Irish whiskey history from a fatal Christmas in 1405 to today: what the 1608 Bushmills licence really was, the 1779 still law, Aeneas Coffey, Dublin’s distilling giants, the collapse and the comeback from Cooley. Plus the four styles, how it differs from Scotch and bourbon, and how to drink it.
Why is Irish butter so yellow, and does it really have more fat? Here’s what grass does to butter, why the 82% claim is only half true, how to bake with salted and unsalted Irish butter, plus Cork’s butter roads, 3,500 years of bog butter and the old May Eve fear of butter-stealing neighbours.
A proper Irish scones recipe with buttermilk, cold butter and self-raising flour, in metric and US cups, plus fruit (sultana), brown wholemeal, old-style soda and cheese versions. Then the five rules for tall, light scones (never twist the cutter), a self-raising flour swap for US bakers, freezing baked and unbaked scones, the jam-or-cream question, Irish vs English vs American scones, what 1930s Irish schoolchildren recorded about scones, and how to say scone in English and Irish.
A simple Irish porter cake recipe in metric and US measures: fruit soaked overnight in stout, a rubbed-in spiced batter and about 2 hours in the oven, with no marzipan or icing. Plus tin sizes, the skewer test, storing and feeding, alcohol-light and gluten-free swaps, troubleshooting, what porter was, how it became the drink of Dublin, and why the oldest recipes found so far aren’t Irish.
A make-ahead Irish Christmas pudding with stout and Irish whiskey, in metric and US measures, using suet or butter, in a basin or the old cloth. Then how to store and feed it, flame it safely, make brandy butter and whiskey sauce and hide a coin with care, plus where Stir-up Sunday really comes from and the road from plum pottage to the Irish kitchen.
A 5-minute blender recipe for homemade Irish cream, in metric and US measures, plus versions without condensed milk, with eggs (the safe way), without alcohol and as a coffee creamer. Then the honest answer on how long it keeps, how to bottle and label it as a Christmas gift, how Baileys was really invented in a Soho kitchen in 1973, why Irish Cream is a protected name, and the difference between Irish cream and Baileys.
A creamy Irish seafood chowder recipe in metric and US measures: natural smoked haddock, salmon or white fish, mussels and prawns in a leek and potato base with milk and cream, served with brown bread. Plus US shopping notes (finnan haddie, shrimp vs Dublin Bay prawns), a slow cooker method, storage advice, how Irish chowder differs from New England clam chowder, where the word chowder comes from, why chowder never turns up in the 1930s Schools’ Collection, and the fishing heritage of Kinsale and Galway’s Claddagh.
A proper Irish brown bread recipe, in metric and US cups: a tin-baked wholemeal soda loaf with coarse wholemeal, oats, wheat bran, wheat germ, buttermilk and an optional spoonful of treacle, with no yeast and no kneading. Plus US flour swaps (Irish-style flour, or whole wheat plus bran), a full Guinness and treacle brown bread, bread machine and freezing notes, the Northern Irish name ‘wheaten’, 1930s Schools’ Collection accounts of home baking, the Emergency’s ‘black bread’ and the Irish words for it all.
A proper Dublin coddle recipe in metric and US measures: pork sausages, back rashers, onions and potatoes simmered gently with parsley, plus browned, oven, slow cooker and Dutch oven versions. Then the white, brown and black coddle argument, the disputed carrots, barley and cabbage, where the word coddle comes from, the tenement and Saturday-night history (including a 1980 Ringsend memory of coddle as a treat), and what’s really true about Swift, O’Casey and Joyce.
What is black pudding? Ireland’s blood sausage explained: what goes into it (pig’s or beef blood, fat, oatmeal, onion and spices), how it tastes, how white pudding and Cork’s drisheen differ, the history from a medieval Irish satire to the pig killing and the 2011 state dinner, the story of Clonakilty, Irish vs British puddings such as Stornoway, why Irish brands are hard to find in the US (and why it isn’t banned there), and how to cook it in a pan, oven or air fryer, with a seared scallop, black pudding and apple recipe.
A proper Irish apple cake recipe in metric and US cups: a soft sponge baked around sharp Bramley apples, with a buttery crumble top and a real egg custard to pour over. Then Granny Smith swaps for US bakers, apple and blackberry, almond and gluten-free variations, storing and freezing, why the Bramley (an English apple whose first recorded sale fell on Halloween 1862) became the apple Irish bakers reach for, how Armagh became the Orchard County, the 1930s Halloween suppers where an apple cake hid a ring and a button, the apples of the Irish Otherworld, and the difference between an Irish apple tart, apple cake and apple crumble.
The full Irish breakfast explained: rashers, sausages, black and white pudding, eggs, grilled tomato, mushrooms and soda bread, plus the baked bean debate, boxty and the Ulster fry with its soda farls and potato bread. Then a step-by-step recipe that gets everything hot at once, what the puddings are really made of, the real history from pig killings and stirabout to the Celtic Tiger breakfast roll, where to buy Irish rashers abroad, and whether a fry really cures a hangover.
A proper pan boxty recipe in metric and US measures: grated raw potato squeezed dry, mashed potato, flour and buttermilk, cooked on a griddle. Then tips on squeezing and griddle heat, filled-pancake and dumpling variations, the three old kinds of boxty (pan, boiled and loaf), where boxty comes from county by county, how it differs from potato cakes, the honest story of the name bacstaí (poor-house bread or bakehouse?), the ‘Boxty on the griddle’ rhyme from the 1930s Schools’ Collection, and William Carleton’s 1841 description of boxty as an Irish luxury.
A proper Irish soda bread recipe with four ingredients (flour, bread soda, salt and buttermilk) in metric and US cups, plus brown bread, spotted dog and griddle farl variations, troubleshooting, storage and freezing. Then the real history: the 1836 Newry Telegraph recipe, baking in the bastible over the fire, why the cross on top was meant to bless the bread and keep the fairies off it, farls in Ulster, and how the sweet American Irish soda bread differs.
A proper Irish colcannon recipe, with metric and US measures: floury potatoes, kale or cabbage, scallions, hot milk and plenty of butter. Then how to hide a Halloween charm safely, what the ring, coin, button and thimble meant county by county in the 1930s Schools’ Collection, the plates of colcannon left out for the dead, the fairies and the púca, where the name cál ceannann comes from, and how colcannon differs from champ.