Wednesday, March 13, 2013

What the Irish ate before potatoes

Bon Appetit magazine says milk, butter and curds in dizzying variety:


There was drinking milk, and buttermilk, and fresh curds, and old curds, and something called "real curds," and whey mixed with water to make a refreshing sour drink. In 1690, one British visitor to Ireland noted that the natives ate and drank milk "above twenty several sorts of ways and what is strangest for the most part love it best when sourest." He was referring to bainne clabair, which translates as "thick milk," and was probably somewhere between just straight-up old milk and sour cream. And in the 12th century, a satirical monk (this is Ireland, after all), wrote a fake "vision" in which he traveled to the paradise of the Land of Food, where he saw a delicious drink made up of "very thick milk, of milk not too thick, of milk of long thickness, of milk of medium thickness, of yellow bubbling milk, the swallowing of which needs chewing." And many British tacticians, sending home notes on how best to suppress local rebellions, noted that the majority of the population lived all summer on their cows' milk, so the best way to starve out the enemy would just be to kill all the cows.


And the introduction of the potato was part of the impoverishment of the Irish people.


There was drinking milk, and buttermilk, and fresh curds, and old curds, and something called "real curds," and whey mixed with water to make a refreshing sour drink. In 1690, one British visitor to Ireland noted that the natives ate and drank milk "above twenty several sorts of ways and what is strangest for the most part love it best when sourest." He was referring to bainne clabair, which translates as "thick milk," and was probably somewhere between just straight-up old milk and sour cream. And in the 12th century, a satirical monk (this is Ireland, after all), wrote a fake "vision" in which he traveled to the paradise of the Land of Food, where he saw a delicious drink made up of "very thick milk, of milk not too thick, of milk of long thickness, of milk of medium thickness, of yellow bubbling milk, the swallowing of which needs chewing." And many British tacticians, sending home notes on how best to suppress local rebellions, noted that the majority of the population lived all summer on their cows' milk, so the best way to starve out the enemy would just be to kill all the cows.


1 comment:

Phil Paine said...

What is described here is the traditional Icelandic diet. To this day, meat and fish of all kinds (including whale) are routinely preserved by pickling them in fermented whey, and curds play the same role as described here. The Þorrablót, a feast celebrated today of such traditional food accompanied by ex tempore poetry and much alcohol, would have be very congenial to the pre-potato Irish. With no English soldiers to kill their cows, the Icelanders have kept their sour-milk culture.