Colman Andrews - The Country Cooking of Ireland

by Colman Andrews

PHOTOGRAPHS BY

Christopher Hirsheimer

FOREWORD BY

Darina Allen

Text copyright 2009 by Colman Andrews.
Photographs copyright 2009 by Christopher Hirsheimer.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form without written permission from the publisher.

ISBN 978-1-4521-2405-6
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data available under ISBN 978-0-8118-6670-5

Designed by Jacob T. Gardner
Typesetting by Janis Reed

Archival photography credits: courtesy Ulster Folk and Transport Museum.

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[O]ver it allthe white houses, the green fields with their stone walls, the long road winding, the slow herds coming along in the knee-deep dust, the sweet smell of turf burning, the little carts with coloured shafts, the soft Irish voices, the quick Irish smilesover it all, and in it as if imprisoned in the stone and brick of this country, as if buried beneath the grass and hidden in the trees, is something that is half magic and half music.

H. V. Morton, In Search of Ireland [1930]

We can feel the beauty of a magnificent landscape perhaps, but we can describe a leg of mutton and turnips better.

William Makepeace Thackeray, The Irish Sketchbook [1843]

Above all, I owe a great debt to Peter and Mary Ward, for showing me what Ireland was all about in the first place and making sure I fell in love with it; for countless meals and tastes of things and introductions and leads, and help with the Irish language; and in general for being so passionate about their native country and both its wonderful foods and its immense culinary potential. Next, I must thank Darina Allen, for all kinds of help and encouragement and a good many recipes, and of course Myrtle Allen, without whose efforts over the past half century its very possible I wouldnt have found all that much to write about in Ireland today. (And thanks to Tim Allen for the bread lesson.) I have to express my gratitude as well to Enda and Marie Conneely, for hospitality and information galore; to Robert Ditty for baking advice, good company, and exposure to some of Northern Irelands best artisanal foodstuffs; and to Margaret Jeffares of Good Food Ireland for bringing it all together and showing it to the world, and making my job easier along the way.

I must also sincerely thank the many restaurateurs, chefs, and hoteliers who have been generous with their time, their food and drink, their knowledge, and of course their recipeschief among them Ross Lewis, Gerry Galvin, Maurice Keller, Catherine Fulvio, Noel McMeel, Peter MacCann, Kay Harte, Paul Flynn, Justin and Jenny Green, Seamus Hogan, Kevin Dundon, Ian Orr, Gerri Gilliland, Carmel Somers, Nancy Byrne and Anne Gernon, Elaine Murphy, Nick Price, and Ann De Piero. For recipes from their home kitchens, thanks go to Roselind Shaw and Kathleen McClintock, Anne Costelloe, Colm Finnegan, and Belle Casares. Liz Pearson, whose grandmother comes from County Clare, tested a number of the recipes and answered some basic food questions. Sarah Black of Fairway Markets was a font of information about baking, and Tod Bramble of King Arthur Flour gave me useful tips. Also, my sincere appreciation to those chefs and authors whose recipes Ive adapted or drawn on for inspiration without them having realized it.

A number of writers, poets, and scholars generously shared their knowledge and insights with me, including Mairtin Mac Con Iomaire, Regina Sexton, Clodagh McKenna, Thomas McCarthy, Marjorie Quarton, Caiman OBrien, and John and Sally McKenna.

Thanks, too, to the farmers and artisanal producers who welcomed me, let me sample their wares, and gave me an inside look into the heart of Irelands food revolution. Key among these are Giana and Tom Ferguson, Fingal Ferguson, Frank Hederman and Caroline Workman, Frank Krawczyk, Norman and Veronica Steele, Sally Barnes, Anthony Creswell, Cait Curran, David Llewellyn, Anne Marie Mullen, Maurice Kettyle, Ed Hick, James McGeough, Jane Murphy, Esther Barron, Barbara Harding, Helen Finnegan, Gudrun and Frank Shinnick, Maya Binder and Olivier Beaujouan, Jeffa Gill, and Donal Creedon.

Im grateful to Roger Dixon, Alan McCartney, and especially Fionnuala Carragher of the Ulster Folk and Transport Museum; to the staffs of Irelands National Library and Photographic Archives in Dublin; to Desmond FitzGerald, the Knight of Glin; to Lady Alison Rosse and the Birr Castle Archives; and to Adrian Wisdom, Donal Moore, Pat Collum, and John ONeill.

Ruth Moran and her colleagues at Tourism Ireland in New York City and Elaine Craig of Northern Ireland Tourism in Belfast have been a great help.

At Chronicle Books, I must thank Bill LeBlond for not laughing me out of that tapas bar when I suggested doing a major book on Irish cooking, Sarah Billingsley for shepherding the project through the system so ably, and Jacob T. Gardner for both his design skills and his flexibility. Thanks, too, to Deborah Kops, who offered many good suggestions. And many, many thanks to my agent, Michael Psaltis, of Regal Literary, Inc. and the Culinary Cooperative, for all his advice and support and, of course, for making the deal.

And finally, but also first and foremost, theres the A Team: Christopher Hirsheimer, whose delicious and evocative photographs dont just illustrate this volume but bring it alive, and her colleague Melissa Hamilton, who, with Christopher, made sense out of some of the most challenging recipes in this volume and elegantly refined some of the simplest. Couldnt have done it without you, guys.