Food Fact Friday: Irish Cuisine

Since I've been in the St. Patrick's Day mood, I thought I'd keep up the theme for Food Fact Friday this week. We've all heard of Bangers & Mash and Soda Bread. But there are many other traditional Irish dishes that most of us haven't even heard of. Here are a few...


Coddle: a dish associated with Dublin. It consists of layers of roughly sliced pork sausages and rashers (thinly sliced, somewhat fatty bacon) with sliced potatoes, and onions. The dish is semi-boiled, and semi-steamed in the stock produced by boiling the rashers and sausages. The only seasoning is usually salt, pepper, and occasionally parsley. It is considered a comfort food in Ireland, as it is inexpensive, easy to prepare and quick to cook. It is often eaten in the winter months.


Colcannon: is a food made from mashed potatoes, kale or cabbage, butter, salt, and pepper. It can contain other ingredients such as milk, leeks, onions, garlic, boiled ham or rashers. At one time it was a cheap, year-round staple food. An old Irish Halloween tradition was to serve colcannon with prizes of small coins concealed in it.



Boxty: is a traditional Irish potato pancake. The most popular version of the dish consists of finely grated, raw potato and mashed potato with flour, baking soda, buttermilk and sometimes egg. The mixture is fried on a griddle for a few minutes on each side, similar to a normal pancake. They can also be found in restaurants with various toppings and stuffings. The most noticeable difference between boxty and other fried potato dishes is its smooth, fine grained consistency.

You Say Potato: The Irish were the first to call potatoes "spuds". The name comes from a type of shovel used to dig up potato hills.