In yesterday’s Washington Post there’s a piece on Irish food by this writer. It’s a chronicle of some meals while rambling around the West. What was truly surprising was not that the Irish are eating as well as anyone anywhere, but that the Auld Sod has emerged from a down-at-heels backwater to become a modern and prosperous European nation.
One of the mysteries of Ireland was why an island surrounded by immense fisheries had no fishing industry, and why the Irish tending grass-fed cows watered by rain, never produced cheese of any significance. The mystery can begin to be solved if examined in the unforgiving glare of history. Centuries of base poverty, a social system shattered by famines, and ownership of land and resources controlled by absentee landlords who ate just fine elsewhere, can explain why Irish peasants didn’t evolve a cuisine as did their French and Italian counterparts.
That’s one theory, and there are many more. There’s the Celtic fondness for self-inflicted wounds, captured in the wisdom that if it’s raining soup, the Irish will go out with forks. But poverty figures in all explanations. Even in the capital, meals were often brutish, nasty and short. Dublin’s Brendan Behan said, “To get enough to eat was regarded as an achievement. To get drunk was a victory”.
But now all is changed, changed utterly: a delicious beauty is born. The many Irish pubs and restaurants across the Island are serving sophisticated fare, ringing tasty changes on the old peasant food, and exploring other cultures’ delights.
Today, eat and drink and celebrate. Be careful. Keep the light in your eye. Remember where you came from.
Happy St. Patrick’s Day.
I saw a reference to Westport, Mayo in the Wa Post article. Me auld Mum’s auld Dad came from there in the early 20th century when he was a teen. Me Mum and Dad visited there on their honeymoon in the late ’50’s. She got to meet distant relatives. We still talk about it and look at me Dad’s photos from time to time.