Food as Our Story

Food is a story one can tell with words and pictures but must truly be experienced by tasting. It’s a universal ideal: food nourishes our bodies, gathers our communities, and identifies our cultures, regions, and history. It’s a genuinely oral history, passed down through space and time to land, with as much fanfare as we give it, on a plate or bowl in front of us. It’s as timeless as the stars and suns, for without it, we’d not survive.

I recently stumbled upon the following question at the "other place":

My immediate reaction was to send Suad to one of my favourite Irish chefs and get his take on what was genuinely Irish food. But, as time progressed, I thought through the implications of such a question and the answers it’d undoubtedly bring. Rather than try to define “Irish food” as something wholly separate from the British oppressors, why not let the food speak for itself and tell its own story?

We romanticize the ideas of our food, those unique ingredients, our Mams or Nans stooped over a fire, stoking the flames with turf to ensure a proper boil in the pot and kettle. We have a million pictures, modern and ancient, of what it means to cook, prepare, and consume the earth’s bounty. To truly understand Irish food, we must understand that Ireland is more than the soil, the sow, and the spud. It’s a menagerie of communities and expressions, from surf to turf and back once again, driven by a need to connect.

From line-caught cod, fresh off the boat in Dublin, to the charred cauliflower and the romesco that cradles the lot, we find ourselves at a feast. It’s designed to delight our eyes and palates and imbibe our senses in ways that we’ve perhaps left far behind. It’s an invocation to a gustatory blessing with its fulfillment not too far behind. Wrapped up in this plate of delicate flesh and delightful diversion, we have a story of the earth and sea, a story of homecoming, of place.

The Shannon runs just metres away from where we sit in candlelight, its banks swollen from the day’s rain, the silt and sand being pushed down endless banks to end up far from where it started. For millennia, the ebb and flow of the waves and wind have fed the rich lands surrounding it, driving precious nutrients deep into the soil for humanity’s sustenance.

So, too, the pig that ruts through the dark earth and the hen that barely scratches the surface find their way to our story. Here lies the tale of our care and consideration, our custodial relationship with those incarnated spirits we call “animals” that are our charges. From the richness of a hen’s egg, yolk slightly firm, wrapped in a garment of crumb and gentle spice, to the celeriac bath that envelopes the salty ham hock and the sharpness of a radish, we find ourselves double-blessed for the barns and boards, the poetry of warmth and invitation found here.

When we are blessed with our choice of meals and plating, we scarcely consider from whence it came. By all means, we understand that the furious hands of a chef must be behind it all, but do we know the "where" of our meals? Behind these nameless eggs and coddled hocks, there lies a farm and family.

Oftentimes, there are generations that stand on each other’s shoulders, bringing the care and responsibility necessary to an otherwise mechanical slaughter. A name belies more than just labeling; it’s another thread in the tapestry of our delightful consumption, another story that fills a chapter in our book, another indicator that all is as it must be.

From the Irish Sea to the wild Atlantic, we’re given over to the rugged idealism of Irish fishermen, wind and wave tossed, sweaters dogged by soaking rain, bibbed overalls bright against the mottled greens and blues of Lir himself. From the waves, we travel inland to the Midlands, the heart of hoof and grain, where the plaintive cries of lamb and lark reach ears always at the ready. The sheaves of barley and wheat, ripening under the dappled sun of summer, destined for mash tuns and Mam’s soda bread, provide a benign contrast to the stunning yellows of rape fields destined for the press. In vernal stands of pine, alder, and oak, bedded in the moss, we find the humble fungus, its nature overlooked for so long but its presence an indicator of vitality and health.

Wrapped within the careful layers of this pithivier lies a delicate simplicity for our palates. The careful administration of egg wash and heat darkens the shell that contains a vibrant core of mushroom and veg, a steaming cacophony of flavour and texture unexpected from the order outside its flaky walls. Draped to one side, the rich purplish-reds of hothouse kale, folded and wrinkled, delicate yet strong, offset the tendrils of yet another mushroom, all cradled in a heady mix of fior di latte.

This tale of the land and sea is a story of history and time. From the walls of cloisters and abbeys to the unbroken valleys of the Boyne and Shannon bounded by the rivers of the same, from the wild shores of the Arans and Skelligs to the stones of Bray and Wexford, Ireland has history written in its food. The milk that courses through this spiced custard and cream tells the tale of intertwined lives, of farm and fork, and the custodians of the food that sustains us. Vibrantly splayed out on our plates, we find the coursing of blood-red raspberry and plum to draw the parallels between the thorny vines that bedevil us in the ides of summer and the genteel plums that wait to be plucked by our greedy hands. All told, we find a fitting end to a narrative that has taken us through the stories of humans, plants, and beasts alike and a gentle reminder of our place in time.

I romanticize these meals because, in the deepest reaches of my soul, this is where we are the most human. Our biological hunger reaches a nexus at this table, these plates. Our hunger for community, for place, for being in a world gone mad with decisions beyond our control, can be satiated in languid comport here. Mouths and bellies full, we can let go for the moment and imbibe in our stories: each voice unique as the plates in front of us, our colliding cultures and values becoming a single refrain of a people united. We leave to come back again, another day, another table, another embodiment of culture and place. It may not be as artistically contrived or prepared as what you’ve seen, but it is the ordered chaos of ingredients and “us” rolled together.

Irish food is its people and the story of their becoming more than anything else. It’s a rich tapestry of centuries of conquering, oppression, victory, and struggle. Its composition is of earth and wind, sky and sea, and of the blood of our ancestors. It’s written in our bones and every hearth we cross, every person we embrace, every pint we quaff. Irish food is more than spuds in five different ways, yet it’s decidedly as simple as that. It’s an identity and uniqueness all its own, and, for all that I have written here, it’s something to be experienced in the flesh.

Slàinte Mhaith.

Note: I want to express my gratitude to John Coffey, his wife Tara, Sharon, and the incredible crew of chefs and staff that comprise Thyme Restaurant in Athlone.