Ireland’s Green Larder

by Margaret Hickey

Ireland's Green Larder tells the story of food and drink in Ireland, for the first time. From the ancient system of the Céide Fields, established a thousand years before the Pyramids were built, right up to today’s thriving food scene. Rather than focusing on battles and rulers, Margaret Hickey digs down to what has formed the day-to-day life of the people. It’s a glorious ramble through the centuries, drawing on diaries, letters, legal texts, ballads, government records, folklore and more. The story of how Queen Maeve died after being hit by a piece of hard cheese sits alongside a contemporary interview with one of Ireland’s magnificent cheese makers, and the tale of the author’s day in Clew Bay on the wild Atlantic coast, collecting the world’s freshest oysters, is countered by Jonathan Swift’s complaint about dubiously fresh salmon being sold on the streets of Dublin. Beautifully illustrated and dotted with recipes, there are chapters covering everything from strong tea to the Irish rituals and superstitions associated with food and drink. With a light touch and a flair for finding the most telling details, Hickey draws on years of research to bring this sweeping history brilliantly to life.

Genres: Food, History, Nonfiction, Ireland, Food and Drink

335 pages, Hardcover

First published June 26, 2018

About the author

Margaret Hickey is an award-winning author and playwright from North East Victoria. She has a PhD in Creative Writing and is deeply interested in rural lives and communities. She is the author of Cutters End and Stone Town.

Reviews

[Isabella Good · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved this book. A concise and and intelligent history of food and drink in Ireland. It was everything and more I hoped it would be. Fascinating stories and insights, lovingly and thoughtfully written. This will be a book I'll turn to again and again.

[Kayla Zabcia · Rating 3 out of 5]

I have mixed feelings about this book. On the one hand, it seems like it was researched fairly well, and I enjoyed the addition of more modern anecdotes from the author's friends and neighbors. On the other hand, the author is a bit spacey and all over the place, as well as slightly English-biased; for example, she makes clear that fish and seafoods weren't really considered a food of preference to the Irish people, and she seems to take issue with that, dedicating a surprisingly long chapter to something the Irish supposedly didn't much care for.

Each chapter focused on a specific food type (dairy products, poultry, the potato, etc.), but the subheadings in the chapters were a bit randomly cast about, and often seemed to end abruptly, as if the thought was unfinished. This is especially the case in the chapter about the potato, in which she discusses the potato blight.

Overall, it's a very interesting and illuminating book that would've benefited from a better editing process.

[Fiona Hurley · Rating 4 out of 5]

A look at food throughout Irish history, from feast to famine. Conversational style merges with thorough research to make this book readable and informative.

[Garden Utensil]

organized by type of food not by time period
not footnoted, so hard to connect source with info (and info with time period)
general narrative is sympathetic to plight of underprivileged & respecting monks/monasteries as sites of innovation (the latter claim might be misleading in terms of how it overstates amount of innovation happening???)

but still interesting! getting some tidbits
Monks as cattle breeders
good overview of what you can make from milk + types of (sour) milk, very useful vocabulary
farmers bringing animals into their homes rather than stables/barns during bad weather (for extra heat + safeguarding against thieves)

[Caroline · Rating 2 out of 5]

Did not finish

[Ali Crighton · Rating 4 out of 5]

so interesting

[MaryJo Hansen · Rating 5 out of 5]

The subtitle of this book is "the definitive history of Irish food and drink" and definitive it is! Exhaustive, detailed, well-written well-researched from many sources including ballads and poems, and entertaining. not only does the author trace the various foods and drinks eaten by the Irish but she delves back into pre-history, Celtic times, all the way up to the present. It also acts as a social history of the Irish with an emphasis on the farmers and rural peoples, not the anglo-Irish manors.
So what did they eat? Mainly dairy, beef, lamb, potatoes of course, a few vegetables. Because there was not much cross-cultural immigration, their diets were bland and plain for the most part.
They did not even take much advantage of the fish which is curious since they are a small island.

[Leslie Landrigan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Informative and well written