Potato pancakes, soda bread, and seafood chowder — There's a lot to Irish food beyond corned
beef and cabbage.
What other iconic dishes do you need to try?
Keep watching for a breakdown of the best Irish cuisine.
Let's start with boxty, also known as the potato pancake.
It's made by mixing both grated and mashed potatoes with milk, eggs, flour, and butter
for a half pancake, half hash brown patty that's fried on the griddle until it's perfectly
crispy on the outside and soft on the inside.
Boxty is quintessentially Irish because it celebrates the humble spud in all its glory.
Potatoes have been a staple in Ireland for centuries, and in many ways shaped the entire
trajectory of the country.
According to Potatoes USA, they arrived in Ireland in the late 1500s when Sir Walter
Raleigh planted the country's first spud in County Cork on a 40,000 acre estate given
to him by Queen Elizabeth I for his role in suppressing a rebellion.
As fate would have it, potatoes were exceptionally well-suited to Irish soil, and as their numbers
exploded so did Ireland's population.
It skyrocketed from 1.2 million in 1590 to 8.4 million in 1841, and more than half of
Irish citizens, primarily the rural poor, came to rely almost exclusively on potatoes
for their daily nutrition.
Today, boxty is far from peasant food.
Entire restaurants and cooking competitions are dedicated to it, and you can find people
eating boxty for breakfast with bacon and eggs, or even for dinner or dessert.
"Pancakes!"
Potato farls [FAR-uhls] are another tasty dish the Irish devised to use potatoes.
The classic recipe calls for just three simple ingredients –- mashed potatoes, flour, and
melted butter –- and the resulting dough is thick enough to hold its shape as it's
rolled into a thin, flat circle, cut into fourths, and fried for a few minutes on each
side.
While potato farls might sound similar to boxty, there are a few key differences.
Boxty contains grated potatoes, making them more reminiscent of a hash brown, while potato
farls use mashed potatoes only for a smoother, more bread-like texture.
That makes them the perfect stand-in for toast, served for breakfast alongside bacon and eggs
to mop up the last bits of yolk.
When you eat a whopping 65 spuds a day, you better know how to make killer mashed potatoes
–– and since the average Irish adult in 1844 did just that, they've certainly answered
the call.
Rich and buttery, colcannon is an Irish mashed potato recipe made with milk, butter, leeks,
and cabbage.
It's so ubiquitous throughout the country that you can often find its recipe printed
on sacks of potatoes.
While we'd eat these mashed potatoes any day of the week, they were traditionally served
during Samhain, a Celtic festival celebrated on October 31.
If that date sounds familiar, it's because Samhain is the inspiration behind Halloween.
"Trick or treat!"
One of four Celtic festivals of the year, Samhain signified the time when the veil between
worlds was so thin that spirits and fairies could return to the land of the living.
As described by Food & Wine, food played a major role in the festival and colcannon was
one of several traditional Irish dishes used to dabble in a little fortune-telling.
Small charms were hidden throughout the potatoes and said to predict the diner's future.
A coin meant wealth was on the way, a ring meant you were soon to be married, and a thimble,
well, let's just say you better buy a cat because you're in for life as a spinster.
While we're on the topic of Samhain, let's talk about barmbrack.
Barmbrack is a sweet Irish fruit loaf traditionally made with raisins.
In its early days, barmbrack was made with yeast, but many recipes today will use baking
soda for ease.
Much like colcannon, barmbrack used to be reserved for Samhain and, if you were lucky,
might have given you a peek into your future.
Remember those little charms hidden in colcannon?
They made an appearance in barmbrack, too.
Today, barmbrack recipes include all kinds of different fruits, from cherries to candied
orange peel and everything in between.
However you try it, we highly recommend pairing it with a cup of tea for maximum enjoyment.
Soda bread is another iconic Irish bread, one you'll find at breakfast, lunch, and dinner
tables across the country on a regular basis.
Each family has their own favorite recipe, and they can be savory or sweet, use wheat
flour or white flour, contain raisins, currants or no fruit at all.
What makes them all soda bread isn't that they're made with soda pop, because they aren't.
Soda bread is called soda bread because it's leavened with baking soda.
Irish soda bread came about during the famine that hit Ireland in the 1840s because yeast
became exceedingly difficult to get and soda bread could be made with just a few essential
ingredients — flour, baking soda, buttermilk, and salt.
It's the reaction of the acid in the buttermilk and the base of the baking soda that makes
the bread rise.
Irish soda bread is one of those foods that shines on its own, so it's best served simply
with some high-quality Irish butter.
"And let me say this: Is there anything better than butter?"
Shepherd's pie is more like a casserole than a pie.
Traditional recipes use lamb and vegetables like onions, carrots, and peas all topped
with a layer of, you guessed it, creamy mashed potatoes acting as the pie's "crust."
While shepherd's pie actually originated in Scotland, MasterClass notes Ireland was the
first to use mashed potatoes rather than a pastry crust.
Before that, it would have been more akin to a classic pot pie.
Like many of Ireland's most traditional foods, shepherd's pie was born of frugality.
It was an easy way to use leftover meat from the week before and any vegetables you happened
to have on hand for a warm, comforting meal.
Today, many of the shepherd's pie recipes you'll see use ground beef.
Technically, this is a cottage pie as opposed to a shepherd's pie.
They're essentially the same thing.
There's also something called a Cumberland pie that uses chunks of beef instead of ground.
Black and white puddings are a quintessential part of a traditional Irish breakfast, served
alongside baked beans, over-easy eggs, bacon, sautéed mushrooms and tomatoes, toast, butter,
and lots of tea.
