers. Make a
well in the centre. Pour in the buttermilk gradually, mixing in the
flour from the sides. Don't have the mixture too dry. Turn it out on a
floured board, knead lightly for a few minutes, pat the dough to a round
and cut a cross on it to keep it from cracking in the baking. Let the
cuts go over the sides of the cake to make sure of this. Brush with
milk and bake at once in a hot oven (450 degs.--Regulo 7-8) for 45 mins.
If you have any doubts about doneness, tap the bottom of the cake. If
it sounds hollow it is cooked. (When using milk from the buttermilk
plant, it doesn't hurt the bread to let it stand 15 mins. before baking).
Some people like to add 1/4 teasp. of cream of tartar or 1/2 teasp.
baking powder. I think this is unnecessary. The teaspoon of bread-soda
and good buttermilk provide all the leaven needed for a pound of flour.

Yalla Male Bread
Add 1/4 lb. of Indian meal.

Treacle Bread
Increase the sugar to 1 tablesp. and add to the milk 1/2 cup of treacle.
A beaten egg may bge added as well, in which case you may as well go
the whole hog and rub 2 oz of butter into the flour. Raisins, Currants
and chopped nuts make this a party cake.

Brown Bread
Use 1/2 lb. whole meal and 1/2 lb., flour. Increase the sugar to one
desseertsp, and rub in, if you like 1 dessertsp. of dripping. I always
add as well a handful of flakemeal. It gives a lovely nutty texture.

The Proper Irish Tea

2008-02-22T17:24:00.001-08:00

It is said that the mixture of Asam and Ceylon teas that go into an
"Irish Blend" tea is designed to give one strength to ward of the cold.
It is strong medicine. One needs to make sure that it steeps for at lest
five minutes and that you use about 1/3 good real cream. Put cream and
sugar in first...Here is an interesting account....it must have been
strong indeed at times!

Nearly twenty times as much tea must be drunk now in
Kerry as in the early sixties, and so far as I can recollect tea
was unknown, not only in the cabins but among the farmers
until after the famine. Fairly good tea is obtained, for the Irish will never buy
tea unless they are asked a high price, and for that price
they usually, owing to competition, obtain an article not too
perniciously adulterated. What is highly injurious is the method of making
the tea. A lot is thrown into the pot on the fire in the cabin in
the morning, and there it stands simmering all day long, that
those who want it may help themselves. This is in sharp contrast to the method employed by
Dr. Barter, the famous hydropathic physician at Cork, one
of the cleverest men I ever met and one of the very few
who never permitted medicine under any circumstances, relying
on water, packing, and Turkish baths, with strict attention
to diet. He used to make tea by putting half a teaspoonful into
a wire strainer which he held over his cup, and pouring
boiling water upon the leaves, the contents of his cup became
a pale yellow, to which he added a little milk and
instantly drank it off, the whole process lasting but a few
seconds. I remember he equally disapproved of the Russian
method of drinking tea in a glass with lemon, of the fashionable
way of letting the water ' stand off the boil' upon the
leaves in a teapot, and of the Hibernian stewing arrangement
alluded to above.
-From: The Reminiscences of an Irish Land Agent., Samuel Murray Hussey, 1904

Snipes

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No. 503.—POTTED SNIPES, IRISH FASHION.
The snipes intended to be used for this purpose must
be perfectly fresh. After being plucked, their logs and
wings are to be cut off; merely remove the gizzard
with the point of a knife, leaving all the inside or trail
undisturbed; the snipes should be split in halves, and
placed on a dish. Next, take what is called an earthenware
oval pie-pan, suc]i as is commonly used for potting
meats. >fcc.; line the bottom and sides of this with very
thin layers of fat bacon ; arrange therein the prepared
snipes in neat rows; season between each row with
coarsely ground black pepper and salt; and when the pan
is nearly filled, pour in sufficient clarified fresh butter
to cover the surface of the snipes ; put the lid of the pan
on; lute all round the edge of the pan with slack flour-
aud-water paste to confine the steam which arises from
the snipes, &c., while baking, and which, by being thus
prevented from escap ng entirely, not only improves the
flavour of the pie by condensation, but also tends to
dissolve the bones sufficiently to render them edible:
there being a hole on the top of the lid, it acts as a
safetyalve. These pies must be baked in an oven of
moderate heat, and are intended to be eaten when quire '-
old only. The snipes shot in Ireland are the finest flavoured known, and
are or were prepared in a very simple yet excellent fashion, which
renders them a great delicacy for the breakfast-table. In order to
enable you to indulge in this delectable bonne-bouche, I will at once
furnish you with the necessary instructions to solve the mystery and
gratify your longing. Note.—Woodcocks, fieldfares, plovers, young
pheasants,
partridges, or grouse, larks, wheatears, and especially
ortolans and becafioos, are most excellent when dressed
as indicated in this number.

.-From:The Cook's Guide, and LHouskeeper's &Butler's Assistant. Charles
Elme Francatelli, 1867.

Irish Sandwhiches

2008-02-08T11:25:00.000-08:00

No. 361—IRISH SANDWICHES.
Between slices of very thin crisp toast place alternate
layers of very thin slices of roast game, shred celery,
and Tartar sauce; dish up on a napkin.
Note.—This pasts- serves also for potato croquets.
.-From: The Cook's Guide, and LHouskeeper's &Butler's Assistant. Charles
Elme Francatelli, 1867.

Work house cookery pre-famine

2008-02-08T11:23:00.000-08:00

As among most classes in Ireland and England, the day is divided into
three acts or meals, breakfast, lunch, and dinner. By the_ last is not
to be understood the noonday meal» but the chief meal of the day. The
lunch is participated in only by the children and invalids. The healthy
and full-grown are excluded from it. The hours at which these meals are
taken are later than with us in Germany. Nine o'clock is the hour for
breakfast, and four in the afternoon for dinner. The breakfast, as
inmost parts of Ireland, among those who have the means of decent
maintenance, consists of new milk and stirabout, a kind of porridge of
oatmeal ; the dinner is composed of potatoes and buttermilk. The
children, for their lunch, receive bread and milk. On Sundays, holidays,
and on every Thursday, a little brose, or soup, is given, in addition to
the customary diet. An adult receives seven ounces of oatmeal and half a
pint of new milk for breakfast, and four pounds of potatoes and a pint
of buttermilk for dinner. The board of an adult is calculated to- cost
one shilling and fourpence three-farthings weekly. That of the children
is more expensive, on account of the bread, and the more liberal supply
of milk. The most costly of all is the board" of the children under two
year» old, who cost one shilling and sixpence three- farthings a week,
for which they receive one pint of new milk and a pound of bread daily.
There is therefore a potato diet for adults, л bread diet for children,
a rice and meat diet for the sick, and lastly, a fever diet for the
class of patients always most numerous in an Irish
workhouse-From:Ireland:Dublin, the Shannon, Limerick, Cork, and te
Kilkenny Races…,,Johann Georg Kohl, 1844.

I was astonished by the appearance of the potato-kettle at this house.
No less than 167» pounds of potatoes are boiled at once. This enormous
quantity is all divided into portions of three and a half and four
pounds, and eacli portion is enclosed in a small net. All these nets are
laid together in a large basket, and. this basket, with its nets and
potatoes, is deposited in the boiler. When the potatoes are supposed to
have been sufficiently boiled, the basket is wound up again by a
machinery^ constructed for the purpose, and the poor are then marched up
in military order, when each receives his net and marches away with it.-
-From:Ireland:Dublin, the Shannon, Limerick, Cork, and te Kilkenny
Races…,,Johann Georg Kohl, 1844.

Stirabout and Skilly

2008-02-08T11:19:00.001-08:00

Stirabout a wonderful word for a staple. It can also be made using other
grains such as barley. You can also call it porridge. It can be thin and
is called Skilly. Most put things into it other than oats and hot water
however the Irish tended to keep it simple despite availablity of fresh
greens growing wild.

For instance, in the matter of food, Dr. O'Donovan renders a very
ancient commentary on the first clause of the law of fosterage as
follows: "What are their victuals? They are all fed on stirabout : but
the materials of which it is made, and the flavoring with it, vary
according to the rank of the parents of the children. The children of
the inferior grades are fed to bare sufficiency on stirabout made of
oatmeal on buttermilk or water, and it is taken with stale (salt)
butter. The sons of the chieftain grades are fed to satiety on stirabout
made of barley-meal upon new milk. taken with fresh butter. The sons of
kings are fed on stirabout made of wheat- en meal upon new milk, taken
with honey." According to one authority, every 641 foster-child should
be provided with two suits of clothing,-From: New Catholic World, 1871

The owner of the cast dries the corn himself, and supplies the turf.
In the time of the old kilns, the corn was sometimes dried at the
townlund kiln.
In this country up to sixty or seventy years ago, the first few
sheaves'of oats cut by the reapers used to be scutched and winnowed,
and the corn put in a pot over the fire, and dried. It was then ground
in a quern, and stirabout made from it for the breakfast of the reapers
and the family. The same was done in the case of any other meal at
which stirabout was used during reaping time. This shows the speed
with which food could be dressed by means of a quern. '
Phapin.' In Munster up to forty years ago, and perhaps yet in
remote parts of the province, the gleaning of the wheat crop was made
into stuff called ' prapin.' The grain was shed by rustling the ears in
the hands. The husks were removed by blowing, or by the wind. The
wheat was then put in a pot, or on a griddle, and dried over a fire. "
When dried it was ground in a quern, mixed with new milk or cream,
and eaten without more ado. ' Praupeen' was a great favourite with
children, and was their standard of comparison. Any nice cereal food
was said to be nearly as nice as praupeen.
To prepare food with a quern is easier than most people imagine,
and the system is marvellously economical, besides getting the best
out of cereals. Everyone knows the difference between freshly-
ground and old-ground coffee.- From: Proceedings of the Royal Irish
Academy, 1907.

