Travellers to Ireland can expect gentle rain, grand stories and — now — great food, writes Venetia Sherson
"Food?" John Kennedy, our Irish tour guide, stops midway through a mouthful of grilled cod with scallops served with chervil and chive beurre blanc. "Ah, well, food's bigger than drink in Ireland now."
A week before I may have raised an eyebrow. Ireland was the undisputed capital of whiskey with an "e", and Guinness. The food was surely ... well, rustic and filling — the sort of food that warmed you through a bone-chilling winter: Irish stew, rhubarb tart; soda bread; boiled potatoes. Fish on Fridays as a penance.
But, in the past decade, since the Celtic Tiger stirred again, a food renaissance has been taking place. Once-maligned culinary traditions have been revisited and revitalised for discerning diners. Food now includes salads of just-foraged watercress and wild garlic flowers; little platters of Dublin prawns and periwinkles; artisan soda bread; cheeses like Milleens, Gubbeen, Cashel Blue and Irish ricotta; fat oysters, and featherlight slices of salmon. Nearly everything is handmade, organic and locally sourced. Chefs know the farmers who grow their produce. Farmers know they no longer have to rely on supermarkets to sustain their business.
Catherine Allen, a guide for Fab Food Trails in Dublin says the Irish food scene "is going off".
"There's a huge focus on local and creative ideas."
Allen shows visitors the best places in Dublin to buy and sample local produce from artisan butchers, bakers and cheesemakers, plus the Saturday food stalls that line the cobbled streets of Temple Bar.
"Eateries are catering for a new generation of Irish who have travelled, and concede there is pleasure to be taken in food. For much of the country's history, food was just a necessity to keep you going — often in short supply. A pride and confidence in Irish food is starting to emerge."
Padraic Og Gallagher, owner of The Boxty House Irish restaurant in Dublin and one of Failte Ireland's "Food Champions", tasked with putting Irish food on the map, says Ireland is only just over its "great hunger".
"There has been a legacy of famine — stretch or starve. Eat for sustenance. Now Irish food is coming of age. We've always had top-quality produce. Now we have top quality chefs bringing it to the table."
The revolution is not just in city eateries with Michelin stars — of which there are nine — where you can tuck into hand-dived scallops, estate venison, Atlantic seaweed and purple kale. It's in small towns, roadside eateries and gastro-pubs. In the little coastal town of Youghal where the ruff-wearing Sir Walter Raleigh lived, I have the best cod I have tasted.
Ever. The Fitzgibbon family have been running Aherne's Seafood Restaurant since 1923, serving only fish caught by fisherman known to the chef. At owner Gaye Fitzgibbon's recommendation, I also have the traditional, if curious, coupling of raw oysters with glass of Guinness. It's surprisingly good.
The Irish have a particular affection for the oyster, once seen as the food of the poor.
The renewed interest in local produce and artisan food has also seen food markets boom.
Padraic Og Gallagher at the Boxty House, in Dublin. Photo / Andres Poveda
In Cork — claimed (by Corkonians) to be Ireland's food capital — The English Market, built in 1788, buzzes as locals stock their larders, tourists take selfies and sellers hawk their wares. Rick Stein reckons this is the best covered market in the UK and Ireland.
Local foods are sold from stalls under high-vaulted ceilings and include the legendary K O'Connell's fish stall, begun four decades ago by Kathleen O'Connell and now run by her sons, where you can find 60 different types of fish and shellfish. At Bresnan's meat market, Michael Bresnan, grandson of the original stall holder, carries on a 118-year-old tradition selling meat sourced from the family farms.
Each piece of produce is served with a story that includes a history of location, producer's methodology and even its character traits. The Irish tell their history in thousands of years rather than decades. If you ask a stallholder where his goats' cheese comes from, you'll get the current herd's life story, the history of the goats that went before it and the people who brought goats to Ireland, centuries ago.
"The Irish are born storytellers,", says Allen. "When we visit places, we like to introduce visitors to the tales behind the food." Like farmhouse cheesemaker Veronica Steele, the founder of Milleen's cheese, who, in the 1970s — when Irish milk was being diverted to make bright orange industrial cheddar for the English market — began experimenting with milk from her one-horned cow, Brisket. After her efforts to make cheddar were unsuccessful, someone suggested she try soft cheese.
"So I did. It was a quare hawk [odd thing], alright. Wild, weird, and wonderful. Never to be repeated." Steele is now known as the mother of Irish farmhouse cheese.
In Lismore, a small town with a big castle, chef Beth Ann-Smith and brothers Owen and Ken Madden have stories that date back 300 years to the beginning of the family bakery business. The Lismore Food Company, makes beautiful Irish biscuits flavoured with spices and seeds and Atlantic sea salt. Ken Madden says they are working on a biscuit in honour of legendary Hollywood dancer and actor Fred Astaire, who was a patron in the 1930s when it was a pub.
"Fred would get a paper, order a pink gin and pick his horses for the day before heading up to the castle," he says. The biscuit will be "chocolate with ginger — a nod to Astaire's dancing partner Ginger Rogers".
Not all foods making headlines are new. Traditional breads that have for centuries filled Irish homes with the smell of baking and nostalgia still work their magic. Soda bread is a staple on most menus. Black pudding — pork meat, fat and blood mixed with barley, suet and oatmeal in an intensely flavoured sausage — is still centre stage for every Full Irish breakfast, but might also appear at a smart cafe served with sauteed scallops, in croquettes, or under poached eggs. Boxty — grated potato made into pancakes during times of hardship — appear today as crispy rosti, herbed gnocchi or flatbreads stuffed with fillings. Seaweed is served up as a crispy, salty side-dish or pickled in a salad.
Allen says Ireland's food revolution has been shaped by tradition, but also by outside influences. When Ireland opened its labour market to Europeans in 2004, thousands flocked to the Emerald Isle to start new lives. The Poles brought cured meats; the Italians pasta, pizza and fresh herbs. (Strangely, the Italians have also cornered the fish and chip market.) She says many of the artisan food shops in Dublin are owned by immigrants from Europe who have brought skills from their homelands. Even Kiwis have had an influence. In Dublin, three New Zealand guys have opened a Gourmet Burger Kitchen, featuring 100 per cent grass-fed Irish beef.
Failte Ireland (Tourism Ireland) has launched an initiative tagged, "Ireland's Ancient East", to encourage travellers to experience Ireland's historic places and people through story-telling ("seanchai").
The East takes in well-loved tourist destinations like Limerick, Cork, Waterford, Kilkenny and Dublin. But it also embraces small towns with hidden history, sacred sites, grand estates passed down through generations, and places where high kings lived and died.
Failte Ireland's international publicity executive Rory Mathews, says the programme will appeal to the "culturally curious".
"We want to encourage people to stay longer and learn more about Ireland's history from local people who are gifted story-tellers."
There are more than 25 itineraries, tracing the tales of villains and heroes, triumphs and tragedies, bog roads, sun gods and fairy folk.
CHECKLIST
Getting there:Cathay Pacific offers airfares from Auckland to Dublin, in partnership with codeshare airlines. Economy Class return airfares are on sale until October 31, from $1399.
