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Applying A Food Studies Perspective To Irish Studies, Máirtín Mac Con Iomaire

Books/Book Chapters

Food studies and Irish Studies stem from the same ‘studies’ phenomena and share many similarities in their journeys from the margins to becoming established academic disciplines. A common feature of the new academic studies movement, whether French, gender, postcolonial, cinematic, African, Irish or food is their interdisciplinary or transdisciplinary nature. They become more than any one discipline and scholars within these new fields continuously investigate from various angles, often adopting ‘self-reflexivity’ as an approach. Stereotypical postcolonial notions of the drunken or ‘stage Irishman’, or food’s association with the quotidian domestic, and therefore, feminine, led some academics up until relatively recently …

The Social Meaning Of Claret In The Lives Of Georgian Ireland's Elite, 1714-1837, Tara Mcconnell

Theses, Doctoral

This thesis argues that a specific alcoholic beverage—claret, the red wine of Bordeaux—had unparalleled social meaning in the lives of Georgian Ireland’s elite. Ireland’s historical wine trade with Bordeaux has attracted much scholarly attention, as has the topic of alcohol consumption in general by the island’s inhabitants in the long eighteenth century. This research draws on a wide range of period sources to establish the social meanings and gastronomic pre-eminence of claret in elite society and it discusses numerous factors that led to claret achieving iconic status amongst Georgian Ireland’s wine bibbers. There is no evidence of viticulture in Ireland’s …

Recognizing Food As Part Of Ireland’S Intangible Cultural Heritage, Máirtín Mac Con Iomaire

Articles

Drawing on evidence from across a range of disciplines (literature, folklore, history, sociology, etc.), this paper explores the lack of an iconic link between Ireland and food, explaining the reasons why Ireland and food are not immediately linked in the popular imagination. It argues for recognition of foodways as a significant element in Ireland’s intangible cultural heritage. It highlights and interrogates constructs, such as ‘national’ and ‘regional’ cuisines, charting the growing scholarship around Irish food history from the ground breaking work of A.T. Lucas and Louis Cullen to a recent emerging cluster of doctoral researchers. The paper identifies the potential …

Introduction: Tickling The Palate. Gastronomy In Irish Literature And Culture, Eamon Maher, Máirtín Mac Con Iomaire

Books/Chapters

There has been a gradual but noticeable growth in scholarship concerning food globally, particularly in the last decade. One of the longest running and most inf luential forces behind this phenomenon is the Oxford Symposium on Food and Cookery (1981–present) which was originally founded and co-chaired by Alan Davidson, pre-eminent food historian, diplomat, and author of The Oxford Companion to Food, and Dr Theodore Zeldin, the celebrated social historian of France. This spawned a dedicated publishing house, Prospect Books, which published the conference proceedings and also the journal Petits Propos Culinaires (PPC), now approaching its 100th issue.

Tickling The Palate: Gastronomy In Irish Literature And Culture, Máirtín Mac Con Iomaire, Eamon Maher

Books

This volume of essays, which originated in the inaugural Dublin Gastronomy Symposium held in the Dublin Institute of Technology in June 2012, offers fascinating insights into the significant role played by gastronomy in Irish literature and culture. The book opens with an exploration of food in literature, covering figures as varied as Maria Edgeworth, James Joyce, Charles Dickens, Enid Blyton, John McGahern and Sebastian Barry. Other chapters examine culinary practices among the Dublin working classes in the 1950s, offering a stark contrast to the haute cuisine served in the iconic Jammet's Restaurant; new trends among Ireland's 'foodie' generation; and the …

Public Dining In Dublin: The History And Evolution Of Gastronomy And Commercial Dining 1700-1900, Máirtín Mac Con Iomaire

Articles

Purpose: This paper provides an overview of the changing food culture ofIreland focusing particularly on the evolution of commercial public dining inDublin 1700-1900, from taverns, coffeehouses and clubs to the proliferation of hotels and restaurants particularly during the latter half of the nineteenth century.

Methods: Using a historical research approach, the paper draws principally on documentary and archival sources, but also uses material culture. Data is analysed using a combination of hermeneutics (Denzin and Lincoln, 2000, O'Gorman, 2010) and textual analysis (Howell and Prevenier, 2001).

Findings: The paper traces the various locations of public dining inDublin 1700-1900 and reveals thatDublin …

Irish Culinary Manuscripts And Printed Books: A Discussion, Máirtín Mac Con Iomaire, Dorothy Cashman

Articles

This paper provides a discussion of Irish Culinary Manuscripts and Printed Cookbooks. It covers Gaelic hospitality and aristocratic hospitality, setting the background for the Anglo-Irish households from which many manuscripts emerge. It charts the growing sources of information on Irish culinary history. It outlines Barbara Wheaton's framework for reading historic cookbooks and discusses the growing manuscript cookbook collection in the National Library of Ireland.

The Potato In Irish Cuisine And Culture, Máirtín Mac Con Iomaire, Pádraic Óg Gallagher

Articles

This article will discuss the introduction of the potato from its South American origin into Irish cuisine and culture. The authors will outline the stages of devopment from introduction to acceptance as a winter vegetable, to widespread acceptance, moving on to overdependence and leading to subsequent famine. The article will discuss the varieties of potatoes used, the methods of production at different levels of society, and a number of quintessentially Irish potato dishes including boxty, champ, and colcannon, which will be compared with similar potato dishes in other cultures.