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Nutrition Once Again

By Lowell Courtney LynchPin Tours
Dedicated to the late Robbie Millar. A hard working Ulsterman with no pretensions.

You would think that, by now, no-one in their right senses would still be reverting to the oul’ boiled beef and cabbage routine; but you’d be horribly wrong. I was in that fine shopping mall that is Chicago last Paddy’s day and you’ll never guess what the hostess thought would be a really big treat for the guest Irishman. Bullseye.

So will yez all sit down there very nice and quietly, like good dacint people that yez are and repeat after me: “No-one in Ireland ates boiled beef and cabbage.” Niver no more. Thank you. Now we can proceed.

To be fair, it does work the other way, because it took a relation from New Orleans – of all places – some considerable number of minutes to explain the Tom Brokaw joke to me. As in why he couldn’t marry the daughter of a vegetable millionaire – ‘cos he was only a “common tater”.

Which reminds me of the story about the Irish barkeep in New Orleans who was asked how his business had survived the flood. “Well,” sez he, ”business was terrible for a week but the regulars seem to be drifting back in now.”

Which is in about as good taste as cooking used to be in this country. We’ve never had much of a problem with the basic forms of alcohol but Lord, Irish cooking was positively Darwinian for decades: the survival of the praties. I remember being drugged (sic) from one hotel to another where the chef should have been hauled before the court monthly for the inhuman treatment he handed out to fresh meat and vegetables.

And, like the arcane rituals of indigenous Amazonian tribes, it still survives in a few secluded backwaters. I took my wife to lunch just last week. The main course was boiled beef – it should have been named ”bullied”, for it looked as if it had taken a terrible beating. The vegetables weren’t tired; they were in the final throes of hyperthermia, having been bombarded with more microwaves than any particle accelerator could produce. The gravy would have floated the Titanic and the crowning glory was the waitress’ incantation of the choice of potato: “There’s champ, chips, garlic wedges, baby boiled, steamed and pureed.” And so help me, the beef arrived on a mountain of allegedly cheese-flavoured mash.

All of which only serves to remind me of how far so many have come in pursuit of the better.

You will read in grander, swankier, more glossy but no better informed reviews of the “renaissance” of Irish cuisine. Well, forgive me for quibbling, folks, but I have lived and eaten here for over 50 years and I can tell you that there wasn’t much from which one could be re-born. “Resurrection” is more like it.

But in all their eulogies, no-one stops to ask what fired up this sudden rediscovery that food did not have to serve as a spare tyre, nor be the cause of same on the Irish figure.

The simple answer is money. Money out and money in. To sustain a better than survival standard of cooking either requires a culture dedicated to the production, preparation and savouring of good food (think France or Italy) or an economy which has far outgrown the hard priorities of simple survival and which has flourished to the point where a critical mass of the populace can afford to live a little.

In addition, the arrival of the “low cost” (ever tried to buy what laughingly passes for a sandwich on Ryanair?) airlines and the euro meant that the plain people of Ireland (and here I doff my flat cap to Flann O’Brien) were at last able to travel to food-oriented neighbours (Italy and France) without being held up at gun point by a state airline, demanding that they travel before 5 am on a Thursday, say no less than 8 days and no longer than 9, and on no account were they to even think about enjoying themselves once they got there. And be damn glad of the privilege of being allowed to travel with such a fine, caring company.

And then there’s rugby. Now you may think – you may very well think – that this is a game for gorillas without the body armour. You may well be right, but for those of you not acquainted with the finer points of the game, you should know that the four nations of the British Isles compete annually with two other European nations. Guess who they might be?
Ah, you’re way ahead of me.

And not only at international level. You see, whilst the English don’t even rate us, we provincials have our own little how-de-do at lower levels, meaning that we just have to go on away trips to – guess where? Glad you took the MBA test, aren’t you? And then there’s all that wine to be drunk – Euro-lakes of the stuff. So now you know – blame it all on the oval ball. No sir, we do NOT refer to a rugby ball as a pigskin. Don’t let your country down, will you?

