I used to be a little smug about not drinking coffee. When you’re a weird, obnoxious kid trying to find out who you are, it’s often easier to find definitions based on what you’re not. In my case, I wasn’t “one of those coffee shop people.” I had a massive collection of tea in my cabinets at college for any reason and any taste. My friends jokingly called me a “tea shaman,” and if I really needed caffeine? That’s why God invented energy drinks.
As I write this 16 years later, sitting in a coffee shop with an empty cappuccino at my right hand, I can tell you I’m still not a coffee guy. I’m drinking a vibe… it just happens to be coffee based. “A man who can laugh at himself shall never cease to be amused.”
It’s almost 7pm, and I’m sitting at a two-top at the Horse Brass. I’m trying to think of what to write again, nursing a locally-made Baltic Porter and staring at the empty broiler boat that- until very recently- was holding about 8 pickle spears for $3.50. No sales tax.
Where else would I be now? I’m a beer nerd with a cloak on a rainy day in Portland near Mount Tabor. I’ve got the back half of a short week at the bakery to start tomorrow morning, the blessing of my boss, and ideas for how my weekend will go. Where else would I be but here?
I might be back in Jersey. That beer might be a more expensive local brew, but those pickles might have been the Pickle Plates at Downbeach Deli that still live in my memory- their selection of greyed full-sours and perky green half-sour pickles supporting recurring guest stars of Pickled Onion, a Cherry Pepper, and a few wedges of Green Tomato atop a pool of commingled brine. That is, if they were ever separated at all.
Maybe it’s the beer and time of year, but I can feel the rose-colored Nostalgia Glasses settling into place. I’m gonna tell you about some fond food memories.
If anyone had asked me before I became a writer, I would have immediately marked myself as an introvert. I liked my quiet time, being alone, and going inside my own head.
I still do, for the record. I am definitely have an introverted streak and I like to refer to myself as “running out of people minutes” or having “peopled too much” when I’m ready to go off somewhere for a little peace and quiet.
Then I started writing in restaurants, learned that the best stories come from listening and talking to other people, and now I feel bad if I don’t socialize at least a bit every day.
Humans are a social species. We are not built for complete isolation. Enjoying being alone is one thing… but no human is meant to be lonely.
Last week I brought up the ins and outs of “secret” recipes- why we have them, why we might not, and how to keep recipes safe behind the law.
In writing it, I said that I am generally happy to share my recipes for a number of reasons- but that I won’t share some recipes for sentimental reasons. When I said that, I was thinking of one of my recipes in particular.
It’s a recipe that very few people outside my family know, one that I have been tweaking and trying to perfect for several years, and this is the story of why I decided I was gonna hold it close to my chest from now on.
I’d normally apologize for missing posting for three weeks in a row, but in this case my wife and I have been traveling in Ireland for a long-awaited honeymoon, came home, and quarantined with Covid for a week. Therefore, between finally getting out to travel and coughing up a solid quart of mucus, I’m not going to be apologizing for shit.
Instead, I’m going to tell you about where everything good comes from.
We wound our way from Dublin to the Aran Islands, through large cities and smaller villages with various amounts of tourist-minded accoutrements. We ate at small pubs and fine restaurants, and I had enough Traditional Irish Breakfasts that I’ll be pleased not to see a black or white pudding for a while.
Everywhere we stopped though, we always sought out the same thing- what is everyone else eating, and where is the best stuff? Almost every time, it was out of the way, made well, and made simply.
Whether you are dining at a Michelin-starred restaurant or an airport fast food joint, all food has its source in simple questions: What can we eat? How do we eat it? How do we make it good?
Shepard’s Pie and a local porter was we went around the Ring of Kerry
Ireland is, arguably unfairly, not considered a “food destination.” We were warned of that by a well-meaning travel agent friend and had it confirmed to us by others after we returned. I wouldn’t say Ireland doesn’t have good food. Emily and I found plenty of places where the food was excellent- The Laurels Pub and Restaurant and The Celtic Whiskey Bar and Larder, both in Killarney, come immediately to mind. There are certainly more and finer places elsewhere in the country that we didn’t get to visit.
