Modern Irish cuisine rises from ruins of the past

Modern innovation
So what changed? How can we, today, talk about a dynamic, creative contemporary Irish cuisine?

One vital factor was the decision of Myrtle Allen to open her home, Ballymaloe House in eastern County Cork, to diners in 1964. Unlike most chefs at the time, Allen cooked simple — and superb — Irish food. She did not imitate French cooking, and she sourced her ingredients from her immediate locality. Mackerel and scallops came from nearby Ballycotton Bay, beef and lamb from local butchers. Ducks and geese — reared just up the road — were simply roasted. Oysters were served hot and buttered. Soups were of simple things such as watercress, carrot, or cucumber. Crisp apples were made into tarts.

Thus began a new confidence about the foods the Irish could produce and cook themselves. Allen has remained a torchbearer for native Irish cooking, and her imprimatur has been seized on by a subsequent generation of family members. Today, while her restaurant still thrives, her daughter-in-law, Darina, runs a world-renowned cooking school just a few miles away, and her granddaughter, Rachel, has become a homegrown television cooking star.

Dining in and out
While Ireland still does not have a food culture comparable to those of Italy or France, home cooks are starting to give greater value to their culinary heritage. It helps that Irish cooking never became as industrialized as in, for instance, England, where some products such as artisanal cheeses nearly disappeared during the 20th century. In Ireland, traditional dishes such as roast leg of lamb still form the centerpiece of weekend family dinners. Cooks still combine simple ingredients such as mashed carrots and parsnips and rich, golden butter to produce wholesome, delicious dishes free of elaborate sauces or exotic spices. And now, more and more people are concentrating on those simple ingredients, shopping at farmers' markets for top-notch dairy products and rediscovering forgotten native specialties such as venison.

At the same time, as the Irish economy has exploded over the past decade, 30 years worth of financial and social change have been squeezed into just 10. This has opened up the country to global influences, for better and worse. Living in modern Ireland is a helter-skelter experience, and everything can be adapted and adopted, from Thai green curry to Spanish tortillas. There is much more processed and "fast" food, but there are also dynamic chefs with well-heeled patrons happy to pay high prices for their cooking.

Many of these restaurateurs borrow techniques from around the globe, bringing them back home to bear upon superb local ingredients. At Michelin-starred Chapter One in Dublin, chef Ross Lewis serves such fare as pheasant soup with chestnuts, pig's trotter boudin, and Crozier sheep's milk blue cheese from County Tipperary. At Roscoff Brasserie in Belfast, Paul Rankin is equally creative.

Today, if you choose carefully, you can eat superbly well in Ireland, both at home and in restaurants.

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