When you think of “Irish food,” I imagine you think of meat, potatoes, and soda bread. Or maybe fish and chips. Perhaps a pint of Guinness. At least, that’s what I think of when I picture Irish cuisine!
Before arriving here, I had read that Cork is the foodie capital of Ireland. After a week in County Cork and a few weeks in County Kerry, we’ve observed how that seems to be accurate and also how modern Irish cuisine is more plant-based, internationally influenced, and, dare I say, sophisticated that I had imagined.
Contemporary Cuisine
It feels like the slow food, farm-to-table movement has really taken hold here. With so many farms everywhere, perhaps it’s a natural place to base menus around hyper-local ingredients.
We were first able to sample some of these local goods at the English Market in Cork. There are multiple counters of fresh vegetables and fruits, a few seafood counters, a bakery, a couple cheese shops, a chocolate shop, and other specialties goods. We picked up fresh trout and smoked salmon, as well as a couple fish tarts, two cheeses, a big sourdough loaf, and fresh spinach and strawberries. (Our Killarney B&B host later informed us that the Irish strawberry season was at its peak.) While there were plenty of fish and some meat stalls, there was also a restaurant serving all vegan meals.
On the subject of vegetarian-friendly food, it’s plentiful. I’ve been able to pick from quite a few salads and other plant-based dishes. I enjoyed a plate of Turkish eggs in Cobh (one of the best meals I’ve eaten across the entire trip!) and a great California-style salad with mango and avocado at a café in Kinsale. Pub menus almost always includes a vegetarian curry or pasta.
Alex’s friend who lives here had given us some restaurant suggestions in Cork. We ate well at Gallaghers, a gastropub downstairs from our flat. Around the corner were three restaurants noted in the Michelin guide; they hadn’t won any stars, but I believe even being mentioned in the guide is a feat. From the wonderfully fresh ingredients at the English Market to the concentration of great restaurants, it seems like County Cork is deserving of its foodie reputation.
We have also observed that there is more “ethnic” food than we remember the last time we were in Europe (8 years ago for me, 9 for Alex). Walsh’s SuperValu, the largest of the grocery stores in Cahersiveen, has multiple shelves of Mexican and Asian products—tacos, salsa, soy sauce, rice noodles, bottles of curry, and more. ALDI sells several prepackaged curry dinners. Perhaps there’s been more immigration to this part of Ireland than we realized, or perhaps globalization and the Internet have made recipes from around the world more wildly known and the ingredients needed to make them more available.
Seafood
As a mostly vegetarian-technically-pescatarian, sampling the local specialties can often be challenging since so many dishes revolve around meat. No schnitzel for me in Vienna. No prosciutto or carbonara in Italy. There won’t be any chorizo or jamón ibérico when we get to Spain. The good thing about island countries is they tend to consume a lot of seafood. While even my seafood eating is limited (no shellfish), it opens me up to other options: sushi, fish curry, various grilled and baked fishes, and smoked salmon, which is one of my favorite foods.
As one of these island nations, Ireland has plenty of seafood. Most pubs and restaurants serve fish and chips.1 At this point, we’ve sampled fish and chips at six locations, everything from upscale restaurants to our local takeaway (essentially a fast-food joint for burgers and fried foods). These dishes are made with whatever white fish is freshest that day, often cod or hake. While the more “gourmet” fish and chips have been the best, even the fish and chips from the takeaway was decent because we could tell that the fish was very, very fresh.
There are plenty of fish offerings beyond fish and chips. I had hake in a lemon cream sauce with mashed potatoes at a pub in Killarney. Alex ordered the cod Provençal at a pub here in Cahersiveen. It seems to be a common choice, since the waiter went “ah yes, the cod prov” as he wrote down the order. I also tried a salmon wrapped in spinach and puff pastry, which I think may go by the name “salmon wellington.” If we ate more shellfish, we could enjoy fresh oysters, lobster, and more. (Also, while the fish itself is very good, the sides are not always. They do a lot of boiled vegetables here, and plain, boiled vegetables are, objectively, the worst way to consume vegetables.)