Skilly (common), water-gruel, in
the workhouse and prisons.
So much the better for you, I say,
So much the better for you.
If you never act silly, you'll keep off the
iltUfy,
That's so much the better for you. —
Music Hall Song, A Lincolnshire term, skillg, oatmeal - gruel, from
obsolete English skellg, thin and light, applied to thin, poor food ;
also sailor's soup of many ingredients. Skilly and toke (popular),
applied to anything mild, insipid. The mugs and the jugs never joke,
never gag, never work in a wheeze; no, their talk is all skilly and
toke.—Punch.-From:A Dictionary of Slang, Jargton&Cant.,Albert Barere, 1890

The Irish and their Stew-One basic foundation

2008-02-07T19:17:00.001-08:00

You should eventualy see more on this here....important to note that Irish stew
is never associated in the literature with beef....lamb or mutton. Note
also that there is the usual variety of interpretation. So go for it and
find your mode....enjoy!
AN IRISH STEW.
Take a couple of pounds of small thick mutton cutlets with or without
fat according to the taste of the persons to whom the stew is to be
served ; take also four pounds of good potatoes, weighed after they are
pared, slice them thick, and put a portion of them, in a flat layer, into
a large thick saucepan or stewpan ; season the mutton well with pepper,
and place some of it on the potatoes, cover it with another layer,
and proceed in the same manner with all, reserving plenty of the vegetable
for the top; pour in three quarters of a pint of cold water, and
add, when the stew begins to boil, an ounce of salt; let it simmer
gently for two hours, and serve it very hot. When the addition of
onion is liked, strew in two or three minced ones with the potatoes.
Mutton cutlets, 2 Ibs.; potatoes, 4 Ibs.; pepper, 1/2 oz.; salt, 1 oz.;
water, f3/4pint: 2 hours.
Obs.—For a real Irish stew the potatoes should be boiled to a mash:
an additional quarter-hour may be necessary for the full quantity here,
but for half of it two hours are quite sufficient.-From: Modern Cookery,
in All It's Branches:reduced to a System of Easy Practice.,Eliza Action,
1858

if Irish stew is put upon
the bill of fare it will be gone long before any other dish
on the list ; and what is Irish stew but one of the forms
of Scotch broth ? The Irish have nothing to do with it. -
The misnomer came from the French, who also call the
Scotch barley broth Orge a l'Irlandaise. The principle of Scotch broth
is to make a pot-au-feu of mutton, to 'work up the liquor into soup with
various assortments of vegetables, and to present the mutton to be eaten
along with it. Therefore it is a mistake to confine the name of
Scotch or mutton broth to barley broth. It is a name which equally
belongs to the thick potato-and-onion soup known as Irish stew, to the
pea soup which Soyer has called "the inimitable hotch potch." and to
various other assortments. It is not any particular soup, but a system
of soups set up in contrast to the French system of bouillon and bouilli
in homely life. Perhaps the best example of the Scotch or mutton broth
is the Hotch Potch, which will be found described under its own name.
Here we give the receipt only for what is especially in England called
Scotch broth. Take about six pounds of the neck or breast of mutton cut
as for Irish stew, and carefully trimmed of fat. Put it into the pot
with six quarts of cold water, six ounces of barley, and some salt. Boil
it, remove the scum, and then let it simmer for an hour; after which put
into it two carrots, two turnips, three onions, and three heads of
celery, all cut into dice or sliced, with a faggot of sweet- herbs and a
pinch of pepper. Let the simmering go on for another hour, and the soup
is ready. The cutlets can be served ei
ther with it or apart-From:Kettnere's Book of the Tabgle: A Manual of
Cookery, Practical, theoretical…, Eneas Sweetland, 1877.

No. 594A.—IRISH STEW.
Cut up about four pounds of either neck or loin of mutton into
eight or ten neatly trimmed chops, paring away all excess of m
and rough bone; season plentifully with pepper, and moderately
with salt; place the chops in a deep stewpan or saucepan, with
sufficient water to cover in their surface, add eight good sizeo
onions, put the lid on and set the whole on the fire to stew gently
for half an hour; the stew must then be removed from the fire,
the liquor poured into a basin, and after being freed from «11
grease, is to be poured back to the chops ; add a dozen pt«l«d
potatoes, and a pint of good stock or gravy, if handy, or failing
that, (in case that the moisture has been reduced to half its original
quantity) a like quantity of water will do. The whole i-<
then to be placed on the fire to boil gently for about three qnarten
of an hour, due care being taken that the moisture docs not K-
come wholly absorbed by the stew, or burnt at the bottom of t: -
etewpan, as this latter accident would entirely spoil the dish.
As soon as the Irish stew is done, let it be dished up as follows,
viz.: first remove the potatoes carefully on to a plate, and tlx:.
use a fork and spoon to place the cutlets or chops neatly round
the dish, add the potatoes in their centre, and pour the gravy acd
onions, &c., over the whole, and serve hot.
NOTE.—A less expensive method of making Irish stew, is to
use the scrag end of a neck of mutton, or indeed any infcr\r
pieces of meat most convenient, as well as the remains ol •
cooked joint of beef, mutton, or veal.-From:The Cook's Guide, and
LHouskeeper's &Butler's Assistant. Charles Elme Francatelli, 1867.

183. Good Plain Family Irish Stew. — Take about two
pounds of scrag or neck of mutton; divide it into ten pieces,
lay them in the pan; cut eight large potatoes and four onions
hi slices, season with one teaspoonful and a half of pepper, and
three of salt; cover all with water; put it into a slow oven for
two hours, then stir it all up well, and dish up in deep dishes.
If you add a little more water at the commencement, you can
take out when half done, a nice cup of broth.
The same simplified.—Put in a pan two pounds of meat
as before, which lay at the bottom; cover them with eight whole
onions, and these with twelve whole potatoes; season as before;
cover over with water, and send to the oven for two hours.
Almost any part of the sheep can be used lor Irish stew.
A gallon pan is required for this and the preceding receipt.-From: A
Shilling cookery for the people., Alexis Benoit Soyer, 1854.

STEW, Irish.
Ingredients.—3 Ibs. of the loin or neck
of mutton, 5 Ibs. of potatoes, 5 large
onions, pepper and salt to taste, rather
more than 1 pint of water. Mode.—
Trim off some of the fat of the above
quantity of loin or neck of mutton, and
cut it into chops of a moderate thickness. Stilton Cheese Pare and halve
the potatoes, and cut the onions into thick slices. Put a layer of
potatoes at the bottom of a stewpan, then a layer of mutton and onions,
and season with pepper and salt ; proceed in this manner until the
stewpan is full, taking care to have plenty of vegetables at the top.
Pour in the water, and let it stew very gently for 2A hours, keeping the
lid of the stewpan" closely shut the ,ikole time, and occasionally
shaking the preparation to prevent its burning;. Time. —2i, hours. A
rerage cost, for th,s quantity, 2л. S,/. ¿Sufficient for 5 or 6 persons.
Sea,unable.—Suitable for a winter dish. I STEW, Irish. Ingredieoti.—2 or
3 Ibs. of the breast I of mutton, Ц pint of water, salt and pepper to
taste, 4 Ibs. of potatoes, 4 large onions. Mod,.—Put the mutton into a ,
stewpan with the water and a little salt, and let it stew gently for an
hour ; cut the meat into small pieces, skim the fat from the gravy, and
pare and slice the potatoes and onions. Put all the ingredients into the
stewpan, in layers, first a layer of vegetables, then one of meat, and
sprinkle seasoning of pepper and salt between each layer ; cover
closely, and let the whole stew very gently for 1 hour, or rather more,
shaking it frequently to prevent its burning. -Time. —Rather more than 2
hours. Average cost, ls. 6d. Sufficient for 5 or 6 persons.
Seasonable,—Suitable for a winter dish. -Note.—Irish stew may be
prepared in the samo manner as above, but baked in a jar instead of
boiled. About 2 hours or rather more in a moderate oven will be
sufficient time to bake it.-From:Mrs. Beeton's Dictionary of Every-Day
Cookery., Isabella Mary Beeton.

The Mysteries of Colcannon

2008-02-07T09:40:00.000-08:00

Sometimes the quest for roots locates multiple rootlets. Colcannon is
one of those. Just so it has something to do with potatoes and
greens...a good example of local and personal variation in which folks
often speak of as a unified foodway. So there are choices...

