Irish cuisine — potatoes, dairy, meat, seafood. Hardy peasant tradition. Guinness, Irish coffee. Recently fine-dining revival.
Potatoes
Potato — Irish identity. Famine 1845-49 over million dead from potato blight. Today: colcannon (potatoes + cabbage), boxty (potato pancake), champ (potatoes + spring onions), Irish stew (lamb + potatoes + onions).
Irish Stew
National dish. Lamb + potatoes + onions + carrots + thyme. Slow-cooked. Originally peasant food, now restaurant classic. Variations with mutton (traditional) or beef.
Soda Bread
Soda bread — Irish identity. Made with bicarbonate of soda (not yeast), buttermilk. Brown soda bread (whole wheat) most common. With butter, cheese, smoked salmon.
Seafood
Atlantic coast — top quality. Galway Bay oysters, Dublin Bay prawns, Irish smoked salmon. Seafood chowder. Fish and chips Irish style.
Full Irish Breakfast
Bacon (rashers), sausage, egg, white pudding, black pudding, baked beans, tomato, mushroom, soda bread, tea. Like English but with white pudding and Irish breakfast tea (strong).
Guinness
Guinness Stout — national symbol since 1759 St James Gate Dublin. 10 million pints sold daily worldwide. Best poured slowly, 119.5 seconds. Tourists pilgrimage Guinness Storehouse.
Sweets
Barmbrack (fruit cake, Halloween — rings inside predict marriage), Christmas cake, scones, apple tart, Irish coffee (whiskey + coffee + cream invented Foynes Airport 1942).