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Ireland's political and cultural magazine
VILLAGEAugust/September
S
OME Village readers may regard even
the subject of gastronomy as a form
of gluttonous indulgence. While they
may protest that it simply isn’t politics they
should also be aware that they are reflecting
a long-standing Catholic view of such affairs:
the Sin of Gluttony included both excessive
consumption and even restrained gustatory
celebration. Only after did the pio-
neers of gastronomy, Grimod de la Reyniere
and Jean-Anthelme Brillat-Savarin, distin-
guish the two.
For reasons that include a dominant
Catholicism, as well as the trauma of the
Famine and the absence of a native aristoc-
racy, an indigenous gastronomic culture
only began to emerge in Ireland in the
s. Previously, vestiges of the fading
Protestant Ascendancy devoured anything
with a French imprimatur, favouring legen-
dary haute cuisine restaurants like Jammet’s
which was so expensive that when John
Lennon signed the guest book he cheekily
claimed the other Beatles were saving up
for a meal.
The advent of a ‘foodie’ culture in Ireland
in the s brought gastronomy in to the
mainstream. Often it is an extension of
a pernicious consumerism where choice
(especially in restaurants) and knowledge
of food is seen as a marker of social class:
‘oh my gosh, he doesn’t seem to know what
carpaccio is’.
But gastronomy is broad, including not
just the taste and appearance of food, but
also its impact on the environment and other
animals, and its effect on human health.
‘Tickling The Palate’ is a timely analy-
sis of Irish food culture, and its definition
of gastronomy encompasses a great deal,
including analysis of food at both an elite
level and among the working class, as well
as its role in Irish literature, and our sacra-
mental relationship with
alcohol. A few authors
attempt to glamourise
Irish food despite what
seems a dysfunctional
relationship: the Irish are
set to become the fattest
nation in Europe. There
is also no examination of
Irish agriculture and its
appalling environmen-
tal impact. Also missing
is any exploration of the
relationship between
humans and non-human
animals, apart from as
food to be devoured.
The foreword by Darra
Goldstein sets a rather
too reverential tone:
“While lacking the variety and refinements
of cuisines from countries where both cli-
mate and politics were more conducive to
developing a rich food culture, Ireland nev-
ertheless sings with brilliant flavours based
on the food of poverty and the preparations
of necessity”.
The book contains a number of chapters
which draw on literature
as useful source mate-
rial. Flicka Small analyses
James Joyce’s ‘Ulysses’,
in particular Leopold
Bloom’s eccentric appe-
tites. Bloom advises the
reader that to “know
me come eat with me”.
Between helpings of
kidneys and gorgon-
zola cheese he “wonders
whether a vegetarian’s
brain patterns are differ-
ent to a meat eater’s” and
concludes that unless
you eat “weggiebobbles
and fruit”, “the eyes of
the cow will pursue you
through all eternity”.
In Eamon Maher’s examination of John
McGahern’s ‘Amongst Women’ we find what
might still be an example of a meal for a
favoured guest in rural Ireland:
‘”The girls had the freshly cut bread, but-
ter and milk on the table. The lamb chops
sizzled as they were dropped into the big
Anatomy of our
gastronomy
Timely and wide-ranging if a little glamourising.
Review by Frank Armstrong
Tickling the Palate: Gastronomy in
Irish Literature and Culture
Reimagining Ireland Vol. 57
Máirtín Mac Con Iomaire and
Eamon Maher (eds)
Peter Lang
Bern, 2014
expensive
CULTURE
BOOK REVIEW
August/September VILLAGE
pan. The sausages, black pudding, bacon,
halves of tomatoes were added soon after
to the sides of the pan. The eggs were fried
in a smaller pan”.
No better illustration is possible of why
rates of heart disease in Ireland are so
high.
Sebastian Barry’s ‘Annie Dunne’ a novel
set in the s is parsed by Rhona Richman
Kenneally. Home-baked bread emerges as
an important source of pride, and its declin-
ing presence is bemoaned by the eponymous
character: “Who would have thought it years
ago, that a woman would not wish to bake
her own bread, that source of pride and dif-
ference, like the very waters of your own
well, sweeter and better than all other wells
of the parishes. Sweeter and better was your
own bread”.
Sadly, this loss of bread-making has con-
tinued apace since the s, and the vast
majority of today’s industrial loaves are no
better than junk food.
Perhaps the most interesting chapter is
Tony Kiely’s examination of the culinary
practices of Dublin’s working-class poor in
the s when “economically speaking, a
three-tiered society co-existed in Dublin”.
