14-Day Ireland
Itinerary

Irish Stew

Ireland's most elemental dish: neck chops or shoulder of lamb slow-simmered with waxy potatoes, onion and a restrained handful of parsley until the broth clarifies into a clean, sweet, deeply savoury liquor; the lamb must be mature for flavour; no carrots in the purist version; a dish of profound simplicity that requires good raw ingredients and patience, nothing more.

Soda Bread

Ireland's daily bread and its most democratic recipe: flour, buttermilk, bicarbonate of soda and salt combined in minutes and baked for 40; the buttermilk's acidity activates the soda to create a dense, tender crumb and a floury crust; the cross cut into the top releases steam and, by tradition, lets the fairies out; eaten warm with Irish butter.

Dublin Coddle

Dublin's traditional working-class winter dish, layers of pork sausages and rashers simmered with potato and onion in the rendered pork fat and a little water or stout until everything slumps into a single unctuous whole; a peasant dish that the city has adopted as its own; Seán O'Casey mentions it in his plays; Joyce describes it in Finnegans Wake.

Fresh Atlantic Oysters

Ireland's finest luxury at its most elemental: native flat oysters (Ostrea edulis) from Galway Bay and Pacific rock oysters from Connemara and West Cork, served on ice with lemon, Tabasco and a glass of Guinness; the Galway International Oyster Festival (since 1954) draws the world's best shuckers; the combination of stout and bivalve is one of gastronomy's perfect marriages.

Full Irish Breakfast

Ireland's most beloved morning meal: back rashers, pork sausages, black and white pudding, fried or scrambled eggs, grilled tomato, sautéed mushrooms and soda bread toast; the black pudding (a blend of pork blood, oatmeal and spices, encased and sliced) is the element that separates an Irish from an English fry; Clonakilty pudding is the national benchmark.