Both are sausages made with some combination of a grain like oatmeal or barley, breadcrumbs,
spices, and ground pork meat or liver.
Some also include animal fat and, especially in Ireland, additional binders like potato
flour to help keep them together.
Black pudding is especially unique because it includes the addition of pork or beef blood
to give it a stronger color, flavor, and additional nutrients.
While recipes vary widely, Taste of History notes that black pudding –- or blood sausage
-– has been eaten around the world for centuries.
It was even mentioned in Homer's "Odyssey" and has recipes dating back to the fourth
century.
Since most prized meat cuts in old Ireland were reserved for the rich, black and white
puddings gave rural Irishmen something nutritious to do with blood and offal, or organs, so
nothing went to waste.
They've stood the test of time, and remain an iconic Irish food to this day.
Traditional Irish stew was made with just a few simple ingredients –- mutton, potatoes,
onions, and sometimes carrots.
Irish stew became a staple for poor Irish families in the early 19th century when potatoes
were a huge part of a traditional Irish diet and economic turmoil created mass poverty.
All they needed to create a nourishing, hearty meal was a hanging pot, a fire, and a few
staple ingredients they were likely to have on hand.
Today, Irish stew is often made with a lamb, a more tender alternative to mutton.
Mutton comes from sheep that are more than a year old, whereas lamb comes from sheep
that are under a year old.
When times were lean, Irish farmers would keep their sheep around for as long as possible
to reap the benefits of their wool and milk, so using mutton for their stew made more sense.
That said, mutton can be much tougher meat than lamb, so cooking it for a long time,
as in a stew, was a must.
“We both love soup."
Dublin Coddle is also known as "the city man's stew" because it became popular with Dublin's
working class in the late 18th century.
During Ireland's first great famine, many Irishmen moved from the countryside to the
city looking for work.
And, while they couldn't bring their sheep, they could bring their pigs.
So, as culinary lecturer Máirtín Mac Con Iomaire of the Dublin Institute of Technology
told the Dublin Inquirer, Dublin Coddle became a, quote, "city man's Irish stew" that used
sausages and rashers instead of mutton and lamb."
The key ingredients in a Dublin Coddle are pork sausage, British bacon, potatoes, and
onions simmered in stock for several hours,or even overnight.
The stock can be chicken, beef, water, milk –- whatever was on hand was what went into
the pot.
Just as delicious today as it was back then, Dublin Coddle is perfect for the end of a
long day's work because you can start it in the morning and it's ready by dinner.
All this talk of potatoes and mutton might have you thinking that's all Ireland has to
offer, but that's far from the truth.
Let's not forget it's the Emerald Isle, so it's only fitting that it's known for some
pretty delicious seafood dishes, too.
Irish seafood chowder is the perfect example.
Following the tradition of using the foods on hand and in season, Irish seafood chowder
can include fish, prawns, lobster, mussels — whatever is caught fresh from the sea.
Some recipes call specifically for smoked salmon, which isn't surprising given Ireland
is known for some of the best salmon in the world.
Seafood chowder is cooked in a base of cream, milk, and wine with vegetables like leeks,
onion, fennel, celery, and, yes, potatoes mixed in.
Seafood chowder is so popular in Ireland that Kinsale, County Cork, hosts an All Ireland
Chowder Cook-off every year and thousands come from far and wide to see who takes the
crown.
"It's great for Kinsale.
It's great for the town.
The sun is shining."
Dexter cattle are native to the Kerry region of southwestern Ireland.
They're a sturdy breed in a smaller-than-average package and have evolved to survive in oftentimes
harsh, shelter-less mountain landscapes.
In fact, they're so hardy Butcher Magazine says they rarely require veterinary attention
and can be left to graze the fields all year long, making them really and truly free-range.
But back to their size.
Don't let it fool you.
They might be one of the smallest cattle breeds in the world, but their contribution to Irish
culture is immense.
Not only were they revered by rural farmers for their efficient milk production and ability
to thrive even on low-quality land, they also worked as draft animals and continue doing
so today.
That makes them one of the few tri-purpose cattle breeds still in existence.
And, if you're wondering what a draft animal is, it's any domesticated animal that can
be used to pull heavy loads –- an incredibly valuable resource for farm work before the
invention of modern machinery.
But back to the beef.
Dexter beef has a unique spider-like marbling that makes it more tender than other types
of beef and its smaller size means its steaks will be thicker than those cut from a larger animal.
If that wasn't enough to convince you that you need to try it, Dexter beef also provides
more omega-3 fatty acids because of the time these cows spend grazing the fields.
We'll end our list with a dish that's a little more modern, but no less iconic: the crisp
sandwich -– a salty, crunchy creation made with two pieces of white bread, Irish butter,
and a generous handful of potato chips.
A favorite at the end of a long night or when you need a snack in a hurry, crisp sandwiches
are lovingly referred to by Irish Central as an "Irish delicacy."
And, while we'd like to say they're easy to replicate at home, there is apparently quite
a hot debate going on as to whether a crisp sandwich made without a very specific brand
and flavor of potato chips -– Tayto Cheese and Onion -– is even a crisp
sandwich at all.
Meanwhile in Ireland says using the Cheese and Onion flavor from Tayto, or another Irish
brand, King, will make or break your sandwich, and straying from those specific instructions
will leave you sorely disappointed.
Still, if you're willing to risk a sub-par version, you can make your own crisp sandwich
at home by picking up your favorite bag of chips and sandwiching them between two slices
of white bread slathered in butter.
Just make sure you use Irish butter, which thankfully isn't nearly as hard to come by
here as Taytos.
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