At dinner they had a dish, which we believe is, like the Boxty,
peculiarly Irish in its composition: we mean what is called stjilk. This
consists of potatoes and beans, pounded up together in such a manner
that the beans are not broken, and on this account the potatoes are well
champed before the beans are put into them. This is dished in a large
bowl, and a hole made in the middle of it, into which a miscaun or roll
of butter is thrust, and then covered up until it is melted. After this,
every one takes a spoon and digs away with the utmost rigour, dipping
every morsel into the well of butter in the middle, before he puts it
into his mouth. Indeed, from the strong competition which goes forward,
and the rapid motion of each right hand, no spectator could be mistaken
in ascribing the motive of their proceedings to the principle of the old
proverb, devil take the hindmost. Sthilk differs from another dish made
of potatoes in much the same way, called colcannon. If there were beans,
for instance, in colcannon, it would be sthilk. This practice of many
persons eating out of the same dish, though Irish, and not cleanly, is
of very old antiquity. Christ himself mentions it at the Last Supper.
Let us hope, however, that, like the old custom which once prevailed in
Ireland, of several persons drinking at meals out of the same mether,
the usage we speak of will soon be replaced by one of more cleanliness
and individual comfort.--From: The Irish Penny Journal, 1841.

522. COLCANNON
Boil separately an equal amount of potatoes and
of fresh cabbage ; about half the amount of onions.
Mash all very finely, mix in a little butter or drip-
ping, with salt and pepper, put in a buttered bowl,
and bake, well covered up. Serve very hot.
-May Byron's Vegetable Book, May Clarissa Gillikngton Byron,k 1916

colcannon night : almost universal in St. Johns, Nfld., for Hallowe'en. [
The name is used by those who eat colcannon on that night Others speak
of it a» " snap-apple night." The term Hallowe'en is not generally
used.]-Dialect Notes.,The American Dialect Society, 1896.

Colcannon.
Mix in about equal proportions some well-
mashed potatoes and some young sprouts, or greens
of any kind, first boiled till quite tender and chopped
up. Mash up all thoroughly together ; add a seasoning
of pepper and salt, a small bit of butter, and
a spoonful or two of cream or milk ; put a raw
onion in the middle of all, and stir over a clear
fire till very hot and sufficiently dry to be moulded
and turned out. The onion must be taken out
before the dish is served.
Turnips and carrots are often chopped up with
the greens and potatoes.
This can also be made with parsnips and
potatoes.
Colcannon. (Another way. )
Boil and mash greens, cabbage, carrots, turnips,
a shred onion with mashed potatoes — half the quantity
should consist of the latter ; add two eggs,
pepper and salt, and a good piece of butter ; put
it into a plain mould or pudding-basin, boil for an
hour, and turn out.-Dressed Vegetables a la Mode.De Salis,Hariet,Anne, 1888

9. Colcannon.—Boil potatoes and greens, or
spinage, separately; mash the potatoes, squeeze
the greens dry, chop them quite fine, and mix
them with the potatoes with a little butter, pepper
and salt; put it into a mould, greasing it well first;
let it slant! in a hot oven for ten minutes.-Mackenzie's Five Thousand
Receipts:In All the Useful and Domestic Arts.,Colin Mackenzie, 1854

Colcannon. — (No. 108*.)
Boil Potatoes and Greens, or Spinage — separately —
Mash the Potatoes — squeeze the Greens dry,
chop them quite fine, and mix them with the Potatoes
with a little butter, pepper and salt — put it into a
mould, greasing it well first; let it stand in a hot oven
for ten minutes. ,-From: The Cook's Oracle:Containing Receipts for Plain
Cookery.,William Kitchiner, 1822.

It is not common in the West to see a field of
turnips, and a field of turnips is an object of great
attraction to the peasant. The women, especially,
are very fond of them; and, all the world over, what
the women require the men must endeavour to procure.
The chief use that is made of this vegetable
is in the manufacture of colquit, or colcannon, otherwise
turnips, or cabbage, mashed up with potatoes—
a cottage delicacy, for the attainment of which many hundred felonies
have been committed;-From: Letters from the Irish Highlands.,J. Murray,
1825.

Colcannon.—Provide for this : One pound of cold
boiled potatoes, one pound of cold boiled turnip, one
ounce of butter, one tablespoonful of bread crumbs, one
saltspoonful of salt, one saltspoonful of pepper.
The bread crumbs must first be put upon a tin or
plate, and into the oven and browned to a light brown.
Grease slightly a plain mould holding about three pints,
and sprinkle around the sides and over the bottom of this,
the browned bread crumbs. Put into a bowl the potato
and with it the turnip, which must first be pressed down
and drained of any water that it may have gathered in
standing to cool. Mix these thoroughly together and season
them with the pepper and salt, adding also the butter,
and when all is stirred together, pack the mixture into the
mould, pressing it down with the blade of a knife, place
the mould in a moderate oven where it must remain until
its contents be thoroughly heated, then turn the form
carefully out into a vegetable dish and serve steaming hot.
-From:The Art of Cooking:A Series of Practical Lessons,Matilda Lees,
Dods, 1880.a

COLCANNON.—This popular Irish dish is usually made with cabbages and
potatoes, but cauliflower will make a more delicate dish. Take half as
much cauliflower as potato, both of which must have been boiled
previously and completely cooled. Chop them separately and very "fine.
Put a little milk and butter into a saucepan, and when boiling hot, turn
in the potatoes and cauliflower well mixed together. Place a flat tin or
dish over them, and let them warm through. Then remove the cover, and
add salt and pepper to the taste ;ake the dish boiling hot, and serve.
Another way is to prepare it with strips of salt pork. Cut the pork into
strips an inch long and as narrow as possible, and fry it to a crisped
brown ; then turn in the chopped cauliflower and potatoes, and mix well
with the pork strip and fat. Heat very hot, and serve on a platter. It
is a delicious dish ; and a little vinegar ia considered an improvement
to it.-From: To--day: The Popular Illustrated Magazine, Dio Lewis, 1872.

COLCANNON. How to Buy. — Purchase potatoes and greens or cabbage, in the
proportion of one-third greens to two-thirds of potatoes — usually,
however, col- cannon is prepared from cold vegetables. This is a good,
economical, and nourishing dish if well prepared, otherwise it is
indigestible and disagreeable. How to Cook.—Boil and then mash the
potatoes with salt and pepper; boil the greens or cabbage very tender,
and press very dry, and chop it finely; mix both together, and season to
taste with pepper, salt, and nutmeg; moisten with a little gravy; cover
with bread-crumbs, and on them lay either little bits of butter or
congealed butter; sprinkle a little fine salt over, and brown with a
salamander, or in the oven; this is the best mode, though it is
frequently fried in fat left in the pan from bacon rashers that have
been fried to serve with it ; in this way it is very apt to be strong.
How to Serve.-—Hot and quite plain, or garnished with fried bacon.
Note.—If cold vegetables are used, press the potatoes through a
colander, and chop the cabbage very fine, taking care it is not watery.-
From: Handbook of domestic cookery., Handbook, 1882.

O'Curry Reveals Foodways of the Ancient Celts

2008-02-06T10:05:00.000-08:00

In the case of Irish Foodways we have the unique opportunity of going
back to the earliest literature of Europe. But what is it....good
question. It is a mixed bag of written works derived from a large
variety of sources both domestic and foreign. Some could have been
fiction others mystical.....O'Curry does an heroic job of pulling things
all together. Elsewhere in this Blog you will find a link direct to the
book. Below is text without footnotes which are significant so nothing
relpaces the book itself but, this may be useful for those in search of
their Celtic dimension....

FOOD AND DRINK OF THE ANCIENT IRISH.

