Traditional Irish Cooking

Saintly Soup: Maura Laverty’s Feasting Galore

I have long been a fan of Maura Laverty. I was delighted to receive as a Christmas present from my brother a copy of a book by her called Feasting Galore: Recipes and Food Lore from the Emerald Isle. For more on Maura Laverty, and as background to this post, it might be a good idea to go back now and read my post Kind Cooking.

Feasting Galore appears to have been a book written (or rather compiled, as it seems to have borrowed stories and recipes from her other books) especially for the American market (Emerald Isle in the title is a clue). One of those books, of course, was Full and Plenty and there’s great news, by the way for Maura fans – Mercier Press, who owns the publishing rights to Full and Plenty and currently has an abridged version available, is going to re-issue it in full later this year.* I’ll be lining up!

The forward to Feasting Galore is by Robert Briscoe, the Lord Mayor of Dublin in the 1950s and early 60s (below, with JFK on his state visit in 1963). In his remarks he comes up with the following startling claim, Her knowledge of Irish traditional cooking makes her a leader in this field, and this knowledge she has gained from a detailed study of the lives of the early Irish Saints which are our chief source of information concerning the domestic ways of the ancient Irish. Having read something of Bob Briscoe as he was universally known in Dublin, I can see his tongue firmly in his cheek here and his audience in mind. And having read the book, I see Maura laughing her way through the whole project.

Now, as my readers know, I love a good saint. Briscoe’s reference was irresistible and sent me searching through the book for all the saintly references. I found lots of them! Before I get to the Saints though, I thought you might like a rundown on some of the traditional Irish recipes we don’t hear much about nowadays. After reading the list you might feel there are good reasons for that.

Let’s start with the vegetables. We begin with Brandon Parslied Potatoes, and move on to Slieve na mBan Carrots before reaching Cauliflower Souse. This is followed by Haggerty, Leekie Manglam, Nettle Briseach, Pease Pudding, Potato Collops, and Potato Scrapple. And of course Braised Cabbage and Colcannon make an appearance along with Dulce Champ.

I think you’d have to agree that of all of these Leekie Manglam is the one that needs to be investigated. So here is the story as given by Maura Laverty.

Leeks have always occupied a favoured place in Irish cooking – and with good reason. Their popularity dates back to the days of Saint Patrick. One day, so the story goes, a Chieftain who was being driven out of his mind by his pregnant wife’s demands for leeks (then out of season), employed the Saint’s help. Saint Patrick took a few juicy rushes, blessed them, and turned them into leeks which immediately cured the unfortunate woman’s “longing sickness“ and brought peace to her harassed husband. There and then Saint Patrick ordained that any woman suffering from the “longing sickness“ (modern doctors call it “pica“ or “morbid craving“) should be cured if she ate any member of the onion family.

So now you know! And here is the recipe.

Ingredients: One third recipe for Lardy cakes, three large leeks, four slices streaky bacon, half cup breadcrumbs, quarter cup milk, pepper and salt to taste, one egg.e

Method: parboil the leeks, drain, and cut them into very thin slices, add the diced bacon, mix in crumbs, milk, and seasoning. Divide the pastry in two. Use half to line a pie plate. Fill with the leek mixture. Brush edges with water. Cover with a lid of pastry. Press edges firmly together and flute. Brush with beaten egg and bake 30 minutes in a 425° oven.

As with other traditional Irish cookbooks (see this post about Monica Sheridan for example) every piece of an animal is used. There are recipes for Brawn, Cock of the North, Coddled Coneen, Griskins, Haslett, Pig’s Cheek, Trotters, and Tripe. There’s a bewildering variety of jams, jellies, scented jellies, marmalades and chutneys.

But what about the saints I hear you ask? Well, we’ve already had a taste of Saint Patrick so here’s one about Saint Columba and the recipe is for something called Brothchán Buidhe. Pronounced brohawn bwee, it means yellow broth, which is a savoury concoction of vegetable stock thickened with oatmeal and enriched with milk. It was, Laverty tells us, the favourite pottage of Saint Columba.

When Lent came around the Saint decided to mortify himself with ersatz broth, so he instructed his cook to put nothing into the broth pot except water and nettles, with a taste of salt on Sundays.

“Is nothing else to go into it, your reverence?” asked the cook in horror. “Nothing except what comes out of the potstick,” the Saint replied sternly.

This went on for two weeks. The Saint grew thinner and weaker, and the cook grew more and more worried. And then, all of a sudden, Saint Columbus started to put on weight again and the worried look left the cook’s face. The devoted lay brother had made himself a hollow potstick down which he poured milk and oatmeal. Thus he was able to preserve his master from starvation and himself from the horrible sins of disobedience and lies.

