The New Irish Table: 70 Contemporary Recipes

`The New Irish Table' and `Irish Puddings, Tarts, Crumbles, and Fools' by Irish-American culinary journalist, Margaret M. Johnson who seems to provide low end books covering Irish culinary practice, beginning with her `The Irish Heritage Cookbook', also from Chronicle Books. The middle ground, being the `Julia Child' for Irish cooking is Darina Allen, along with husband, Tim Allen and mother in law, Myrtle Allen, all of the Cork culinary powerhouse, Ballymaloe House and Cooking School. The high end of modern Irish cooking is held by Irish-American culinary academician and chef, Noel C. Cullen. The ethnographic corner of Irish / Celtic foodways is filled out by `Celtic Folklore Cooking' by culinary writer and folklorist, JoAnne Asala of Chicago. There are many more Irish cookbooks to cover between now and St. Patrick's Day, but this pretty much covers most major points on the culinary compass for Irish cooking.`The New Irish Table' and Cullen's `Elegant Irish Cooking' complement one another pretty well, as they both present recipes from modern Irish hospitality centers. The difference is that where Johnson is covering pubs and `bed and breakfast' style eateries, Cullen is covering dishes from Michelin one and two star restaurants in Ireland, as well as many of his own creations as a working chef, before he took up teaching at Boston University.Between these two featured books, Johnson's Desserts book is a much more valuable addition to your cookbook collection, as it includes a lot of fancy and holiday desserts which I have not seen in any other good book on Irish cooking. The best thing about this book and its companion is that like a lot of Chronicle Books, it seems to be on a fast track to the Bargain Book table, both real and on-line. That means that at half price, this book is a real bargain for the cookbook collector with a genuine interest in dessert baking.On the surface, this book seems to feature four basically different kinds of baking. The six chapters are:1. Puddings2. Tarts3. Crumbles and Crisps4. Fools and Flummeries5. Tea Breads and Cakes6. Christmas TreatsAnyone familiar with English cooking will recognize in the first chapter a wide range of desserts which the Anglo-Irish all lump together under the name of `pudding'. Actually, most puddings remind me a lot of French Toast, more properly called `pain perdu' by the French. They are all different ways of combining day old bread, custard, dried fruits and the like into a treat for the sweet tooth. Puddings and tarts, together, form a collection of dishes very familiar to those who know English sweets.Crumbles and Crisps and Fools and Flummeries all seem remarkably like a style of dessert which is very popular in the United States and commonly associated with both the Pennsylvania Dutch and southeastern and south central styles of cooking. In Ireland, as in the United States, they are all primarily ways of combining stewed or jellied fruit with oats, milk and perhaps some custard. The thing that distinguishes `fools' from other similar desserts is the fact that they are made with gooseberries. A gooseberry, according to my `Berry Bible' illustration, looks a lot like a current, and just a bit like a blueberry, and seem to be common in the United States only in the northern west coast.The breads and cakes chapter visits the most widely familiar realm of Irish baking, the world of soda breads and scones. This realm is covered much better in Tim Allen's `The Ballymaloe Bread Book', but the last chapter in this book makes the whole book worth the budget price of admission.This last chapter is a bonanza for those looking for something interesting to bake for Christmas, especially if you are fond of confections which include a bit of stout or Irish whiskey in the ingredients. This chapter brings the tired old fruitcake into a whole New World of cakes, puddings, ice creams, breads, mince pies, and cider sauces.The second book, `The New Irish Table' has but 70 recipes, all of which seem to be high end bar food, especially since about 75% of the pages are dedicated to appetizers and side dishes. The five chapters on recipes are:Small Bites with 9 recipes for crackers, tartlets, pates, crostini, cheese bites, and chutneys.Starters with 15 recipes for soups, salads, souffles, charlottes, sauces, and sabayon.Main Courses with 16 recipes for fish, duck, chicken, lots of pork, lamb, venison, rabbit, and pheasant.Side Dishes with 13 recipes of old standards such as colcannon, champ, boxty, cabbage, turnips, and leeks.Sweets with 17 recipes for puddings, custards, brulees, cakes, tarts, cobblers, and crumbles.All in all, if you already have one or two books on Irish savoury dishes and you get Johnson's dessert book, this volume becomes largely redundant. A lot of the sidebars between the two books are the same and the `Irish Table' simply confirms everything I already know about the heavy Irish use of apples, pears, berries, dairy, beer, whiskey, pork, and lamb.Since you can get this cheap, I will recommend it as a small, inexpensive addition to your Irish cookbook collection. It may, however, be the first in line for regifting if you already own a few Irish cookbooks.

I stumbled on this while perusing the library and liked so many of the recipes, I decided to buy it. I've made several of the recipes successfully. I am not a fantastic cook, but these recipes are easy to follow and delicious.

Very good recipes for company and everyday meals, to serve with a tastey contempory flair. I had most of the ingredients on hand so it made for easy cooking. The recipes were easy to follow, it's just a delightful cookbook.

The recipes were just okay. I guess I was expecting more exciting recipes than contained in this book. I collect cookbooks and am always on the hunt for new and interesting recipes.

Loved reading and trying some of the recipes.

Great recipes in here

The New Irish Table is a treasure of a book featuring gorgeous photos of Ireland taken by Ms. Johnson and 70 recipes from Irish hoteliers, country house chefs and others, both in Ireland and the States.An introduction explains Ms. Johnson's Irish heritage and her first trip to Ireland in 1984. Food, she explained was the last thing on her mind, however, in subsequent visits, a culinary revolution had ensued, and the entire country was clamoring for traditional foods served in exciting new ways.Ireland has always had an abundance of the world's finest dairy products, meats and fish, but the food suffered from poor cooking and poor presentation. That began to change in the early eighties. Myrtle Allen was a pioneer in the Irish Country House B&B trade with an emphasis on fresh, local food. Since then, superb cuisine has taken the country by storm. In this colorful volume, Ms. Johnson offers recipes to bring Ireland to your own home with staples such as Colcannon, the potato and cabbage treat, to brown bread creme brulee to smoked salmon. Many of the dishes use Farmhouse cheeses. One I'm particularly interested to try is a potato pancake with Cashel Blue.The book covers appetizers, starters, meats and fish, side dishes and sweets. You'll find recipes using black pudding and pork belly, but also wonderful roast breast of duck and lamb shanks.The photography is superb, both for the dishes and the scenery. Apparently Ms. Johnson has tastes similar to me as many of the photos are of places I've been, restaurants where I've eaten (The Farm Gate in Midleton, County Cork and McDonagh's in Galway.)While the emphasis is on the foods of West Cork, there are also recipes from other regions including Northern Ireland. Besides an index, there's a section in the back of the book telling where to get some of the specialty foods listed. Ms. Johnson also offers suitable substitutions for foods only available in Ireland.A wonderful book for the photos and the recipes. You'll not want to be without this one.

Read my review of this amazing cookbook at rchreviews (dot) blogspot (dot) comeThis book is a real treat! I recommend it to anyone for certain. :)