The food of a people is so intimately connected with their
agriculture, that in order to give a satisfactory account of the
former, it would be necessary to enter into some detail as to
the state of the latter. This, however, I cannot do here, and I
must content myself with referring to the subject as occasion
may arise in the following brief account of the food of the
ancient Irish.
The ancient Irish were more a pastoral than an agricultural
people ; every occupier of a homestead, however, ploughed
annually a certain amount of land, and sowed corn, the
general name for which was Arba, plural Orbainn. Under
this term mention is made of eight kinds of corn or seed,
Cruittiecht, Eorna, Corca, Seoul, Ruadan, Seruan. Maetan, and
Fidbach. Cruitnecht, one of the names of wheat, Triticum
Sativum, appears to contain the same root as the Greek K....,
barley. Tarai, sometimes written Tuirnd or Tuirnn, was
another name for wheat, which M. A. Pictet compares with
Sanskrit Trna, herb in its general sense ; he also mentions the
curious fact that the Mongolian name of wheat is Taràn. Eorna
and Corca are still the names of barley and oats respectively.
It is very difficult to determine now to what plants the remaining
names were applied. Secul is probably a loan-word from
the Latin Secale, rye ; but was it applied to the same plant in
Ireland as in Italy ? If so, what was Ruadan ? This is certainly
an older word than Secul, and if we could venture to compare
it with the Lettish Rudzi, rye, may have been the true ancient
name for that kind of corn, which in Ireland as elsewhere
seems to have been gradually displaced by wheat. If the
spelt wheat (Triticum spelta was) cultivated in Ireland, it may
have been known by either of the names in question, perhaps
by that of Secul. Seruan may not have been a variety of corn
at all. Pliny has the term Saurian for mustard, which is
very close to the Sanskrit Suri, Sinapis nigra, and may be
Celtic rather than Greek. It is, no doubt, very dangerous to
make comparisons between words merely because of similarity
of form, yet it is hardly possible to avoid doing so in this case,
especially as the only other Aryan name of corn like it with
which I am acquainted, belongs to a species which we have no
evidence for supposing was ever cultivated in Ireland, namely, /
Soru (plural Soros), the Lithuanian name of millet. Maelan
was, 1 believe, a leguminous plant, and not a cereal one, as
is shown by the name Maelan rnilce, being applied to the
tuberous bitter vetch, Orobus tuberosus, the tuberous roots of
which were formerly much prized for making a kind of drink
by the Highlanders, and used in times of scarcity as food. The
Oiobus niger, or black bitter vetch, which is said by some
to have supported the Britons when driven into the forests and
fastnesses by the Empeior Severus, was also called Maelan.
Fidbach is literally wood-gland, bach being cognate with
Sanskrit bhag, Greek ..., and may have been applied to
the hazel nut or the acorn, both of which were used as food.
From the frequent reference to oatmeal and porridge, there
can be little doubt that the kind of corn most generally grown grown.
was oats. Barley was also cultivated, not only for making
bread, but also for making malt. Frequent mention is also
made of wheat, but wheaten bread must have been used
almost exclusively by the higher classes. I have not met with
any direct evidence of the use of leaven or of yeast in early
times in Ireland, but I infer from incidental circumstances that
the yeast of Citirm, or beer, was used in the making of wheaten
bread. Oatmeal and barleymeal cakes appear to have

been unleavened, and to have been prepared as now by mixing
the meal with sweet milk or buttermilk, so as to make a
stiff dough, which was fashioned into flat cakes. The wheat-
meal and barley-meal cakes were baked upon a griddle, but
the oatmeal cakes, called Bocaire and Bletliacli. were always
baked by being supported in an upright position before the
fire by means of a three-pronged forked stick, still called
Maide an Bliocaire or the Bocaire stick, or the Cranachan,
which, however, included also the three-legged stool upon
which the cake was supported by the stick. From the latter
name the Bocaire is sometimes called Ciste cranachain, or the
cake of the Cranachan. The cakes of bread were called
Bairgins, a name still preserved in the " bairn breac", or cake
spotted with currants, of confectioners in Ireland. There were
different sizes of these cakes, but three are mentioned in the
laws: the Bairgin Ferfuine and the Bairgin Banfuine, the
former double the size of the latter—the larger representing
the ration of a man, and the smaller that of a
woman; the third was called the Bairgin iudriuc or whole
cake. This was a large cake which the mistress of a house
kept whole for guests, before whom no cut-loaf should be
placed. Any whole cake was, properly speaking, a Bairgin
Iudriuc, but the term was usually restricted to such large
cakes as those which Bricriu had had made, each of which
required a quarter of a Miach. Honey was sometimes mixed

with the dough of bread, as appears from a curious account
of the " champion s share at the feast given by Briciru one
of the heroic personages contemporary with Citchulaind.
Meal prepared from highly kiln-dried oats, mixed with new
milk or sweet thick milk, or boiled with water into stirabout,
was also much used. Coarsely ground meal of this kind
was called Grus and Gruth, and the food prepared from it
Gruiten ; the second form of the words is almost identical
with the Anglo-Saxon Grut. In discussing the names of
the different kinds of com grown in Ireland in former
times, I mentioned that filberts and acorns were used as
food. These were crushed, so as to form a kind of meal
to which the name Maothal was given. In early Christian
times those who devoted themselves to a religious life, built
their cells in remote woody districts or waste lands, which
seem to have been generally covered with a scrub of hazel,
judging from the quantity of hazel twigs found in turf
bogs. Nutmeal naturally formed a valuable resource to these
early monks, so important indeed that the word Maothal came
in process of time to mean the meal taken on fast days, and
which consisted at first of nutmeal and milk, and afterwards of
oatmeal, milk, cheese, etc. Thus a Lenten dinner mentioned in
the life of St. Moling consisted of Maolhla acus Loim. The

use of Maotlial was not, however, confined to monks and nuns,
but formed part of the food of even the higher classes, as is
proved by the finding of tlie nutshells in the neighbourhood of
forts, and by the occurrence of the word in combination with
Cathair and Lie in topographical names, such as Cathair
Moathal, now Cathermoyle, in the county of Limerick, where
full evidence was obtained of the use of nutmeal, and Lis-
maothal now Moyhill, near Maurice's Mills, in the county
of Clare.
Oatmeal formed also an important constituent of the porridge
which was one of the chief articles of food in Ireland. When
this porridge was made with water in which meat was boiled, it
was the Bruth or broth which was distributed or served out in
Dabachs or tubs to the retainers and servants at feasts and the
eyres or circuits of kings and Flaths. The simple porridge as well
as the broth were seasoned with leeks. Large quantities of leeks
and onions were grown around the houses, and served as a substitute
for pepper and other spices, introduced at a later period
into Europe. Some other culinary vegetables were also cultivated
in the Murathaig or enclosed Gort or garden, for we find
Lns Lubgort, or garden vegetables, mentioned as part of the
Imglaice or opsonia of the Oc Aire. The Birur or Water Cress

was also used at feasts as a salad with meat. Dulesc (i.e.,
water leaf), the Rhodymenia palmata of botanists, was gathered
on the sea shore, dried, and sold throughout the country. It is
mentioned in the Crith Gablach as an accompaniment of the
seasoned fowl to which the Aithech ar a Threba was entitled.
Sluican, sloke, or laver prepared from Porphyra laciniata and
P. vulgaris, as well as other marine vegetables, were also used
along the sea coast.
As the principal wealth of the Irish was in cattle, flesh-meat
and milk formed the most important part of the food of the
Aire class, milk, besides being taken in its natural fresh
state, and as skimmed milk, furnished butter, curds, and
cheese. Butter, while abundant in summer, was preserved Batter ;
in small firkins or barrels for winter use, and for expeditions
and feasts. Many of these vessels filled with butter are found
in peat bogs, the butter being altered into a hard crystalline
fat, free from salt. If salt was used in the curing of the original
butter, it must have been gradually removed along with the
products of the alteration of the glycerine. As butter
is still made without salt in some parts of Ireland, it is
probable that it was sometimes similarly prepared in ancient
times. The terms t-Saland, applied to salted meat and butter,
show that the method of curing provisions with salt was practised
at a comparatively early period in Ireland. The Privileges of the lower
grades of Bo Aire, as regards maintenance when wounded, absence from
home attending
absence from home attending their Flath, etc., as given in the Crith
Gablach, show that
the use of meat and butter was not universal. Thus the Oc
Aire, when on visitation to persons of his own rank, was
not entitled to butter; and only on stated days when on
Folach. An Aire Desa or Flath was, however, entitled
to butter at every meal in his own territory, while an Aire
Ard was not only entitled to butter at every meal for himself, but also
for his Foleithe, that is, the suitors of his Court Leet. A wounded
person on Foluch, of whatever rank, appears
to have been entitled to butter only on stated days. This legal
provision was, no doubt, adopted to prevent a defendant from
being ruined by the expense of the maintenance of a complainant who was
wounded. Curds was a favourite article of food of the ancient Irish. It
was made both from skimmed
milk, and Binnit, or rennet was used in its preparation. The
curds of fresh new milk was not unlike our modern cream
cheese. cheese. True cheese was also made, and seems to have formed
an important element in the food of the wealthier armers, specimens
of it from early Christian times have been found in
bogs impressed with a cross. From a passage in the tale of
the " Navigation of Maelduin's Curach, it would seem that
even different kinds of cheese were prepared, and especially a
rich kind from beestings milk.
Judging by the description of the " Champion's Share"
of Bricrius house, and other passages in Irish manuscripts, the
rearing and fattening of oxen and pigs for food was well understood
by the ancient Irish. Beef naturally took the first place
among the flesh meats : veal, lamb, mutton, and goat's flesh were
also eaten. Mutton was boiled, and the water in which it was
cooked constituted the basis of the Bruth or broth already
mentioned, which was so freely served out to strangers off the
road, that the word became almost synonymous with hospitality.
Part of the beef was eaten fresh, but a larger part was
cured with salt. The cattle intended for curing were fattened
in autumn, and then driven in from the Boulaglis on the approach of
winter and slaughtered. The carcass was cut up,
salted, and hung up to dry on hooks in the smoky air of the
kitchen. Flesh-meat of all kinds was called Saill, or when
salted, Saillti, or Saill t-salnd, the Sialfaeti of the Norse. Fresh
pork was considered a great delicacy, as is evident from the
curious poem in which Midir promises Befind a banquet of
fresh pork, new milk, and ale." Young sucking pigs were
roasted and were especially esteemed. Like the beef, the
pork was first salted in a Caire, or meat vessel, which
was usually kept in the Cull Tech, or store-house, or in
some recess used for the purpose, or when there was no special
store-house in any convenient place. It was left to season for
some weeks, and then hung up in the smoke. The meat of a
Muc Forais, or house-fed pig, appears, however, to have been
specially smoke-dried in the smoke of green wood, such as
beech, ash, and white thorn. The general name for bacon was
Tini, but smoke-cured hams and flitches were called Tineiccas.
This is almost identical in form with the Gallo-Roman word
Taniaccae or Tanacae, used by Varro for hams imported from
Transalpine Gaul into Rome and other parts of Italy.
Puddings prepared from the blood of pigs also formed an
article of export from Gaul to Italy, as we learn from Varro,
Puddings of the same kind were also made by the Irish. The
Mucriucht, or Caelana, Tona, bottom, or belly pudding, appears
to have been a black pudding of this kind, into which a
little tansy (Tanucetum vulgare) and onions, salt, etc., were introduced
as seasoning. Moroga was another term for puddings,
and, perhaps, included those prepared with liver. Saussages
were also made of different kinds of flesh. The word Tarsun
appears to have included regular saussages and seasoned mincemeats
of all kinds, and melted lard, and in this way was sometimes
applied to seasoned fowl and other birds. The name
Drisechan caorach, or as it is called in Cork, Drisheen, given
to a kind of pudding made of sheep's blood, seems to be a corruption
of the Irish Tarsun; the pudding itself probably affords
an example of one of the ancient Irish puddings. The Cisalpine
Gallo-Roman Tuceta mentioned by Persius and other
Latin writers is perhaps a Latinized form of the Gaulish representative
of the Irish Tarsun.
The Irish Aìre class were expert hunters, and trained several
kinds of hunting dogs, among which the wolf dog attained to
even a foreign reputation, and was much sought after. The
wild boar, the red deer, and other game must have also contributed
to the supply of animal food. I do not know whether
in early times the Irish, like the Britons, avoided eating the
hare, the goose, and the common domestic fowl. The curious
legend of Einglan, king of the birds, and Mesbuachala, the
mother of Conaire Mor, king of Eriu, shows that although birds
were killed as game, there must have been a tradition that at
some earlier period they were considered sacred. In many
of the transformations recorded in Irish legends, birds appear
to have been the favourite forms into which the personages of
the story were changed. Fish seems to have formed an important
article of the food of the ancient Irish. Tales and
poems are full of references to rivers abounding in fish ; and
we have distinct mention of the use of the commoner kinds of
fresh-water fish in the life of St. Brigit, and the ancient life of
St Patrick, known as the Tripartite Life. The salmon was
considered food for kings and nobles; king Cormac Mac Airt
is said to have been choked by a bone of one which he swallowed.
The ancient Britons are also said to have had a prejudice
against eating fish, but I do not know whether in very
ancient times this was shared by the Irish. But whatever

