For Ireland, 2020 is all about the Taste the Island theme year. As travel is not an option at the moment, we are happy to bring Irish cuisine to your home. Taste the Island offers the opportunity to immerse yourself in a plethora of flavors that evoke a unique sense of place, culture and hospitality. Fresh, locally sourced, artisanal and seasonal – with the traditional and unique local flavours, there's no better time to delve into Irish food and drink and the world's best-kept gastronomic secrets.
To prepare you for this Irish cooking frenzy, we have listed the 12 facts you need to know about Irish cooking:
1. Traditional Irish soda bread
Did you know that the cross on top of the soda bread is to let the fairies out?
2. Clams and mussels Made famous by Dublin lady Molly Malone from the song of the same name, who drove through the streets of the Irish city with a wheelbarrow full of fresh crustaceans and molluscs. The statue of Molly still stands at St Andrew's Church on Dublin's Suffolk Street.
3. Milk
Did you know that Ireland produces enough milk and pure to feed 52 million people annually?
4. 'Literary stew'
Dublin Coddle (a bacon, potato, onion, and sausage stew) was the favorite of writer Johanthan Swift and Sean O'Casey and was mentioned in James Joyce's lyrics.
5. Irish Stew
Irish stew is an Irish stew and a traditional Irish dish. It is a stew made from lamb, mutton or beef, potatoes, carrots, onion and parsley. To which beer, preferably stout, is added.
6. Smoked salmon
Belvelly Smokehouse in Cork is the oldest smokehouse in Ireland, where the salmon is smoked so well that it is served on Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II's birthday. Salmon is one of the most widely used local fish in Irish cuisine.
7. 700 tons
This is the annual tons of wild eel that Europe's largest fishery produces in Lough Neagh. Lough Neagh in Northern Ireland has an EU protected geographical indication.
8. Drisheen, Crubeens and Tripe
Drisheen is a black pudding from Cork made from cow, sheep and pig's blood, crubeens are cooked pig's feet and tripe is normally a cow's stomach, slowly cooked in milk with onions.
9. 12,000 pieces
The number of bladders baked daily in Waterford. A Waterford blaa is a tasty soft bread roll with an EU protected geographical indication.
10. The potato The potato was introduced to Ireland in the second half of the 16th century. Today it is used in a 'boxty' (a type of pancake), a 'champ' (mashed with spring onion), 'colcannon' (mashed with cabbage) and 'potatoe farls' (a type of potato bread from Northern Ireland). Ireland)
11. Lots of butter
At its peak, the butter market in Cork was the largest export market in the world.
12. 5,000 years old
The age of the oldest 'bog butter' discovered in Tullamore, County Offaly. 'Bog butter' refers to an ancient waxy substance found in Irish peat bogs. It is probably an old method of making and storing butter.
