Although I am only 1/4 Irish— my Grandfather Maloney’s Mom and Dad emigrated from County Claire in the 1800s—I feel a bond to that country. The thought of writing another article about St. Paddy’s day and another Irish stew just seemed so trite; at least until I took a bit of time and did some reading about Irish food history.

            I discovered that St. Pat’s day is about far more than green beer; it is a celebration of a culture that survived incredible hardships, and about people like my ancestors who came to Canada and made this country the eclectic (eccentric?) mixture of characters it is today.

            If you could do a time machine thing, or walk through a rock like Claire in Outlander (Alright, I know that was in Scotland!), going back 500 years, you would find a country of farms and fishing villages, people living off the land eating a variety of healthy foods either grown on their own family farm or bartered from hunters and fishermen. Their diets and lifestyles were not unlike that you would find here on the Gulf Islands, minus the supermarkets.

            Like many cultures of the time, the principal means of cooking these local foods was in a large cast iron pot or cauldron. This meant that most of the daily meals consisted of stews and soups made with seafood (clams, oyster, shrimps, mussels, lobster, cockles,) fresh and salt water fish (salmon, pike, trout, cod, mackerel,)  game (wild boar, venison, duck,) and domesticated animals (mutton, pork, beef, poultry.)

            Meats were also roasted on a spit and both fish and meats were salted and cured for storage over the winter (sausages, corned beef, bacon, herring, and salmon.)

            Barley, oats, and wheat were grown, used sometimes for bread, but more often as thickeners for stews and to make porridge which was eaten for breakfast and supper; hot or cold. They were also used for livestock feed. Corn was grown, but most of it went to making flavoured ale which the whole family would drink—it is not known just what the alcohol content was!

             Farmers made butter and cheeses from cows and goats, and there was always lots of milk to drink.

            Vegetables and fruits were largely scavenged form the wild: nettle, watercress, sorrel, wild leeks, blackberries, strawberries were just a few. Cabbage and kale were grown in gardens and provided a substantial part of the daily diet.    Seaweed was a common flavouring ingredient for many dishes, while honey was used on everything, even roasted meats, as well as for the making of mead, a fermented honey beverage.

            But nary a potato in sight!

            The potato didn’t arrive in Ireland until the 17^th century, after the Spaniards brought it back from South America. It grew well in Ireland due to climate and soil conditions, and grew fast. It provided a good source of nourishment that kept well over winter and it quickly became a staple in the diet, replacing more labour-intensive foods

            At this same time, dramatic political changes were occurring. The British were usurping much of the most fertile land for their own soldiers to live on. The bountiful forests and rivers were placed off-limits to the peasants, who now found themselves tenants on less productive land. Much of the country’s harvest was being shipped to England, leaving the land-poor Irish depending upon the potato more and more. It was unfortunate that a diet of potatoes did nothing to inhibit a huge population boom in the early 1700s.

            Ireland was suddenly a country of poor people.  This led the satirist Jonathan Swift to publish in 1729, “A Modest Proposal: for preventing the children of poor people in Ireland from being a burden to their parents or country, and for making them beneficial to the public.” I won’t go into details, but I remember reading it in high school English, and being horrified. You can find a copy easily on the internet.

            Those who were able to maintain their farms adapted to the new way of eating, now including potatoes in their everyday meals, but also being able to purchase a variety of foods from village grocers. It is from this group of people that many of the “traditional” dishes of Ireland arose: Irish stew, champ (potatoes and leeks,) colcannon (cabbage or kale, potatoes and leeks,) boxty (potato cakes,) oatbread, and Irish soda bread.

            But then came the one-two punch. In 1739, a long cold snap destroyed the harvest, killed cattle, and ruined the stored potato crop, causing over 300,000 deaths in the poorer population. This was followed in 1845 by the first of the potato blights which eventually caused the death of more than a million people and forcing over two million others to flee the country; as many as one-third of these emigrants died on the ships.

            You would think the Irish would never want to eat another spud, but it remains an integral part of their cuisine today. They have also returned to their pre-potato days, incorporating the local bounty from both land and sea into what are considered more traditional dishes. The Irish stew has become gourmet fare. “Braised Lamb shanks with barley and root vegetables” or “Mussels with potato and leeks” are just two of the recipes you will find in current Irish cookbooks.

            I have long suspected that getting plastered on green beer in a faux-Irish pub was not an appropriate way to acknowledge March 17^th.This St. Patrick’s day, I will proudly raise of glass of Irish whiskey to my Irish ancestors.