Irish Pride

The Irish food industry is in fine fettle, and confidence is at an all-time high. With a blossoming array of new artisan food products and a renewed focus on traditional Irish food to the fore, Niamh O’Reilly looks at a confident Irish food industry that’s leading the way globally.

1 Michelin-starred restaurants, €37 million worth of food and drink exports every day to 180 countries, and a billion-euro butter brand.

Not too shabby for a small island nation whose food was once perceived by many to be the bastion of corned beef and cabbage or the proverbial Irish Stew and little else. Quaint, traditional and twee.

Nothing wrong with the classics by the way, but in the last 40 years, we’ve begun to radically overhaul our relationship with food and today the sector is well and truly laying down a marker in the competitive “global kitchen”.

So what’s changed? In a word - confidence. Over the last few decades, we’ve started to invest heavily in ourselves and realise the inherent quality and richness of the produce we already have. Instead of only looking outwardly for food inspiration, we’ve started to turn our gaze towards our own, lush larder.

Irish staples like milk, cheese, potatoes and beef are of such high quality that they are now amongst the most sought-after in the world. Just look at Kerrygold butter which in 2019 became Ireland’s fi rst food brand to bank €1bn in sales. The reason? A recipe change? New milking methods? New packaging? No. It’s in large part down to the successful positioning of Kerrygold as a superior artisan product in the United States… and thus why it keeps showing up on everyone’s TikTok as the must have ingredient of all the top American foodTokers.

Today’s Irish food producers, restauranteurs and chefs are confident. They’ve taken the tenets of quaint, traditional and twee and turned them on their head, by embracing the fundamentals of what makes Irish food so good and elevating it to new heights.

Decades after the unofficial mother of Irish cuisine Myrtle Allen coined her then revolutionary philosophy of using locally sourced ingredients and changing her menu daily to reflect the seasons, it seems as though we’re finally cottoning-on to what we’ve had all along. Words like sustainable, organic, seasonal and local, were part of her day-to-day lexicon far before they became fashionable ideals. Now they're the cornerstone of our food industry.

San Sebastian has Pinxtos, Hong Kong has dumplings, Naples has pizza, Tennessee has slow-cooked BBQ, so why not lean into our traditional food heritage? There’s nothing wrong with being known for a particular type of dish, especially when it’s done very well. Interestingly, Irish Stew was named in the top 50 of the 500 food experiences in the world by Lonely Planet in 2018. Maybe it’s time to reclaim the often maligned dish of our childhood? Maybe it’s time to reframe how we view our traditional food in a more positive way.

Celebrated chef and daughter-in-law of Myrtle Allen, Darina Allen, tells of how years ago if someone important was visiting, the woman of the house would forsake her home-made brown bread and buy processed sliced pan instead, because that was considered the superior, more sophisticated product. Thankfully, there’s been a major 180 on that front, although let’s not go too far into the politics of homemade bread-making after lockdown.

Tying the food with the land has been a key feature in our history and now the concept is being used to the max.

Whether it’s turning traditional homemade brown bread into an ice cream flavour or embracing food trails like the Wild Atlantic Way, connecting the landscape to the richness of our food offering has made the Irish experience as much about the produce as anything else. In fact, a Fáilte Ireland food and drinks strategy report found that after their visit, tourists expressed praise for the “quality of Irish food, the high-quality food offering, the memorable food experiences and broad range of food types.”

Former Chapter One powerhouse and Michelin star chef Ross Lewis, recently told The Irish Times; “Irish chefs have stopped looking outwards for food influences and dishes, and realised the value of the natural, world-class produce we have on this island, and we all need to shout about it.”

Events such as fellow Michelin star chef JP McMahon’s Food on ­The Edge’s annual gathering of some of the best foodies in the world on the Wild Atlantic Way, are helping to further establish Ireland’s place on the world food map.

When you come down to it, it’s about belief and now we have it by the bucket full. We’re ready to roar about Irish food and how it’s the best thing since… well, a big, thick slice of homemade brown bread, with lashings of Irish butter.

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