You don’t need to dine out to find fresh fish. While looking around at restaurants in Cork, I discovered a small chain called Quinlan’s, which operates seafood shops, a casual seafood bar chain, and a few more upscale restaurants. It actually originates from Cahersiveen, and there is a Quinlan’s fish shop here.
While Quinlan’s sells locally caught and high-quality fish, it doesn’t break the bank. We purchased enough sea bass to feed us both for one dinner for only €7. The salmon is priced higher, but we can still buy enough for both of us for only €10-11 euros. It’s also about €10 for 200 g (about 7 oz) of Quinlan’s smoked salmon. Although if you want a non-gourmet option, the grocery stores sell 150 g of smoked salmon (a little over 5 oz) for only €3.99.
Dairy
I suspect when I say “Irish dairy products,” you think of Kerrygold butter. Over the past couple of decades, gold, foil-wrapped bricks of Kerrygold have become ubiquitous in American grocery stores. If you have ever unwrapped one, you’ll know that it’s a very bright yellow color and has a high fat content. Kerrygold broke into the US market by presenting itself as a “grass-fed, all-natural, hormone-free” product and then sending young Irish interns to negotiate directly with American stores (like Trader Joe’s) and shoppers. It’s now the #2 most popular butter in the US, after only Land O’Lakes.
Alex and I saw many of those grass-fed, all-natural, hormone-free cows on our train journey across the country—and simply taking a few hikes around our town. When you see cows happily munching away at grass in a large field they can roam about as they please, it’s hard to feel bad about consuming milk, cheddar cheese, and other dairy products.
While I don’t have the heart—or rather, stomach—to become a vegan, I do sometimes feel guilty that I continue to consume dairy products in the US that likely weren’t produced in the most ethical way. I have come to assume that most American “family” farms are actually large corporate conglomerates using nefarious practices. I have a perception that American cows are fed things they wouldn’t eat naturally, like corn and soy.
I tried to factcheck my assumption; maybe these “unnatural” foods represent a small part of their diets and maybe it’s okay for cows to eat things that aren’t grass anyway. I found a funny three-page infographic from some division of the USDA that claims cows can eat human byproducts like citrus pulp, candy waste, and bakery waste. While I can imagine cows eating some ground soybeans and hops, it doesn’t seem quite right that they’re eating stale donuts. A regional division of the American Diary Association wrote an article that frames this as cows being “great recyclers” who eat things that we would otherwise throw away. I don’t know anything about dairy farming beside the Internet pages I read to write this post, but I am a little skeptical that ground up chocolate and baked goods make for healthy cows.
So it's easy to conclude that those Irish cows in the fields around us are living a better life. But is Irish dairy really “better” than US dairy? Are these seemingly happy cows near us supplying the dairy we buy at our local store? Are there no giant dairy farm factories hiding somewhere where the cows are kept in small indoor pens and fed only corn and soybeans? Are these farms really family-owned or are they secretly giant commercial organizations?
It seems like Ireland’s 1.5 million dairy cows do mainly eat grass. I found one dairy conglomerate that advertises their cows eat grass “up to 300 days a year.” This seems to translate to a “relatively low” yield of milk per cow. (In addition to the genetics of different cow breeds, it seems like a less grassy diet leads to increased milk production.) However, it seems like Irish cows also spend 4-5 months of the year inside (likely during the winter), and they consume less grass during those months.
It’s tricky for me to diagnose how much of the Irish dairy industry is actually controlled by small family farms. There are over 18,000 dairy farmers in the country, and the industry presents itself as being farmer-owned and controlled. Diary cooperatives were established in the late nineteenth century. Today, there are 10 milk processors and 17 milk purchasing co-ops.2 But these do seem to be large, corporate-like businesses.
Ultimately, I think but cannot confirm that Irish dairy—including the 21% of Irish butter that is exported to the US—is probably “better” and comes from (mostly) grass-fed cows. In the meantime, we’ll continue to enjoy fresh Irish milk, cheese (mainly cheddar), and the occasional ice cream.
A friendly reminder that in the UK and Ireland chips=French fries and crisps=chips.
Kerrygold, by the way, is produced by Ornua, a cooperative whose members are the dairy cooperatives. It was originally set up by the Irish government and is responsible for exporting Irish dairy.