Irish Traditional Cooking: Over 300 Recipes from Irelan… (2024)

This is the first one of Chef Allen’s cookbooks (she has many) that I’ve used, and it’s outstanding. The easy to follow recipes are accompanied by a fair bit of food history and great photographs. Two standouts were the Guinness Irish stew and the soda bread. Both very simple, and very, very delicious. The recipes are also not fussy; I’m not a baker, and not all that precise with my measurements when cooking, and the soda bread didn’t seem to mind. The food is authentic, according to my friend from Cork. There is an entire chapter on offal, too, so if you want more modern Irish cuisine this may not the book for you.

Found the historical bits informative. Disliked the formatting as everything felt a bit jammed in and pictures were minimal. Not a book I'm apt to cook from but the second half holds more promise than the first.

This is my pick for the BookRiot 2020 Read Harder challenge task# 13. Read a book about a cuisine you've never tried before.

There is a chapter dedicated to potatoes. I think I'm in love.

I'm not really a fan of this style of cookbook. Saved some recipes to try later!

A thorough deep dive into the food of Ireland, pre-famine and post. These recipes can be made in modern kitchens (a few ingredients may be tricky to source) because her directions are detailed; and this food is still being cooked today. The history behind each recipe is fascinating.

From the cover: "Darina Allen's beautiful and unpretentious vision of cooking is connected to the land, its seasons, and to the artisan producers. I find this book important and irresistible." --Alice Waters, Chez Panisse

I honestly wonder if people get paid for their endorsem*nts....... The book is printed on semi-slick paper, with a smattering of pictures of the actual dishes, full two page color photos for each chapter's title page (an introduction printed over the center faded-out portion of the photo. There are several recipes per page, divided by triple lines, in small difficult to read print.

Not all recipes have a list of ingredients and those that do, do not all have measurements..... Each recipe contains a short to medium length story above the instructions so it is difficult to tell which part is which. There are a lot of (personal) stories intermingled w/ the recipes..... This is a difficult book to read and cook from.

Contents include: Introduction; Forward; Broths & soups; Eggs; Fish; Game; Poultry; Lamb; Beef; Pork (you get a partial lesson on how to dress a pig); Offal; Potatoes; Vegetables; Food from the wild; Dessets; Pancakes; breads; Oatmeal & other grains; Cakes & biscuits; and the irish pantry. These are followed by: Appendix 1, Cheeses & cheesemaking in Ireland; Appendix 2, the Potato & the famine; Appendix 3, Cooking pits of the Fianna; An Irish food chronology; Index; Bibliography; and Acknowledgements.

Recipes include: Potato & fresh herb soup; Potted Ballycotton shrimp; Ballymaloe hot buttered lobster; Kidney soup; Eels; Ray; Crubeens (pigs' feet); Collared head; Black pudding Galaway; Duck blood; Corned mutton; Dublin coddle; Carrigeen moss pudding; Dandelion coffee; Mead; Trish Archer's Gaelic coffee; and Apple custard pie.

As you can tell by the list of recipes, these are very "Traditional" recipes, ones that you most likely will not find elsewhere..... This is what gave the book its additional 1/2 Star.

I received this cookbook as a Christmas Gift and have used it several times. Everything I've made so far has been wonderful. The recipes are easy to follow and delicious. There are wonderful pictures and interesting tid bits through out. A great cook book for experts and novices. A wide variety of food and dishes.

I adore this book! Not only do you have hundreds of authentic Irish recipes but you learn so much about the history of food in Ireland. I am definitely going to have to find a used copy to buy for my personal library. Highly recommended!

Lots of traditional recipes, but I probably won't cook from it. Can find the recipes I'd use elsewhere.

Guess who will be making ginger beer next weekend??!!

It's not just a cookbook. Every recipe explains the tradition and history behind the food. Good read and good recipes too.

Interesting historically, but less so aesthetically. Difficult to read and with some unclear terms.

Some things I can never even contemplate of making, but others intrigue me.