Slow Food in Ireland

[Shelby Floyd]

I spend the last couple of weeks in Ireland, where I attended a small
Slow Food Dublin gathering at The Cake Cafe, which is owned by
Dublin's leader. (There is no Slow Food Ireland; only three or four
city chapters with about 800-900 members total, which are linked
directly to Slow Food International.) There is a lot of support for
Slow Food in Ireland, and I saw a lot of similarities between their
issues and ours.

Outside of Dublin, during our 1,000 mile trip through beautiful rural
areas, we saw few farms, and most of those were growing corn and other
grains. I looked in vain for backyard vegetable patches (maybe it was
too late in the season). We did see several sugar beet farms in the
south east, but those were grown for cattle feed, as the E.U. has
ended subsidies for sugar production in Ireland, which was never
profitable. Our driver, who has a small beef cattle operation, ships
the cattle to Spain for finishing. Outside of every butcher shop and
on virtually every menu, were notices that only Irish beef was used.
This appears to be related to mad cow disease, rather than appeals to
locavores. Our driver said most Irish beef is sold to the Middle East
("which is mad about it"), and Irish lamb to the French. Lobster is
mostly exported to other European countries, as it is hugely
expensive. Despite all this, we did see some thriving farmers
markets, and ate wonderful food, especially the Irish salmon and brown
bread.

With an 11 hour time difference between Ireland and Hawaii, and no
overnight stop on the way home, I arrived home at 8 pm Friday night,
and was up at 1 am. By 3 am, I was trying to replicate the vegetable
soup we had almost every night and at a lot of lunches (recipe
follows). By 5 am, I had searched the web for a recipe that promised
to deliver the same taste as the fabulous brown soda bread we had
slathered with butter at breakfast every morning, and by 6 it was in
the oven (recipe follows).

IRISH VEGETABLE SOUP
[I love vegetables, and can't figure out why I haven't had this soup
millions of times, as it is so easy to make and delicious, but it was
a revelation in Ireland. This is a true farmers market recipe.]

In a big pan, saute in butter rough chopped vegetables (onions, leeks,
carrots, parsnips, potatoes, celery, whatever) until they are
soft--10-15 min. Add water or broth to cover, bring to a simmer,
cover and cook for a while (1 hr? more?). You can add herbs while
sauteing or simmering, or not. Add salt and pepper to taste. Cool
somewhat, and blend until smooth. Reheat and serve. The color will
be orange if you used a lot of carrots, or cream or white, depending
on the ratio of vegetables.

Whatever the color, and selection of vegetables at the market, this
turns out delicious. I have a pot on the stove right now, seasoned
with fresh thyme, and am thinking about adding barley or rice.

IRISH SODA BREAD
1 3/4 c. all purpose flour
1 3/4 c. whole wheat flour (Irish kind is much coarser than ours but
ours works)
3 T. each toasted wheat bran and wheat germ (or part of this can be
toasted flax seed, which is what I used to give more body)
2 T. rolled oats
1/4 c. molasses
1 t. baking soda
1/2 t. salt
2 T butter, chilled and diced
2 c. buttermilk

Preheat oven to 425 degrees, butter a loaf pan. Mix dry ingredients
together in large bowl. Crumble in butter with your fingers until it
looks like coarse meal. Add molasses and then buttermilk to make a
soft dough. Put in pan and use a sharp knife to make a cut maybe 3/4"
down the center of the loaf. Bake until dark brown, about 55 min.
Cool on rack. Serve with loads of butter.