Tradition through and through
Unique Irish Farmhouse Cheeses
corned beef, spicy black and white puddings, dry-cured
and smoked ham and bacon; air-dried lamb and
Ireland’s farmhouse cheeses are superb, unique, and
venison, and turf-smoked beef. If you’re lucky enough
appreciated by cheese lovers al over the world. They
to be in the South and East of Ireland over Christmas,
have a common secret ingredient – the exceptional
spiced beef cooked in stout is a delicious and
quality of the milk, be it cows’, sheeps’ or goats’. Grass
memorable seasonal dish.
and herbage is Ireland’s principal crop and ‘white
foods’ (banbhianna) made from milk have been
Irish Traditional Baking
central to Irish food culture since Celtic times.
Explore the abundant and distinctive tradition of Irish
In Ireland, unlike our European neighbours, there are
baking. Home cooks and artisan bakeries use
no regional cheeses, such as Camembert or Parmesan,
Irish-grown produce (soft wheat and oat flour, eggs,
as each farmhouse cheese is unique to its maker and
richly flavoured Irish butter, tangy buttermilk, aromatic
the family farm. There are more than 75 farmhouse
honey, native fruits, berries and nuts) to produce an
cheesemakers, with a growing number producing
astonishing array of products that are subtle in flavour
cheese from organic milk. Some make a single cheese,
and varied in texture. The names may seem unfamiliar,
others a variety. Farmhouse cheeses are imbued with
but you should not miss out on biting into buttermilk
subtle flavours and aromas by using milk from a
scones, oatcakes, boxty, potato cakes, soda farls, Kerry
specific small area and taking full advantage of the
apple cake and porter cake.
unique flora, natural herbage, microclimate, geology,
and last, but certainly not least, the creativity and
Some of the tastiest are eaten on Irish festive days. For
personality of the cheesemaker.
example, St Brigid (Ireland’s second patron saint) is
associated with a delicious Cider Cake; while the fruity
Smoked, cured and spiced
Hallowe’en Barmbrack maintains the folk tradition of
containing within it fortune telling charms: a ring brings
The ancient Irish tradition of smoking food was dictated
marriage, a bean brings riches, a rag poverty and a
by the moist, humid climate that made air-drying
dried pea spinsterhood!
difficult. The Irish have always salt-cured or smoked
almost any food and have a particular liking for the
For all the Irish person’s love of sweet things, bread
unique flavour given by smoking using oak, beech
remains at the heart of Irish baking, and traditional
and sometimes turf.
brown soda bread (‘wheaten bread’, as it’s called in
Northern Ireland) is the best known. It’s made with
Visitors are often intrigued by the wide range and
wholemeal, soft wheat flour, raised with buttermilk
variety of seafood, meat, poultry and game that is
and bicarbonate of soda, and often features unusual
smoked. While Irish mild-cured salmon and dry-cured
flavouring ingredients that remain a closely guarded
smoked bacon are the best known, there are many
secret. The result is a bread of unique flavour and
other specialities, such as smoked mackerel, trout,
texture that always delights.
herring (kippers), eel and mussels; smoked duck and
chicken and occasionally game birds; meats, including
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