Potato Pancake with Chicken, Bacon, and Mushroom Gravy. The Laurels, Killarney Beer-braised Short Ribs. The Laurels, Killarney Goat Cheese Tortellini, The Celtic Whiskey Bar and LarderCharcuterie Board, the Celtic Whiskey Bar and Larder Killarney Chicken Maryland at our hotel in Galway.Some of the best dishes we had on our trip. Gonna spend a lot more time in Killarney and Kerry next time…
Instead, what I will say is that Ireland knows what its foodis about, doesn’t get overly fussy about it, and doesn’t particularly care if it impresses outsiders.
As Emily and I wandered around Dublin, we noticed that almost every pub- from the tiny one just off the road to the biggest and busiest bar in the Temple Bar Area- had the exact same menu. It truly seemed like the decision of “which pub to go to” could truly only be decided by personal or logistic factors- which was closest to you, where your friends usually were, which bartender you knew best, who you thought poured the best pint, and whose prices you thought were best. All other factors- food, beer, whiskey selection- were essentially static.
Beef Cottage Pie at The Boars Head, Dublin
The menu was nearly always a set thing, nailed down out of convenience and tradition- heavy, meaty, starchy, stick-to-your-ribs, stone-in-your-gut food meant to fill you and go with a pint. If you are spending your days wandering from tourist spot to tourist spot, you will get sick of the monotonous “Irish cuisine” really quick and find yourself going find Chinese, Mediterranean, Japanese, or any of the other cuisines that one can find in a worldly metropolis- whether or not you’ve been getting wrecked on Guinness and whiskey every night. I enjoy my booze just fine, but Emily and I were happy to find places like Lee’s Charming Noodles and Rotana City a few nights.
Frankly decent Beef and Guinness Stew in Galway
If you don’t get outside of major cities (or don’t have a budget to visit a Michelin-starred restaurant), you can absolutely come away from a trip to Ireland thinking more fondly of the booze than the food, and all I can say about that is that you weren’t in the state the food was ever meant for.
Toward the end of our trip, Emily and I were in Galway and we spent a stormy day on Innishmore, the largest of the Aran Islands in Galway Bay and home to a long and happily-commercialized history of fishing, sheep farming, and knitting. It had been raining nearly constantly since we got to Galway and we were indeed equipped for rain, but being halfway out into the North Atlantic meant the rain was more like a storm. The one small town on the island was cozy, but anything that we wanted to see or do that didn’t involve drinking or buying sweaters meant renting some bikes, rolling through the cliffs and hills, and getting wet.
Excuse the nervous face- the bikes and roads had both seen better days…
It was after biking along the wet and winding roads for a while that Em and I bellied up into Joe Watty’s- the local Irish Pub- and encountered The Menu again. This time, however, we were in the right state for it. The seafood chowder was the best I’d had in ages, and Emily tackled her fish and chips with a vengeance. We both annihilated our beers, and- sitting in yet another pub with the menu we’d gotten weary of in Dublin- we got it.
My wife ordered Fish and Chips and the local session lager at Joe Watty’s in Kilronan on Innishmore, the Aran Islands and I had the seafood chowder. When you are in a place where they’ve been living off the sea for millenia, you don’t order the fucking chicken fingers.
The food in that pub was meant for the rainy, cold days on the North Atlantic when no matter what you were out in it doing your thing- shepherding sheep or tourists, hauling in fish or selling knitwear. The food in Dublin pubs was still food for soaking up a beer or two after a hard day.
It was the same, functional, tasty, stretchable cuisine it had always been. It was meant to feed and sate more than tantalize. It was meant to make us ready to go back out into the rain, not waddle off to the next tourist trap. It’s been doing the job well enough for a few centuries, and it doesn’t need your snarky Yelp reviews thank you very much.
No, we all shouldn’t go back to eating gruel and nuts. There’s room to actually enjoy food at the table beyond subsistence and yes- get someone hungry enough and they’ll eat nearly anything. We shouldn’t disparage comfort food just because we don’t need comfort when we’re eating it though. We don’t get to write off a whole country as “not a food destination” just because we’re not the audience the food was created for. Food was, and is, an aspect of culture. The ability to appreciate food holistically- as part of world and where it fits in the culture that created it- is as pivotal to appreciating good food as appreciating technique, history or pedigree.
I look forward to traveling more, tasting more, and challenging more of my preconceptions about “food destinations.” Especially once I can taste things clearly again.
The Black Hat Baker 