use the Irish may have made of game, fish, etc., the chief part Erin rich in
of their animal food was obtained from their cattle ; and
there can be little doubt that Caesar's observations regarding
the Britons, that they possessed " pecoris magnus nu-
rnerus might be equally well applied to the Irish.
The chief intoxicating drink of the ancient Irish, as of all
northern European peoples, was beer, which was called in old
Irish Cuirm, genitive Chorma, as in the Crith Gablach, where
we are told that the Brnghfer has always two vats in his
house—Ian Ais ocus Ian Chorma,—a vat of new milk and a vat
of beer. The Irish genitive is almost identical with ..... The name
the form of the word in Athenaeus, as amended by Casaubon. kno«m to
As Athenaeus quotes Posidonios, we may look upon the Greek
Korma as a pre-Christian, and, no doubt, genitive form of the
Celtic name of beer, corresponding to the Irish Chorma.
Dioscorides has the form .......The banqueting hall of
the Rig Tuatha, in which the Sabaid or councillors sat, was
called the Citirmtech or Ale house, which corresponded to a
certain extent to the Tech Midchuarda of the Ard Righ
Erind. In the fragment of the ancient tale of Tocmarc Emere,
or Courtship of Emer by Cuchulaind, preserved in the vellum
manuscript Lebor na h-Uidhri, beer is called ol n-guala. The
passage is as follows: "One time as the Ultonians were with
Conchabar in Emain Macha drinking in the Iernguali, one
hundred Brotha of ale used to be put into it for each evening.
This was the ol n-guala, which used to test the Ultonians, all
sitting on the one bank" The " one bank" here spoken of is evidently
the long bank
near the fire, which was called by the Norse the Brugge. In

the words ol n-guala the ol is evidently the same as the Old
Norse ol, Anglo-Saxon Ealu, modern English Ale. Ol and
Cuirm were probably synonymous, the former being perhaps
a borrowed name Possibly ol was a simple fermented, slightly
sour decoction of malt, as it is said to have been in England
before the introduction of hops, and that the wort of the Cuirm
was boiled with some bitter aromatic herbs.
The second part of the name has been explained in different ways.
According to one gloss, the word Guala is the genitive
case of Gual, that is, coal,—ól n-Guala, or "ale of the
coal ", and was so called because the wort was boiled over a
charcoal fire :and Conchabar Mac Nessa and his warriors sat
around the fire and quaffed their ale. Another gloss derived
the name from the pot itself; and a third from the son of the
first owner of the boiler. It must have been a difficult task
in those early times to procure a boiler sufficiently large to
make the ale necessary to regale the household of a king.
Even the Norse gods were on one occasion in the unhappy
plight of not having enough of ale, and to prevent so great a
misfortune in future, it is mentioned that Thor carried off the
giant Hymir's big boiler Conchabar Mac Nessa also went on an
expedition the secret motive of which may have been a great bronze
boiler which a petty chieftain named Gerg possessed. He succeeded in
carrying off the pot and killing Gercf himself. Conchabar had a
celebrated brewing vat, the proportions of

which befitted his wort-boiler. This brewing-vat was called
Daradach because it was made of oak, that is, of oak staves
bound by great hoops. The vat, or Dabach, appears to have
been always placed in the principal hall, which was hence
called the ale house or Cuinn Tech. The ale was doubtless
drunk fresh from the vat as in the old breweries of Germany.
The word Lin is sometimes used for ale, but it is rather a
general term for liquor than a special name for beer. Barley beer,
appears to have been the grain chiefly used for preparing the
malt for beer in Ireland, though there is reason to believe that
spelt wheat was also cultivated in Ireland, and also used for the
same purpose. As oats was the corn crop most usually grown,
it also must have been frequently used for malting, at least in
the more mountainous districts not adapted for barley. The Malt.
Irish name of malt was Brack, genitive Braich, or Bracha, corresponding
to the Welsh and Cornish Brag, whence Welsh
Bragaud, Old English Bragot, modern English Bracket, a kind
of sweetened ale. These words contain the same root as
the Anglo-Saxon Breovan, Gothic Briggvan, Old Norse
Brugga, Old High German Bracvan, whence modern German
Brauen, English Brew. As in other northern countries,
beer at first consisted of a simple fermented infusion of the
malt. Before the introduction of hops, attempts were made used.
to flavour the beer with aromatic and bitter astringent
plants — oak bark, it is said, among other things, having
been employed for this purpose. The Cimbri used the
Tamarix Germanica, the old Scandinavians the fruit of
the sweet gale, Myrica gale, the Cauchi the Iruit and twigs of
the chaste tree, Vitex agnus castus. In Iceland, where hops
do not grow, the yarrow, Achillea millefolium, was used for
this purpose, and was even called Valhumall, or field hops.

Even as late as the last century, the yarrow was still used
for giving a bitter flavour to beer in a district of Sweden65'
From the large quantities of the pressed and exhausted leaves
and stems of the marsh plant, the buck-bean, Menyanthes
trifoliata, which have been found in the neighbourhood of some
Raths, that plant was probably used in Ireland at an early
period to flavour beer. That some plant was used by the
ancient Irish to flavour beer, there can be no doubt. In a
curious legendary life of prince Cano, son of Gartnan, and
Ireland. grand-nephew of the celebrated Oedan Mac Gabhrain, king of
the Gaedhelic kingdom of Scotland, to escape whose hostility
Cano fled into Ireland, there is a poem in praise of the various
celebrated ales of Ircland. We have no means of fixing the