When questioned by the Saint he was able to assure him honestly that nothing went into the broth save what came out of the pot stick.

I will save you from the recipe because it looks very unappetising indeed and I can’t imagine anyone would want to make it for any reason.

The next Saint we encounter is Saint Keevóg, and he comes at the end of a version of the Children of Lir. For the complete and very sad story of the four children who were turned into swans by their wicked stepmother, you can read Robert‘s post here. Here’s Maura’s ending:

At long last the day came when they heard the mass bell of Saint Keevog. The four swans winged their way to the Saint’s little church where they were baptised. It is said that immediately after their baptism, their feathers fell from them and they reverted to human form, but incredibly aged and wrinkled.… And this story of the children of Lir explains why Swan, which was considered royal food elsewhere, is never mentioned in accounts of ancient Irish banquets. Until this day to kill a swan is an unforgivable sin in Ireland.

From poetry to pike is not such a long step, particularly when the pike is from Lake Derravara and is made into a poem of a dish in this way. 

This is followed for a recipe for Pike Derravara – a bit of a stretch perhaps. Keevog is St Mochaemóg, the founder of Liathmore monastery about which we wrote here. In Robert’s version he is called Saint Kemoc, a hermit who found them, four ancient, withered people.

Did the cookie, Maura Laverty asks us, come from Ireland? Here is her answer.

The first written mention of cookies occurs in the ancient Book of Lismore.

It seems that when Saint Patrick came to Ireland he found that Ogham – the only form of writing then known here – was the closely guarded secret of the Druids. Patrick in his wisdom realised that education was a necessary preliminary to conversion from paganism, and he introduced the Roman alphabet to the people to whom he was bringing the gifts of enlightenment and salvation.

In the book of Lismore we are told that the child who grew up to be Saint Columcille found difficulty in learning the alphabet. To encourage him his mother baked A-B-C cookies with which he was rewarded as he mastered letter after letter.

It is very probable that this sweet way of coaxing children to learn became common throughout Ireland. And I think it quite likely that it was introduced to America by Saint Brendan the Navigator who discovered the New World long before Columbus set foot there.

And so it goes on, over-the-top names and recipes designed to, er, feed every leprechaun-and-shamrock preconceived notion that Americans might have of the Irish. There’s a chapter on Fast-Day Feasts, and recipes for Convent Loaf and Nun’s Cake. I can only imagine the fun she had writing it. The illustrations, by Bill O’Gorman (I’ve found nothing about him – anyone?) also add to the chuckles – it’s hard to imagine a more stereotyped set of cartoons.

Each chapter is preceded by a story, mostly around the theme of food being the way to a man’s heart, and that age, girth or criminal records were no impediments to true love. I leave you with the one with which she introduces the vegetable chapter. 

Now, seeing as it’s the season that’s in it, I’m off to cook up some St Brigid’s broth.

*Many thanks to Mercier Press – although they do not claim rights for Feasting Galore, I appreciate that stories and recipes in it have been taken from Full and Plenty. Feasting Galore was issued by Hippocrene Books, but is no longer in their catalogue.

Monica Sheridan’s My Irish Cook Book

Last year I decided to make Christmas cake according to Monica Sheridan’s recipe, which I remembered from my childhood. A comment from a reader got me curious about her other Christmas recipes and I got out my dog-eared copy of My Irish Cook Book to look up how to make a traditional plum pudding. Fatal mistake! Instead of cracking eggs and and soaking fruit I have been chuckling over the book and insisting that Robert listens as I read bits out loud.

I have already posted about Monica’s Kitchen and the delights it contains. The audience for that book was the modern Irish home cook (assumed to be female) of the 1960s. My Irish Cook Book focuses on traditional Irish foods and recipes. The emphasis is on fresh ingredients and fairly simple cooking methods – the kind of thing we call Slow Food nowadays. But because it’s about Irish food it is also an extended piece of nostalgia, replete with dewy-eyed memories of her childhood and her trademark stories and trenchant wit.

The book starts with an essay on the cooking traditions of her family, from her great-grandmother cooking stews in a bastable oven over an open fire, to her grandmother (who actually had running water from a tap!) to her mother who continued to churn her own butter, cure her own bacon, bake her own bread and make the most outlandish hats with feathers purloined from the cock.

The photographs above and below, by the way, are from my own copy of the book A Taste of Ireland by Theodora FitzGibbon – a book that deserves its own post one day. The photo above is labelled A traditional Irish Kitchen, about 1888, and the one below is of the ancestral home of US President William McKinley in Co Antrim.

