A hunt for Irish food

Author: By Larry Tye, Globe Staff

Date: SUNDAY, February 9, 1997

Page: M1

Section: Travel

I first posed the question to the flight attendants on my Aer Lingus flight over, and judging from their puzzled responses I probably should have dropped the inquiry there. Jean asked Jan, who asked the rest. They came back with several suggestions -- none of which, they warned, were real Irish but all were guaranteed to be fun.

Fun wasn't enough, however. I wanted authentic, something that let me know I was in Ireland. Which was no more than I'd sought and found in hundreds of trips I'd taken for newspapers over the years to strange parts of America and the world. Everywhere I went, I tried to taste local cuisine, something they whipped up only in Mobile or Moscow, Huntington, Hong Kong or Havana. Ireland, I reasoned, would be especially easy since even in far-away Boston there are seven restaurants listed as ``Irish'' in the Yellow Pages, and lots more like South Boston's Amrhein's that feature corned beef and cabbage, pot roast and other dishes I assumed were traditional Irish.

So no sooner did I check into my bed-and-breakfast near St. Stephen's Green than I asked the proprietors where I could find a good Irish meal. They didn't hestitate: Gallaghers Boxty House, they gushed, is just what you're looking for.

They were partly right. Gallagher's did have old-style Irish dishes. There was coddle, a stew of sausage, bacon, potatoes, onions and vegetable stock. There were boxties, potato pancakes cooked on a griddle and stuffed with fillings like lamb, chicken or fish. There were gammon steaks marinated in Irish whiskey and bacon steaks cooked plain, cabbage with bacon and cabbage with corned beef, potatoes mashed and boiled and, for dessert, bread and butter pudding. Most everything was drenched in some sort of sauce and overcooked to the point where you weren't sure what you were ingesting.

There was one thing I was sure of, however: More of my fellow diners came from Boston than Dublin in what was clearly a tourist trap rivaling Boston's Bull & Finch Pub (Cheers) or Durgin Park.

Rather than being put off, I resolved in standard reportorial style to redouble my search for legitimate Irish fare. I was sure I was on to something when several people recommended that I visit the Old Dublin Restaurant -- and insisted that I take a taxi since the neighborhood wasn't safe to walk to at night. Tourists, I presumed, wouldn't venture to somewhere like that. And I was right, there weren't many out-of-towners. But there also wasn't anything Irish about dishes like chicken Kiev, peppered fillet Rasputin, fillet of beef Novgorod, or Scandinavian style herrings.

My next tack was to strike out on my own, on foot. After passing Japanese restaurants and French ones, food from India, China and America, I finally got so hungry and tired that I resolved to stop at the next good place I came upon. Which offered a great pasta lunch.

My only real triumphs were reeling in the best fish and chips I'd ever eaten at Leo Burdocks, and ordering a satisfying bowl of beef stew at Davy Byrne's pub. I also sampled an Irish breakfast at my terrific B & B, called Number 31 after its address on Leeson Close, but after discovering that white pudding was a mix of pork, oatmeal and spices -- and black pudding got its rich color from pig's blood -- I went back to cereal, toast and juice.

By now I was doubting that there really was any food that qualified as Irish. So each time I interviewed someone for another story I was writing, I'd pop in a question about restaurants.

``I think Irish fare is more of a romantic American idea,'' offered Ben Briscoe, who I thought would know, since he grew up in Ireland, served as lord mayor of Dublin much as his father had before him, and today is a member of Parliament. ``You're talking about a time when people were poor and the diet of the country was potatoes, or corned beef and cabbage. They only put it on menus here for American tourists.''

Ben's brother Joe, a retired dentist, explained that Dublin restaurants used to feature ``Irish'' items like what I had found in Boston eateries, with meats and vegetables surrounding potatoes. But that was 25 years ago. ``Today,'' he added proudly, ``the food that one can get in Ireland, even in the most remote districts, is on a par with the best gourmet food anywhere in the world. And the generation that's replacing mine is very conscious of gourmet eating, not just in restaurants but at home as well. Fish has become a very, very popular meal. It's not just thrown onto a pan and fried anymore.''

Helen Lucy Burke, one of Ireland's most respected and feared restaurant critics, offered additional insights into why my simple question had degenerated into a complicated quest. There is a rich history of traditional Irish dishes dating back more than 400 years, she said, and there are restaurants that still serve great old-style fare like game and Irish breads and cakes -- but they're all in the country and close when the cold sets in in October.

Sympathizing with my plight, she offered next time I'm in Dublin to cook me a ``genuine Irish meal of beefsteak, ox's kidney and oyster pudding. You line a pudding bowl with crust pastry and put in the beef dipped in flour, the kidney dipped in flour and the oysters, then fill it to the shoulder with Guinness and steam it. They don't serve that in restaurants. When people go out to a restaurant, they don't want to eat what they eat at home.''