exact date at which the poem was composed. According to
Tighernachi Cano was killed A.D. 687, and the manuscript in
which the poem is found was compiled about the year 1390.
That the compiler of the manuscript was not the author of the
poem is certain ; and judging by the language, and by the general
character of the contents of the book, the poem in its present
form belongs to a period anterior to the twelfth century, and
the original materials out of which the tale was worked up, to a
period three or four centuries earlier. We may safely assume that
in the twelfth century at least, there were many places in Ireland
which enjoyed the reputation of making good ales, some, if
not all, of which were red, or " red like wine". Most of those
places have long since ceased to brew beer, but Caatlebelling-
ham still maintains the reputation of the ales of Muirthemne,
and until within the last few years beer of some local reputation
was brewed in Bray, which may have been the seat of the original
breweries of Cualawi, or of one of them. Among the ales mentioned in the
poem is " the Saxon ale of bitterness".
which deserves some attention, because it proves that England
had begun to make bitter beer at a much earlier period than is
usually supposed. Was the " ale of bitterness" flavoured with
hops? and if not, what was the flavouring plant? These are
questions which the poem of Cano Mac Gartnain does not help
us to solve, but it certainly suggests a doubt as to the correctness
of the date, 1524, assigned by Beckmann, Houghton,
Anderson, and indeed most wiiters on the subject, as that of
the introduction of hops into England. The ancient Gauls and Germans,
as Weinhold tells us,
mixed honey with the wort from which they brewed their beer.
The ancient Irish also mixed honey with their Cuirm, or ale,
and with other drinks included under the term Lin ; but I.
cannot say whether it was before or after the fermentation. If
added before, it would make the beer stronger and more intoxicating
The brewing of beer appears to have been the privilege of
Flaths. The Fer Fothlai, or wealthy middleman who had
Ceiles to whom he gave cattle, received his rent in corn, " for
he is not entitled to malt until he is a Flath". The Brughfer
must have had the privilege of brewing, in virtue of his
functions as public hospitaller, as he was bound to have a vat
of ale always ready for the refreshment of a Rig, a bishop, a
poet, a judge, or other person, and their respective suites entitled »
mi in to public entertainment. In Germany also the brewing of beer
appears to have been in the middle ages a privilege of the

nobility, and in some parts this privilege came down to
comparatively modern times.
Another drink of the ancient Irish, which was only second
in importance to, though perhaps considered a nobler drink
than, Cuirm or beer, was Mede, or metheglin, the Metu of the
Germans, the Medu or Meodu of the Anglo-Saxons, and the
Mjoor (?) of the Norwegians. The great banqueting hall of
Tara was called the Tech Mid ckuarda, or " mead circling
house". The great attention paid to the culture of bees, as is
proved by the numerous laws and legal decisions concerning
them which have come down to us, and the large quantities
of honey supplied as rents and tributes to the Kings and
other Flaths, show that mead was a general and favourite
drink of the ancient Irish; for although, as we have seen
from the account of the " champion's share " of Bricrius
house, honey was sometimes used in the making of sweet
cakes, there can be little doubt that the greater part of the
honey produced in ancient times was fermented into mead.
This drink is perhaps older than beer ; but, so far as I know, not
there is no evidence that at any time in Ireland it was the
exclusive intoxicating drink of the Irish, or that it was
generally used as beer. As in the older songs of the Edda
from the Niebelungen Saga, so in all the older Irish poems and
tales, the heroes drink beer. Metheglin was probably made by
the ancient Irish by simply dissolving honey in water, as the
Romans did, but in medieval times aromatic plants seem to
have been added, as in France,and perhaps in Germany also.
The brewing of mctheglin in the south of Ireland came down to
within my own memory, but is, I believe, now extinct there.
It was as much esteemed in Ireland as wine, and was considered
as the especial drink of women.

The ancient Irish also made a kind of cider called Nenadmim
from the wild or crab apple—numbers of apple-trees being planted in
hedge-rows and greatly prized. A drink
bearing the same name is mentioned as being made from
the "woodberry", probably the Vaccinum myrtillus, and
uliginosum, called in Irish Fraocháin, or Fraoclioga, and commonly
called " Frochans",popularly known in Cork and in
the west of England as Whorts. This liquor seems to have
been the same as that known in later times as " bogberry wine."
The name Bear Lochlanach, or " Norse beer", or more popularly "
Danish beer", given to it, shows that the Norsemen,
like the modern Icelanders, made a similar drink. According
to Herr Weinhold, a berry wine or acid drink is also still made
beer" of - Heather in the German Alps in Carinthia. The " heather beer"
which the Danes arc supposed to have made from the common heath, is a
myth.
The only way in which heath could be used for making beer would be as
a substitute for hops, but
even for this use of it there is no evidence whatever.

-Source: On the Manners and Customs of the Ancient Irish, O'Curry,
Eugene, 1873

17th Century Irish Foodways

2008-02-06T09:53:00.001-08:00

One can always go back to the 17th Century for inspiration. It was by
and large a Celtic warlord based society impacted by invasion. Of course
this is a view from the other side of the cultural divide....

"Touching the Irish diet, some lords and knights and gentlemen
of the English-Irish, and all the English there abiding, having
competent means, use the English diet, but some
more some less cleanly, few or none curiously; and
no doubt they have as great and for their part greater plenty than
the English of flesh, fowl, fish, and all things for food, if they will
use like art of cookery. Always I except the fruits, venison, and
some dainties proper to England and rare in Ireland. And we
must conceive that venison and fowl seem to be more plentiful in
Ireland, because they neither so generally affect dainty food nor
so diligently search it as the English do. Many of the English-
Irish have by little and little been infected with the Irish filthi-
ness, and that in the very cities, excepting Dublin, and some of
the better sort in Waterford, where, the English continually lodging
in their houses, they more retain the English diet. The English-
Irish, after our manner, serve to the table joints of flesh cut after
our fashion, with geese, pullets, pigs, and like roasted meats; but
their ordinary food for the common sort is of white-meats, and
they eat cakes of oat for bread, and drink not English beer made
of malt and hops, but ale. At Cork I have seen with these eyes
young maids stark naked grinding of corn with certain stones to
make cakes thereof, and striking off into the tub of meal such
reliques thereof as stick upon their belly, thighs, and more unseemly
parts. And for the cheese and butter commonly made
by the English-Irish, an Englishman would not touch it with his
lips though he were half-starved; yet many English inhabitants
make very good of both kinds. In cities they have such bread
as ours, but of a sharp savour, and some mingled with aniseeds
and baked like cakes, and that only in the houses of the
better sort.
At Dublin and in some other cities they have taverns wherein
Spanish and French wines are sold, but more commonly the
merchants sell them by pints and quarts in their own cellars.
The Irish aqua vitce, vulgarly called usquebaugh, is held the best
in the world of that kind; which is made also in England, but
nothing so good as that which is brought out of Ireland. And
the usquebaugh is preferred before our aqua vitc e because the
mingling of raisins, fennel-seed, and other things, mitigating the
heat and making the taste pleasant, makes it less inflame, and yet
refresh the weak stomach with moderate heat and a good relish.
These drinks the English-Irish drink largely, and in many families —
especially at feasts—both men and women use excess therein.
And since I have in part seen, and often heard from others'
experience, that some gentlewomen were so free in this excess
as they would, kneeling upon the knee and otherwise, carouse
health after health with men; not to speak of the wives of Irish
lords or to refer it to the due place, who often drink till they be
drunken, or at least till they void urine in full assemblies of men.
I cannot, though unwilling, but note the Irish women more specially
with this fault, which I have observed in no other part to be a woman's
vice, but only in Bohemia. Yet, so accusing them, I
mean not to excuse the men, and will also confess that I have
seen virgins, as well gentlewomen as citizens, commanded by their
mothers to retire after they had in courtesy pledged one or two
healths.
In cities passengers may have feather beds, soft and good,
but most commonly lousy, especially in the highways, whether
that came by their being forced to lodge common soldiers or from
the nasty filthiness of the nation in general. For even in the best
city, as at Cork, I have observed that my own and other Englishmen's
chambers, hired of the citizens, were scarce swept once in
the week, and the dust then laid in a corner, was perhaps cast
out once in a month or two. I did never see any public inns with
signs hanged out, among the English or English-Irish; but the
officers of cities and villages appoint lodgings to the passengers,
and perhaps in each city they shall find one or two houses where
they will dress meat, and these be commonly houses of Englishmen,
seldom of the Irish, so as these houses having no signs hung
out, a passenger cannot challenge right to be entertained in them,
but must have it of courtesy and by entreaty.
The wild and (as I may say) mere Irish, inhabiting many and
large provinces, are barbarous and most filthy in their diet. They
scum the seething pot with an handful of straw, and strain their
milk taken from the cow through a like handful of straw, none of
the cleanest, and so cleanse, or rather more defile, the pot and milk.
They devour great morsels of beef unsalted, and they eat commonly
swine's flesh, seldom mutton, and all these pieces of flesh,
as also the entrails of beasts unwashed, they seethe in a hollow
tree, lapped in a raw cow's hide, and so set over the fire, and
therewith swallow whole lumps of filthy butter. Yea (which is
more contrary to nature) they will feed on horses dying of themselves,
not only upon small want of flesh, but even for pleasure;
for I remember an accident in the army, when the Lord Mountjoy,