So now you see whence came our appreciation of matters culinary. And it is true that a generation of Irish chefs, having served their apprenticeships in the wider world, have returned bearing the gospel that food can be wholesome without being incinerated; that properly sourced local produce can compete with any import and above all, that not only have the punters learnt to crave good food – bejasus, they’re actually prepared to pay for it.

And pay they certainly do. The good lady and myself paid EUR160 (about $200 to you, sir) for an aperitif, a good three course meal, a decent bottle of wine and superb service in a well-recommended Dublin restaurant this spring. The going rate, may I say.

If your normal grazing turf is the Golden Corral (not that any readers of the Cultured Traveler would be so uncouth but they do exist, you know) then you will keel over at this price. But bear in mind that you are in a capital city with the third highest living costs in the EU; that the Irish government has always levied an import duty on wine which is downright barbaric (and probably un-American, but there you go) and that the quality was top notch.

Oh and by the way, the chef is French but Madame La Patronne is from your own fair shores.

And just to put things in perspective, mes amis, we treated ourselves later in the year (ill-gotten gains, y’understand) to a similar dinner in the Savoy Grill in London. The damage?

GBP235 ($425) so let’s just get all these complaints about Rip Off Ireland into perspective, shall we?

So how do you actually find the places where food reviewers – for God’s sake, people, this is dinner, not Degas or Dumas – rave about such lunacies as “exquisite oysters en croute avec riz Savoyard” or other Dali creations? (No, it doesn’t exist, believe me, although some clown will doubtless try to create it.)

As always, I enjoin you to trust your common sense. There now appear to be as many guides as there are restaurants, so I suggest that you do what all sensible folk do – and read the menu.

If they insist on calling the house special “plat du jour”, be suspicious. Ain’t no-one round these parts speaks French, lady – and there’s mighty few wot speaks the Queen’s English, either. If the guide raves about “fusion this” or “fission that”, tread warily. Much as I appreciate creativity – and I do admire anyone who has the galls to get away with beetroot ice-cream and get three Michelin stars for his cheek – I’m just a simple-minded peasant who likes good food from unsprayed ingredients which the chef has used wisely. It kinda helps if it’s obvious that he or she has communicated their love – I hesitate at the knackered term “passion” – of food to their staff, both in and out of the brigade.

When someone finally realises that Joe Punter really doesn’t give a hoot about all the creativity involved in the cooking – or the invoicing – if he is served by a surly wench, then we are, in your timeless phrase, “really cookin’”. And that is precisely where you good people deserve a prolonged and hearty round of applause. You know – because so many of you have slaved at table in your youth – a fact which many Irish choose to callously ignore; namely, that waiting staff are paid buttons. So you tip generously. This is one of the most commendable habits on the planet and I can tell you that you are not taken for granted. When I, as a native, tip US-style, you can, as they say, feel the warmth.

So where to eat? There are good guide books by John McKenna and Georgina Campbell; Paulo Tullio writes volubly each Saturday in the Irish Independent (www.unison.ie/irish_independent) and Eamonn O’cathain has a lot of Irish-speaking fun, especially in “Around Ireland with a Pan.”

For myself, there are a score of places I could swear by – and not one of them has paid me a penny, either. The “Fishy Fishy Café” in Kinsale is legendary; I enjoy the Pearl Brasserie beside the Merrion Hotel in Dublin – as good with a crowd of students as with the regulars – and we have a very soft spot for Neven Maguire, who took a family bed and breakfast in the back of beyond (sorry, Blacklion) and turned the McNean Bistro into a haven of gastronomy.

Indeed, Her Formidableness and meself (the chauffeur) are booked in there for Hallowe’en, so you can’t say fairer than that.

Och now, look what ye’ve done. You’ve asked me so many questions and you’ve let me wander all over the place without so much as a marinated whitebait that I never got time to get on to the drink, the pubs, the cookery schools and the cheesemongers.

Ah well, another time; another dinner. And I’ll be looking out for ye. Bon appetit.

PS This article is dedicated to Robbie Millar of Ballycarry in the county of Antrim, late and much lamented chef patron of the wonderful Shanks Restaurant near Belfast. Robbie, you have left many, many people so many happy memories of wonderful anniversaries and special times. May you rest in peace.