An account of Irish foods throughout the centuries and their special associations with wakes, weddings and the calendar feasts of the year. With frequent references to sources from literature and folklore, Brid Mahon charts the culinary history of Ireland.
Not terribly deep or detailed, then again it's 150 pages about the history of Irish food and drink, a few pages of recipes and an index with bibliography, so it's a good starting point for the topic but not a complete history of Irish food and drink. There's a lot of information in here about the changes in Irish food over time, though it was written in 1991, so it misses on the changes wrought by the Celtic Tiger on the Irish palette. Then again it's more about the pre-twentieth century food habits of Ireland.
It's interesting and not a bad springboard for further study
One of the interesting tidbits is about the Feast of St Martin, on the 11th of November, p 143 "no wheel of any kind should be turned on Martinmas, be it millwheel, spinning-wheel or cartweel - not even the heel of a stocking should be turned, which meant that no woman should knit on this day." Knitters would understand that strange compulsion to get the heel done once you start into it!
Worth reading for general information, not terribly deep.
Reading updates
-
Started reading
-
14 November, 2013:
Finished reading
-
14 November, 2013:
Reviewed