[Sca-cooks] Spices and the Irish Common folk

[Phil Troy / G. Tacitus Adamantius]

On Mar 24, 2006, at 11:53 PM, Susan Fox wrote:

> \You have to look at the cultural perspective.  These folks were  
> raised on
> stories like the Tain Bo Cuailnge, where cattle = wealth.  Also  
> take into
> account that seafood is often associated with Fast Days, and  
> therefore fish
> = deprivation, no matter how lovely and fresh it is.

Not to mention the fact that a lot of Irish seafood is exported (I  
hear you can't get a decent Idaho potato in Idaho), and then the fact  
that tenant farmers were told, for a couple of hundred years, what to  
grow, which presumably changed Irish eating habits considerably. Not  
that this last would pertain to seafoods, but it might apply to meats  
to some extent.

> At least the Irish hospitality industry is beginning to get the  
> clue to
> emphasize the real strengths of local cuisine in order to attract  
> tourism
> and other business contacts to their area.  But that is NOW, and we  
> are
> studying THEN.
>
> Selene C.

It's nice to see them with a relatively booming economy... oddly  
enough, my Mom still claims that the best hamburger she ever had was  
in Dublin.

Adamantius




"S'ils n'ont pas de pain, vous fait-on dire, qu'ils  mangent de la  
brioche!" / "If there's no bread to be had, one has to say, let them  
eat cake!"
     -- attributed to an unnamed noblewoman by Jean-Jacques Rousseau,  
"Confessions", 1782

"Why don't they get new jobs if they're unhappy -- or go on Prozac?"
     -- Susan Sheybani, assistant to Bush campaign spokesman Terry  
Holt, 07/29/04