There have been welcome moves from policymakers in Ireland to do more to promote Irish food to tourists. I couldn’t agree more. Food is as intrinsic a part of culture as literature or music. And Irish food is overdue its moment.
In the last 10 years, first as a tourist and then a blow-in resident, I’ve seen the Irish food scene improve dramatically. And I’ve got some ideas about how we can do even more.
First, let me reassure you that I am not just another newly arrived know-it-all. Well, technically, I am still newly arrived and, I’m afraid, too often a bit of a know-it-all. But bear with me. This is not my first rodeo, as we used to say back in Texas.
It might seem hard to believe today, when southern California is regarded as being one of the best places to eat in the world, but it wasn’t always this way.
When I moved to Los Angeles in the mid-1980s, the general impression was that there was nothing to eat there beyond hamburgers and cheap Mexican food.
There was, of course, more to it than that. There were some great restaurants already, a diverse population, and a wealth of wonderful ingredients. But all of that was bubbling just beneath the surface.
I get the same feeling here in Ireland today. As witnessed by the recent attention from Michelin, we already have restaurants as good as you’ll find most anywhere. And the raw ingredients! Irish beef and lamb, cheeses and other dairy products, and seafood are absolutely first rate by any measure.
Still, I remember my first trip to Ireland as a food-loving tourist, anxious to dive into the local fare. What did I find on most menus? Hamburgers, an Irish version of curry, and what seems to be the ubiquitous “Cajun chicken sandwich”, something I don’t ever remember eating in Louisiana.
This is the gastronomic equivalent of music lovers seeking out a grand seisiún and finding an Eagles cover band. Mind you, there’s nothing wrong with the Eagles (or with a good hamburger), but if you’re counting on that to lure tourists, you’re probably missing the target.
In 2013, a younger Russ Parsons teaches a couple how to prepare a pasta dish during his time as food editor of the Los Angeles Times. Photograph: Gary Friedman/Los Angeles Times via Getty Images
So what will it take for Ireland to claim its place in the food world? I hate to say it, but the first thing will be a little time. Change didn’t come to Los Angeles overnight. It took a couple of decades – years full of fits and starts, great leaps forward and disastrous setbacks.
You also can count on the fact that progress will not come in a straight line. There will be spectacular misses and great successes. There will be missed opportunities and lucky accidents.
But stay the course and we’ll get there. All the raw ingredients are here already. We have great meat raised by independent farmers and handled with care by real butchers. Our farmhouse cheeses are the equal of anywhere.
Perhaps our biggest missed opportunity is seafood. Lemon and black sole, turbot, John Dory, lobster, prawns, crab, even mackerel – what is caught off our shores is spectacular. Plus, we have some of the best farmed oysters and mussels I’ve ever eaten. Yet you rarely see seafood other than fish and chips on menus.
Long term, the most important thing to remember is that while great food scenes may be led from the top down, they are built from the ground up. All those top-rated restaurants may inspire, but it’s only when good food becomes a part of everyday life that you can consider yourself a food magnet. In fact, there are already many Irish chefs who are doing the right things and leading the way.
This certainly doesn’t mean fine dining on caviar and foie gras at your local takeaway. In fact, it’s quite the opposite. It means that street food and pub food should be prepared with the care they are due. And that home cooking regains its place as the foundation on which all else is built.
I suppose if I had to find one word to express what visitors to Ireland are looking for it would be “authenticity”. That’s a very divisive word in the food world – too often it is taken to mean rigorously holding to the one true version of every traditional recipe. As anyone who cooks knows, there is no such thing.
What I mean by authenticity is cooking the food you know best in the way it tastes best to you and the people you’re feeding. It also means finding the best native ingredients you can, and then treating them with the respect they deserve.
Wouldn’t it be something if we showed the same love for Irish food that we do for Irish music? This doesn’t mean menus frozen in amber with every dish coming straight from Myrtle Allen (though wouldn’t you love to find that someday?).
And it’s certainly not an all-or-nothing proposition. A few nods to tradition will be enough to satisfy most curious eaters. Keep your Cajun chicken if you or your customers really love it, but give us a bit of champ or – dare I suggest it – coddle as well.
I suppose what it all comes down to is self-confidence and that takes time to build. But Ireland does have great food traditions. And it certainly has great ingredients.
Trust in those and the rest – tourists included – will follow.