Customer Reviews

Real Irish Cookery (Hale Pocket Guides)

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Mary Caherty's Real Irish Cookery is a small souvenir of traditional Irish recipes that are centuries old. One brings to mind is the Irish stew, boiled bacon and cabbage and soda bread. Fact is, years of hardship caused the Irish cook to be more innovative. Some traditional dishes have been lost until recently. Sorrel and Garlic for example grows wild in the west of Ireland have found their way back into the Irish kitchen. And what Irishman is handy in the kitchen with a pint of Irish stout can spice up any Iocal dish. As in the words of Flann O'Brien:

When food is scarce

And your larder's bare

And no rashers grease your pan,

When hunger grows

As your meals grow rare,

A pint of plain is your only man

The book includes notes on ingredients with measures and conversions. Over 100 recipes are categorized for easy use. Such classic recipes included are Nettle Soup, Baked Salmon, Buttered Kippers, Herrings in Oatflakes, Tyrone roast goose and Coddle. Traditonal Irish fry items, Black Pudding, Crubeens, Boxty and Pub favorite Steamed Oysters served with Brown Bread and butter and Guinness. Vegetable dishes include champ, colcannon, apple mash. There's a diverse range of Breads and Desserts including soda bread, scones, farls, brack, apple fritters and castleconnell cake. What cookbook wouldn't be complete with blackberry cordial and an Irish coffee recipe? Other numerous and unusual fare are the carrageen and dulse seaweed dishes, Yellowman and Irish-style rice pudding. The book complemented with a section of old folk remedies from dandelion coffee to help flush the kidneys and rose hips syrup as a general tonic.

This is a great additon to any Irish or Celtic cookbook collection. It 's a small souvenir I picked up on my trip to the Kylemore Abbey Gift Shop in the Connemara, Co. Galway. It was a grand find for sure!