He states that: “Dublin mothers were
forced to perform a daily miracle in provid-
ing for the nutritional needs of their large
and often under-nourished families”. But
conversely “the move to the more affluent
s, with the easier availability of what
was promised in the previous decade, was in
fact disempowering for many of these self-
same women”. For most people preparing
even a simple meal had been, and can be a
source of pride and pleasure.
During the s: “Family diets were very
basic, consisting in the main of bread, tea,
oatmeal, cocoa, potatoes, cabbage, herrings
and pairings of cheap meat pieces for stews
and soups”, while “bread was both a staple,
and a constant companion at all meals”.
Furthermore, the social order determined
that “men and working sons often got the
lion’s share of the available food”. In con-
trast to today there were no “starters, soups
or desserts, except perhaps on Sundays,
when occasionally ‘jelly and ice cream’ was
ser ved”.
Sadly: “For many, who existed in the
poorest circumstances, their diet prima-
rily consisted of bread, margarine and tea,
which in many cases was hereditary, as
these were the principal elements in the diet
of their parents”.
It is apparent that fresh fruit and
vegetables (apart from potatoes and cab-
bage) hardly featured. In part this can be
explained by the priorities of the Irish agri-
cultural authorities of that time. Subsidies
encouraged production of animal products
for export with ‘cheap cuts’ reserved for the
urban poor. Few fruits and vegetables were
available even to the affluent until as late as
th e s .
Moreover, the high status of meat which
was connected to wealth and masculinity
left little available for the purchase of fresh
produce. Thus Mintz argues that in England
(which was much the same as Ireland) the
diet was “unhealthy and uneconomical” due
to a “disproportionately high expenditure
on meat”.
Mairtin Mac Con Iomaire’s celebration
of Irish elite dining of the s is slightly
incongruous in view of the previous chapter.
Based on the subjective criterion of Michelin
reviews he claims that Ireland was the top
haute cuisine destination in the ‘British
Isles’ in the s. He also asserts that we
are “entering a new golden age”.
To an extent he is right – we are seeing
more choice in restaurants than ever and
some advances in the availability of local
produce. But unfortunately most of an
increasingly rotund and often impoverished
population focuses its culinary ambition on
restaurants with arches overhead.
Interesting questions are posed by
Marjorie Deleuze’s in her chapter: ‘A New
Craze for Food: Why is Ireland Turning into
a Foodie Nation?’. She questions the authen-
ticity of the recipes on Bord Fáilte’s website,
claiming that “these recipes offer a re-imag-
ined ‘authenticity’ destined for tourists”.
She also acknowledges that the most pop-
ular method for a foodie to satisfy his or
her voracious appetite for knowledge is “a
quite solitary one: through cookbooks and
TV cooking programmes”. Thus
food, which should bring peo-
ple together, is often a relatively
lonesome indulgence.
She claims that ‘foodism’ “has
environmental benefits … to buy
local produce, which in return
enables producers to live from
land in a sustainable manner”.
This is partially correct, but it
is what we eat, rather than where
it comes from, that is important
when it comes to a person’s car-
bon footprint. A recent Oxford
University study of consumers
in the United Kingdom showed
that an average heavy meat eater
causes greenhouse gas emissions three
times those of an average vegan. It is highly
likely that this is also the case in Ireland con-
sidering we shop in the same supermarket
types.
Deleuze asks the interesting question: “is
a more liberal and secular society a possible
reason for the current success of food-re-
lated matters?”. She connects declining
religious adherence with increased inter-
est in food. Furthermore, to her credit, she
acknowledges the reality that “for some peo-
ple, food still equals survival”.
Wearing his Bord Fáilte hat, John Mulcahy
views gastronomy as something for Ireland
to exploit. He argues that “Ireland is a coun-
try in need of solutions, and gastronomy is
one that could be profitably exploited”. He
claims that this “is about creating in Ireland,
an imagined community of gastronomy that
accommodates and balances innovation and
tradition”.
It is true that Irish gastronomy should be
re-imagined but I would argue that it should
not be for external consumption but rather
for internal benefit: the development of an
agriculture growing foodstuffs beneficial to
human health where animals are not used
as human food and through which we have
far less impact on our environment. Ethical
and environmental imperatives can ground
good politics, and even aesthetics. •
Few fruits and
vegetables were
available even
to the affluent
until as late as
the 1970s in
Ireland
“