Her soup chapter begins thus:

The Geography we learn at school tells us that Ireland has a moderate climate, warmed by the Gulf Stream without any great variations of temperature either in summer or winter. This is a flagrant piece of Celtic exaggeration…

You wouldn’t be long in Ireland before realising that soup is an essential part of our daily fare. Like whiskey it is our internal central heating, raising the temperature of the body and thawing out the gastric juices so that they will be receptive to the delights that are to follow. Remember, in Ireland, except in the cities, domestic central heating is still a rarity (we are a credulous people and believe what we read in the geography books). We need soup to warm us.

This chapter includes instructions for making a Nettle Tonic. This essentially involves boiling a pound of young nettles in water. Strain and drink a tumblerful, hot or cold, first thing in the morning. Guaranteed to put roses in your cheeks and a glint in your eye. Not pleasant, of course, but you must suffer to be beautiful.

This is the same pre-feminist era woman of Monica’s Kitchen: she gives the following directions for serving steak and fried onions.

Carve the steak by cutting it in thick slices along the grain of the meat. Give a good slice of the fillet to your most important male guest (all men are knowledgeable about steak – all that expense-account eating, I’m sure) and never you mind about his wife. The chances are she is so delighted to be away from her own kitchen stove she won’t mind what she gets.

There are lots of recipes for offal, and indeed as children we ate lots of organ meats – although I drew the line at tripe and my mother finally relented after an epic battle of wills. Kidneys, tongue, liver, sweetbreads, heads, brains, cheeks…all get a look in.

Traditional Cork Christmas Meats at the English Market

Some Cork specialties get special attention, like Skirts and Bodices. Bodices are pickled spareribs because they are like the boned bodices our grandmothers wore and skirts are the fluted trimmings that are cut away from the pork steak. Drisheens sound, er, appetising: They are made from sheep’s blood. In appearance they resemble a blown-up bicycle tyre, but they have a wonderful texture, like baked egg custard. Serve with butter, she recommends, flavoured with tansy. Crubeens, meanwhile, are pigs’ trotters. Crubeens should always be eaten with your fingers. They lose half of their magic if you attack them with a refined knife and fork. You will need a bath afterwards, of course, but their sweet savour is well worth the extra ablution.

Tripe and Drisheen courtesy of the Eat This Town blog

She finishes the pork section with the following: I will tell you an interesting thing about ham. The true ham epicure will always look for the left ham of a pig. It is considered more tender and delicate. You see, the pig scratches himself with the right leg and consequently exercises it far more. So now you know!

There are many recipes for poultry, some of which involve boiling the fowl, or, in the case of Uncle George’s Turkey, injecting cream into the breast with a syringe. Chickens, of course, must be young – a digression is called for: Describing a woman of certain age, my mother would often say, “She wouldn’t tear in the plucking” (young birds have very delicate skin that breaks easily with inept plucking) or, “A chicken of her age wouldn’t fall off the roost.” Mother had a tongue that would clip a hedge.

Monica in 1968, from the Australian Womens' Weekly
Monica in 1968, from the Australian Womens’ Weekly

When Monica talks about a soufflé (although she doesn’t provide a recipe) she says, it should rise gradually, like a careful civil servant, consolidating its position on the way up. She devotes five pages to talking about soda bread before she even gets to a recipe for it. But that recipe is one I used often, when I lived in Canada, before the days of the internet opened up a world of online recipes. I can attest that it’s a good one.

But, like Monica, I digress – my intention was to give her recipe for plum pudding. Alas, it is hardly a recipe – little more than a list of ingredients followed by instructions to mix it all together, put into greased pudding dishes, and boil for 5 hours. Like many of her recipes, it calls for booze – in this case a glass of whiskey (she has a whole chapter on ‘Drink’). So instead of detailing how to make the plum pudding I will leave you with her approach to serving it.

The most exciting thing about a plum pudding is the presentation. To capture the spirit of Christmas it must come to the table lapped in blue flames – and this can be quite tricky with the weak quality of booze nowadays. When I was young we always doused the pudding in poteen and you got a flame that would singe the rafters. To make sure of a good flame it is most important to warm the spirit (cheap brandy is better than whiskey) before pouring it over the pudding.

If you want to make a spectacular entrance to the dining-room with the flaming pudding held on high, this is what you do. Scoop out a hole in the top of the pudding and place half and empty upturned eggshell in the hole. Fill the shell with warmed brandy, ignite and move the dish to spill out the spirit as you enter the dining-room.*

I couldn’t resist this photo of a flaming pudding, which is from Jamie Oliver

In preparing this post I looked up lots of plum pudding recipes, then decided to buy one from my favourite market stall. But if you really want to make a traditional Irish one, Brenda Costigan’s mother’s recipe, from the Independent, looks like a wonderful, rich, boozy pudding that would have done Monica proud.

*Disclaimer: Roaringwater Journal will not be responsible for house fires caused by following these directions.