the Lord Deputy, riding to take the air out of the camp, found
the buttocks of dead horses cut off, and suspecting that some
soldiers had eaten that flesh out of necessity, being defrauded of
the victuals allowed them, commanded the men to be searched
out, among whom a common soldier, and that of the English-
Irish, not of the mere Irish, being brought to the Lord Deputy,
and asked why he had eaten the flesh of dead horses, thus freely
answered, "Your Lordship may please to eat pheasant and partridge,
and much good do it you that best likes your taste; and I
hope it is lawful for me without offence to eat this flesh, that likes
me better than beef." Whereupon the Lord Deputy, perceiving
himself to be deceived, and further understanding that he had
received his ordinary victuals (the detaining whereof he suspected,
and purposed to punish for example), gave the soldier a piece of gold
to drink in usquebaugh for better digestion, and so dismissed him.
The foresaid wild Irish do not thresh their oats, but burn them
from the straw, and so make cakes thereof; yet they seldom eat
this bread, much less any better kind, especially in the time of
war. Whereof a Bohemian baron complained who, having seen
the Courts of England and Scotland, would needs, out of his
curiosity, return through Ireland in the heat of the rebellion;
and having letters from the King of Scots to the Irish lords then
in rebellion, first landed among them in the furthest north, where
for eight days' space he had found no bread, not so much as a
cake of oats, till he came to eat with the Earl of Tyrone; and
after obtaining the Lord Deputy's pass to come into our army,
related this their want of bread to us as a miracle, who nothing
wondered thereat. Yea, the wild Irish in time of greatest peace
impute covetousness and base birth to him that hath any corn
after Christmas, as if it were a point of nobility to consume all
within those festival days. They willingly eat the herb Shamrock,
being of a sharp taste, which, as they run and are chased to and
fro, they snatch like beasts out of the ditches.
Neither have they any beer made of malt or hops, nor yet any
ale, no, nor the chief lords, except it be very rarely. But they
drink milk like nectar, warmed with a stone first cast into the
fire, or else beef broth mingled with milk. But when they come
to any market town to sell a cow or horse, they never return
home till they have drunk the price in Spanish wine (which they
call the King of Spain's daughter) or in Irish usquebaugh, and
till they have outslept two or three days' drunkenness. And not
only the common sort, but even the lords and their wives, the
more they want this drink at home the more they swallow it
when they come to it, till they be as drunk as beggars.
Many of these wild Irish eat no flesh but that which dies of
disease or otherwise of itself, neither can it scape them for stinking.
They desire no broth, nor have any use of a spoon. They
can neither seethe artichokes nor eat them when they are sodden.
It is strange and ridiculous, but most true, that some of our carriage
horsesl falling into their hands, when they found soap and
starch carried for the use of our laundresses, they, thinking them to
be some dainty meats, did eat them greedily, and when they stuck
in their teeth cursed bitterly the gluttony of us English churls, for
so they term us. They feed most on white-meats, and esteem for
a great dainty sour curds, vulgarly called by them Bonaclabbe.
And for this cause they watchfully keep their cows, and fight for
them as for religion and life ; and when they are almost starved,
yet they will not kill a cow except it be old and yield no milk.
Yet will they upon hunger, in time of war, open a vein of the
cow and drink the blood, but in no case kill or much weaken it.
A man would think these men to be Scythians, who let their horses
blood under their ears and for nourishment drink their blood;
and indeed, as I have formerly said, some of the Irish are of the
race of Scythians, coming into Spain and from thence into Ireland.
The wild Irish, as I said, seldom kill a cow to eat, and if perhaps
1 Sampter horses.
they kill one for that purpose, they distribute it all to be devoured
at one time; for they approve not the orderly eating at meals, but
so they may eat enough when they are hungry, they care not to
fast long. And I have known some of these Irish footmen serving
in England (where they are nothing less than sparing in the
food of their families) to lay meat aside for many meals, to devour
it all at one time.
These wild Irish, as soon as their cows have calved, take the
calves from them and thereof feed some with milk, to rear for
breed, some of the rest they flay, and seethe them in a filthy poke,
and so eat them, being nothing but froth, and send them for a
present one to another. But the greatest part of these calves they
cast out to be eaten by crows and wolves, that themselves may
have more abundance of milk. And the calves being taken
away, the cows are so mad among them as they will give no
milk till the skin of the calf be stuffed and set before them, that
they may smell the odour. Yea, when these cows thus madly
deny their milk, the women wash their hands in cows' dung, and
so gently stroke their dugs; yea, put their hands into the cow's
tail and with their mouths blow into their tails, that with this
manner, as it were, of enchantment, they may draw milk from
them. Yea, these cows seem as rebellious to their owners as
the people are to their Kings, for many times they will not be
milked but of some one old woman only, and of no other. These
wild Irish never set any candles upon tables—what do I speak
of tables ? since indeed they have no tables, but set their meat
upon a bundle of grass, and use the same grass as napkins to
wipe their hands. But I mean that they do not set candles
upon any high place to give light to the house, but place a great
candle made of reeds and butter upon the floor in the midst of a
great room. And in like sort the chief men in their houses make
fires in the midst of the room, the smoke whereof goeth out at
a hole in the top thereof. An Italian friar coming of old into
reland and seeing at Armagh this their diet and the nakedness
of the women, is said to have cried out— "
Civilas Armachana, civitas vana,
Carnes crudce, mulieres nudtz." "
Vain Armagh city, I did thee pity,
Thy meat's rawness and women's nakedness.
I trust no man expects among these gallants any beds, much
less feather beds and sheets, who, like the Nomades removing
their dwellings according to the commodity of pastures for their
cows, sleep under the canopy of heaven, or in a poor house of
clay, or in a cabin made of the boughs of trees and covered with
turf, for such are the dwellings of the very lords among them.
And in such places they make a fire in the midst of the room,
and round about it they sleep upon the ground, without straw or
other thing under them, lying all in a circle about the fire, with
their feet towards it. And their bodies being naked, they cover
their heads and upper parts with their mantles, which they first
make very wet, steeping them in water of purpose; for they find
that when their bodies have once warmed the wet mantles, the
smoke of them keeps their bodies in temperate heat all the night
following. And this manner of lodging not only the mere Irish
lords and their followers use, but even some of the English-Irish
lords and their followers when, after the old but tyrannical and
prohibited manner vulgarly called coshering, they go, as it were,
on progress, to live upon their tenants till they have consumed
all the victuals that the poor men have or can get. To conclude,
not only in lodging passengers not at all or most rudely, but even
in their inhospitality towards them, these wild Irish are not much
unlike to wild beasts, in whose caves a beast passing that way
might perhaps find meat, but not without danger to be ill entertained,
perhaps devoured, of his insatiable host."

-From: "Fynes Moryson's Description of Ireland" In:Ireland under
Elizabeth and James I., 1599 -1603
By Edmund Spenser, John\Davies, Henry Morley Fynes Moryson 1891

Foods of the Ancient Irish

2008-02-05T11:36:00.001-08:00

For those interested in the very earliest layer of the cake which is
Irish Traditional food I have provided a link on the right side of the
page to On the Manners and Customs of the Ancient Irish
By Eugene O'Curry. O'Curry was a master of the literature and ancient
texts of Ireland. Go to the table of contents and you will find an
entire chapter on foods. Note the relationship between foods and the law
and ceremony. For the Irish food is much more than just a meal.It held
society together as it should still do today.

How much more basic can you get- Oatcakes

2008-02-05T06:00:00.001-08:00

Take oats, mix them in water and let it dry out. Quite basic. Oatcakes
are pan Celtic-wherever oats were found. In Scottish farm houses in the
19th century left over oat porridge was placed into a wooden drawer. There it dried out and was sliced and heated to crisp. Surely the oat cake is ancient and a root food.

I returned on foot to the little cabin upon the barren hillock where we had left our cars, and as a hard shower of.hail was falling over the dark plain and among the old ruins, I was compelled, for the sake of shelter, to take a closer inspection of the interior of this cabin. This gave me an opportunity of watching the preparation of those oat-cakes which play so important u part in the national cookery both of Ireland and Scotland, and which are even found carved upon their monuments, as I have above described, These far-famed cakes are made of oats very roughly ground. The coarse flour is mixed with water, into a thick gritty paste, and spread upon a warmed iron plate. This round j iron plate, which is found in the poorest Irish, cabins, is warmed by a handful of lighted straw placed underneath it, and in a few moments the cooking process is over, the paste being taken off in the shape of a hard, thin, dry biscuit. This paste is dignified by the name of cake, and is eaten daily by the poor Scotch and Irish. These cakes are not much more palatable than a mixture of flour and water, made dry and hard, would be, yet many people are passionately fond of them. The Irish generally assure the stranger, when they show him their oat-cakes, that these are a particularly wholesome, nourishing, nndstrengtheningkindof food, which can be true only when they are compared with the watery, tasteless, and meager potatoes upon which the Irish have to subsist. The English, generally very curious about our black bread, and to whom the word " black" seems to convey a kind of horror,* often repeat that with them people would never think of giving such a mess to any but horses ; forgetting that with us nobody would think of giving oats to any but horses, and forgetting how many millions of hungry poor there are in their empire who would be most thankful for this despised black bread, and whom it would certainly nourish much better than oat- paste which they call cake, and the nourishing qualities of which they praise so highly.-
From: Johann Georg Kohl , 1844, Ireland: Dublin, the Shannon, Limerick, Cork, and the Kilkenny Races

Oats as it turns out are also healthy.
Lower your fats! Here is how to connect with the ancient oaten past.

Oatcakes-oaties...

Take a quantity of rolled or other oats. (I ground my oats till it
filled a standard quisinart sized food processor bowl after grinding)

Place in food processor- run on high adding oats slowly till a powdery
flour is obtained. As fine as you can get it without too much work.

Add in a teaspoon of salt- to taste try and see...

