OK, what’s Frirish food then? A combination of French and Irish of course! For St Patrick’s Day I’ve given an Irish twist to some traditional French ingredients.
I’d intended to have more examples for you here, but life got in the way on Wednesday when I was preparing this blog. We’re still nursing our poorly llama, and I was also out for five hours taking Caiti to see a specialist at Montluçon hospital. Ugh. Anyway, more tests to do and hopefully we’ll soon get my daughter back to normal.
Anyway, here’s a taster of Frirish food. A suitable starter is avocado with fromage frais and grated carrot. This gives you Ireland’s green, white and orange, and uses two everyday French food items. Every trolley at the checkout in a French supermarket will have a bucket-sized tub of fromage frais in it and a large container of carottes rapées. Avocados aren’t native to France, but they’re always in the shops these days.
The colours of Ireland’s flag are symbolic. The green represents Irish Republicanism, dating back to the 1790s. The orange represents the protestant minority who supported King William III of the House of Orange. The white in the middle represents the truce between the two sides, and everlasting peace.
Now, how about soup next. Pumpkins are part of France for us since we grow so many every year, so pumpkin soup with a swirl of bright white cream and a sprinkling of chives is a good Frirish soup course.
On to cakes. Madeleines, small almond-flavoured, shell-shaped cakes, originated in Commercy, Lorraine. They’re named after the servant, Madeleine Paulmier, who invented them in 1755. Madeleines couldn’t be any Frencher – they’re the standard thing French children have for their gouter – and the Irish flag couldn’t be any Irisher. So put them together for a tasty Frirish treat. I used butter icing, 1:2 ration of creamed butter and caster sugar (for a bit of crunch – use icing sugar if you’d rather). The virulent colours came out of bottles.
And you have to inlcude barm brack. That’s an Irish cake, but I add a generous handful of local French walnuts to the mix to give it a touch of France.
There’ll be more soon about this new gastronomic cult when things have quietened down on the home front a little.
Happy St Patrick’s day to you all.
I love love love madelines. I see them in Starbucks all the time. I will have to try it with icing on it. That’s actually a pretty cool idea. What other sweet treats do they have in France? Send me an email.
It’s so cool you visited my blog – thank you! I’ll be in touch with some nice recipes. Do you like macarons too?
Amitiés
Happy St. Patrick’s Day! Qu’est-ce gouter? (Did I write that right? It’s been a looong time since college French.)
You’re doing great Shannon! Gouter is tea. French kids have it after school to keep them going till déjeuner at 7 or so.
Hope you had a good St Patrick’s day too.
Very inventive! I love the idea of Frirish food.
Happy St. Patrick’s Day. I discovered about a year ago that my paternal grandmother was Irish, which makes me 25% Irish I suppose. I’ve been only once, many years ago but would love to go back to the Emerald Isle.
I hope your two invalids are getting better. These things always come at once and make it difficult to think about anything else.
Ireland is a lovely country. We had many happy years there but were well and truly ready to leave it when the time came.
One invalid is the same, one isn’t. Poor Gabby is slipping away. Not been a great week but that’s just how things go sometimes. Thank you for your good wishes.