Irish cooking has the most complex historical relationship of any European culinary tradition — a cuisine shaped by colonial dispossession (the enclosure of Irish farmland by British landlords), the catastrophic potato famine of 1845–1852 (which killed one million and displaced two million more), and the specific poverty of subsistence living on limited ingredients. From this history emerged a cooking tradition built on extraordinary restraint and specific ingredient knowledge — and, more recently, a renaissance of Irish food culture that has reclaimed the tradition's depth.
The defining techniques of Irish cooking.
BRITISH ISLES + GERMAN/CENTRAL EUROPEAN + PACIFIC ISLAND