If you don't' mind fat add in a few tablespoons of bacon fat. If you
don't mind oil add in a few tablespoons of some form of oil- I found
olive oil worked. So be healthy....

Once you grind the flour add in about a cup of whole oats.

Place flour mixture in electric mixer- a strong one.

Use the flat paddle blade.

Slowly add cold water till it thickens to a stiff dough but not too
hard. The paddle should still turn well enough. Switch paddle to dough
hook and run on high for about two minutes.

Let dough sit for about three hours.

The dough will now be hard- don't worry break it into small bits and
pout back into your mixer. Add more cold water and beat with paddle
blade till you have a medium stiff mixture. The paddle turns but does
not strain.

Once dough is re-constituted roll out to thickness of choice- I like
about 1/8 inch. Thinner ones tend to scorch and cook too fast. Toss oat
flour and whole oats on the board to flour it so that some oats get
stuck to the surface of the dough- not many just the occasional one or
several per oatie....

Using a glass or cutter cut out rounds of the dough.

Place the rounds on a dry cookie sheet and bake at low heat- 275-300.
Basically all you are doing is drying them out so if you want to get it
done quicker simply raise the temp but keep an eye on them. They are
done when between crisp and slightly chewy. Some like them totally
crisp. Beware of scorching. Watch carefully even when on low heat.

Place hot oaties into a metal tin with tight lid right out of oven. This
helps redistribute the heat and even out the cooking.

Serve with home made butter (take heavy whipping cream beat through
whipped cream stage (add salt if you wish-to taste-) till butter
separates, strain out curds compress and cool... The oaties are great
with cheese. A dram of whiskey should not be refused. The texture should
not be too fine the occasional whole oat should be evident but not too many.

Now you have something that a Bronze Age Celt would recognize!

Going back to the halls of the Ancient Chieftains-Spiced Beef not Corned

2008-02-04T20:00:00.001-08:00

Due to the time it takes I thought I would post this one well in advance
of March 17. St. Patrick's day is just one of the many important Irish
days of celebration. Patrick never made ale- Brigid did it all the time!
(her day is Feb. 1) so honor her as well and what could be better for
the Saint of the farm than a good beef meal.

There were no Jewish Dellis in New York when the Irish arrived and
spices were expensive therefore we have to go back before your grand
mother and great grand mother to get to the root of this Irish
ceremonial staple. This is how it would have been in the Chieftain's
hall with the warriors gathered around sticking their forks in to get
their appointed portions out of the huge pot.

This is an easy dish. You can leave the preservative out if you cook the
beef within a short period of time.

Irish Spiced Beef

Ingredients:20 cloves, 2 tsp ground allspice or cinnamon, 6 Shallots, 2
tsp Prague Powder(preservative/cure)(can be obtained from the Sausage
Maker-26 military Rd,Buffalo,N.Y. 14207), 1Pound Kosher Salt (coarse), 1
tsp black pepper, three tsp. ground mace, 7-8 lb. beef. 2-3 bay leaves,
ground nutmeg, Two Pints Guinness Stout. Instructions:1. Grind all dry
ingredients and mix 2. Add finely chopped shallots 3. Rinse beef and
place in plastic or glass container(avoid iron). 4.Take 1 seventh of the
spice/salt mixture and rub it all over the meat. Place meat back into
container, cover and set out on the back porch or in a cool spot-if too
warm out place in fridge. Each day for seven days rub the meat with one
seventh of the mixture, turn over and re-cover. Leave the liquid that
forms with the meat. At the end of seven days place meat and liquid into
a big pot -add water to top up and cover the meat and boil until the
meat is tender.(a fork should just barely be able to lift up strands of
meat-dont over do it!) Change water adding clean water and boil for
another 30 minutes. Then add veg-large carrots,onions, and potatoes-
cook until almost done. Add two pints Guinness Stout and boil for
another 10-20 minutes.
You can eat this hot or leave to cool overnight-place meat into colander
with weight on it and plate or dish under it.

I use eye of round as it has much less fat. I make one big one into
three portions. I spice them cook and freeze them. One for Patrick One
for Brigid and one for my wife's birthday. I am out to put the daily
salt on now.

Enjoy....

Here is a 19th century recipe....remember that if you keep the beef in the salt for a long time you need a preservative- prague powder or equivalent.

SPICED BEEF ; (good and wholesome.)
For twelve pounds of the round, rump, or thick flank of beef, take a
large teaspoonful of freshly-pounded mace, and of ground black pepper,
twice as much of cloves, one small nutmeg, and a quarter teaspoonful
of cayenne, all in the finest powder. Mix them well with seven ounces
of brown sugar, rub the beef with them and Jet it lie three days; add
to it then half a pound of fine salt, and rub and turn it once in twenty-
four hours for twelve days. Just wash, but do not soak it; skewer, or
bind it into good form, put it into a stewpan or saucepan nearly of its
size, pour to it a pint and a half of good beef broth, and when it begins
to boil, take off the scum, and throw in one small onion, a moderate-
sized faggot of thyme and parsley, and two large, or four small carrots.
Let it simmer quite softly for four hours and a half, and if not wanted
to serve hot, leave it in its own liquor until it is nearly cold. This is
an excellent and far more wholesome dish than the hard, bright-
coloured beef which is cured with large quantities of salt and saltpetre:
two or three ounces of juniper-berries may be added to it with the spice,
to heighten its flavour.
Beef, 12 Ibs.; sugar, 7 ozs.; mace and black pepper, each, 1 large
teaspoonful; cloves, in powder, 1 large dessertspoonful; nutmeg, 1;
cayenne, J teaspoonful: 3 days. Fine salt, £ Ib.: 12 days. Beef broth (
or bouillon), ij pint; onion, 1 small; bunch of herbs; carrots, 2 large,
or 4 small: stewed 4$ hours.
Obs.—We give this receipt exactly as we have often had it used, but
celery and turnips might be added to the gravy; and when the appear
ance of the meat is much considered, three-quarters of an ounce of salt
petre may be mixed with the spices; the beef may also be plainly boiled
in water only, with a few vegetables, or baked in a deep pan with a
little gravy. No meat must ever be left to cool in the stewpan or sauce
pan in which it is cooked; it must be lifted into a pan of its own depth,
and the liquor poured upon it.-From: Eliza Acton, 1858, Modern Cookery, in All Its Branches: Reduced to a System of Easy Practice

Couldn't Be easer or more traditional- Potato Farls

2008-02-04T19:58:00.000-08:00

A centerpiece of the Ulster Fry but also very close to Boxty and known
as Potato Bread. Boxty is more of a batter and made with raw as well as
cooked potatoes. Interesting that these can be given a sweet content
generally apples prepared as apple pie filling with brown sugar
etc...pre cooked or raw. Apple potato cakes are associated with the eve
of St. Brigid's day (February 1) so they are on my mind.

We recently tried many recipes. The one below was found to be the best.
It is interesting that one should not totally mash the potatoes. The
potatoes should be well cooked till soft then dried a bit by putting in
colander over hot dry pot for a few minutes. The mashing done by hand
with other ingredients should not have any hard lumps- hence the well
cooked instruction but lumps can be the size of peas or smaller and be ok.

The question of texture and durability is up to the cook. Try less flour
first- as in the recipe- handful....if you like the texture leave it
that way or add more flour and more hand mixing till you get a more
durable cake. Cook till brown on both sides on dry griddle then fry in
bacon fat (about 1/2 inch in pan) till crispy on each side.

More durable cakes with more flour are heavier but they will stand up
better to a fruit filling. While the potato tastes surprisingly well
with the fruit as it is I would add a little sugar- tablespoon or two to
the recipe and maybe some spices to the potato. Simply put cake on pan
in raw state. Cook till skins over on bottom put in fruit and fold over
on itself. Cook on dry pan till potato is solid then fry in butter.

Here is the basic recipe:
Potato Farls (Rev. J. Mattison,Ulster)

Ingredients:
3 large potatoes
Knot of butter (1-2 tablespoon)
Pinch of salt
Handful of soda bread flour

Directions: Boil the potatoes. Mash with knot of butter and salt. Add a
handful of soda bread
flour. Dust your baking surface and roll out, about ½-inch thick. Place
on heated griddle. Cook
both sides.
Alternative: Potato Oaten are made the same way, but with one handful of
pin-headed or ordinary oatmeal
added.

We have reserved to the last the potato-cake, made by bruising, with the

bottom of a tin porringer, two cold,
well-boiled potatoes, and mixing therewith
a pound of the finest Flour, the
yolk of a fresh egg, a print of butter,
and a sup of new-milk, the whole
being well kneaded, then pounded with
a rolling-pin, made into a cake five-
eighths of an inch thick, cut into
squares and diamonds, baked on a
griddle, and, when properly browned
and mottled, each piece torn asunder
like a muffin, and a bit of butter slipt
in to melt in the interior, and then
eaten at tea or breakfast, but particularly
at the former, it is because it was
the most widely disseminated and universally-
admired form of potato-eating
known to all tea-drinkers and cup-toss-
ers from Cape Clear to the Causeway. -Dublin University Magazine. 1854

What do you think? What is your tradition? Great for breakfast and this
is an ancient thing that goes way back.