Irish Christmas Recipes

    Christmas is around the corner and what could be better way to get into the Christmas traditions of Ireland than writing about the typical Irish Christmas plates? Goose, roast turkey or ham with cranberry sauce, smoked salmon, prawns, roast potatoes, smashed potatoes, creamed peas, brussel sprouts, mince pies, puddings and cakes...Of all these is a real Irish Christmas made!

Bainigí sult as!

    Traditional Irish Christmas Meal begins with starters. Typical starters are smoked salmon, prawns, melon or soup. The starters are followed by the Main Course. Nowadays almost everyone eats turkey for dinner in Christmas Eve, but roast turkey didn't become the first choice of Irish Christmas recipes until the 20th century.  For this reason there are still families who prefer goose as it is more traditional. Roast ham is also becoming more popular among the Irish.

    Spiced beef is a traditional Christmas food throughout Ireland but mostly in the southern regions, especially in Cork. It is a delicacy that is not available at any other time of year. Spiced beef is made by marinating beef in a mixture of spices, juniper berries and sugar. The marinating process is slow and can take for up to two weeks! The cured beef is then slow roasted. When cooked, the beef is pressed to make a densly textured meat which can be cut in thin slices easily.

    Even it can seem impossible to even think about having Dessert after all these delicious plates, it is as important part of the meal as the others and after all- this is not an ordinary day! Popular Christmas desserts are Christmas pudding, hot mince pies served with fresh whipped cream or just a slice of Christmas cake.

    The rich, fruity cake is an indispensable part of an Irish Christmas. A true Irish Christmas Cake is laced with a whole lot of true Irish whiskey. During the final week before Christmas, the Christmas Cake is covered with sheets of marzipan. Cake is prepared and slices of it are served to all the visitors during all Christmas time.

    The Christmas pudding is also known as ‘plum pudding’, though it contains no plums. It is the traditional Christmas day dessert. The pudding can be served with a brandy or sherry sauce.

    The tradition of eating "plum pudding" is a tradition that began as plum porridge: "People ate the porridge on Christmas Eve, using it to line their stomachs after a day of fasting. Soon dried fruit, spices and honey were added to the porridge mixture, and eventually it turned into Christmas pudding. The Irish tradition is to pour a drop of brandy on the pudding and set it alight before it is served".

Merry Christmas! Nollaig Shona!

Sources:

http://www.irish-genealogy-toolkit.com/Irish-Christmas-recipes.html

 http://www.irelandforvisitors.com/articles/christmas_eve_menu.htm

http://www.fantasy-ireland.com/irish-christmas-food.html#axzz2FR2mXflJ

Food and Language

Traditional Food of Ireland

    The traditional Irish recipes are simple: Only few, cheap ingredients are used. Nowadays it is not strange to find chefs preparing new, modern versions of the typical Irish plates like Irish stew, Beef and Cabbage, Potate and cabbage or Colcannon. As a surprise for people wanting to taste these typical Irish plates they are not at all typical on restaurant menus. This does not mean they are not eaten any more but that more than restaurant dishes they are plates made to enjoy home with the family.

                                                               Beef and Cabbage

    Can you believe that Colcannon is so popular among the Irish that there is even a song about it! Listen to the song and if you feel inspired you can even try preparing it.

                                                                     Colcannon

 

   
    Traditionally Irish cuisine is a peasant cuisine and as we can imagine food in poor household is never wasted. The best example of this is the pig. When beef was considered as a "food for the rich" pigs were kept by many families and it is said that they ate every part of it except for the grunt.

Crubeens (the feed of pig), tribe (stomach) and drisheen (a blood sausage) are still typical in Cork.   
 

  
   When there were no refrigeration in Ireland yet, the parts of the pig that could not be eaten fresh were cured or salted. That is how bacon became an important part of the Irish diet.

    In Ireland Summer means berries: wild blackberries, rosehips and wild strawberries are abundant throughout Ireland. As the weather in Ireland is wet and warm in late summer and early autumn, wild mushrooms can be found  in large amounts. When autumn goes on there are  nuts, in particular hazel and beech nuts. Crab apple is also a common autum fruit in Ireland. 

     
    "Rocks along the shoreline are often dense with mussels.  Crabs and shrimp can simply be picked from rock pools when the tide goes out and limpets, clams and periwinkles are also there for the taking."

    Not surprisingly these are all ingredients used in traditional dishes.


The Potato
 
    The potato is propably the most symbolic ingredient and food in Ireland. I could write a whole post just about potato in Ireland-so many ways of cooking and preparing the potato they have!  The potatoes are eaten boiled, fried, mashed, baked, chipped, mixed with cabbage or scallions. They make potato cakes and they use it even to top pies. Don't be surprised if you find potatoes cooked in two different ways on the same dinner plate!

    There is an Irish brand of potato crisps called Tayto. A typical Irish thing to do is to buy these crisps on the way home after a night out.

 
Whiskey & Guinness in Irish Cooking

    Whiskey and Guinness are typical Irish drinks but is it true that just taking any recipe and adding it a bit of whiskey you can convert it into an Irish recipe? Does Irish cuisine really make use of these two so well known drinks? Truth is that the Irish always prefere to drink whisky than use it in cooking but that Guiness is actually used sometimes when preparing stews and also as a marinade.


Sources:
http://www.ravensgard.org/prdunham/irishfood.html
http://www.dochara.com/the-irish/food-history/history-of-irish-food/

Sláinte!

     Once we have dealt with some introductory aspects, let's see something that I am sure you already know or that you have heard about. Ireland is worldwide known by its beers. Our goal in this post will be to show you some terms (either in English or Gaelic) related to beer.

     Before all, we have to distinguish three brands of beer in Ireland by their manufacturing process: Lager ("smooth, elegant, crisp, and clean" ), Ale ("hearty, robust, and fruity") and the most typical one, Stout, with a dark color, heavy, and richly flavored.

     If you ask somebody about the best Irish beer, you will probably get this answer: Guinness; actually the most ever know Irish stout.  First elaborated in the 18th century, it has its own history, tradition and museum as well.  Somebody said it is "a rich and creamy Irish favorite, this hearty brew is best straight out of the bottle", well I guess it is a matter of taste.

     Now, let's imagine you are in an Irish pub in which it is spoken a particular Gaelic dialect; 
How would you say "Get me a pint of Guinness, please!"? 
Pionta Guinness, le do thoil
And "Cheers!"?           
Sláinte!
What about "Are you drunk?"?
An bhfuil tú ar meisce?
If we are asking somebody "Are you going to drink?" we will say:  
An mbeidh deoch agat?

     Then we can also distinguish between bottle (buidéal), glass (gloine), pint (pionta), mid-glass (leathghloine) and mid-pint (leathphionta) as measures for a beer.

     I hope you have fun with a stout, or as they would say a "leann dubh", when you are spending some time Ireland.

Sources:

http://www.gayot.com/beer/top10irishbeers/main.html

http://unzaragozanoenirlanda.wordpress.com/2011/06/23/las-cervezas-irlandesas-irish-beers/

http://innisfree1916.wordpress.com/curso-de-irlandes/