Boxty, Coddle, and Balnamoon Skink: An Irish Food Glossary
The best way to celebrate St. Patrick's Day is to prepare a feast of Irish staples and wash it all down with pints of Guinness. But if you're tired of the usual menu of corned beef and soda bread, here's your chance to switch up the St. Patty's festivities with some classic dishes. With a culinary tradition that dates back to the Middle Ages and a language that's even older, Ireland has a number of mysterious food terms. So if you don't already speak Gaelic or know Cork slang, here's a cheat sheet of Irish food terms you'll be glad to know this March 17th!
IRISH FOOD GLOSSARY
Balnamoon Skink: A soup made with trussed fowls and seasoned with herbs and onions
Banbhianna: "White meats," a collective name for all milk products including fresh milk, sour milk, buttermilk, butter, cheese, and curds
Barm Brack: Yeast bread that's speckled with raisins and eaten sliced with butter and tea
Beef and Guinness pie: Common pub grub; pie dish lined with puff pastry, filled with stewing beef, and then topped with pastry
Belfast Bap: A century-old yeast bread that originated in Belfast; often used as sandwich bread.
Black and Tan: A drink that is equal parts stout and pale ale; see recipe
Black Pudding: Blood sausage made from coagulated blood mixed with a filler such as oatmeal
Bookmaker's Sandwich: Two slices of buttered crusty loaf halves stuffed with cooked sirloin strips
Boxty: Potato pancakes eaten in Northern Ireland and made from flour and grated potato cooked in a skillet; often stuffed with a meat or cheese filling
Brown Bread: Like Irish soda bread, made from a combo of whole wheat and white bread flour
Cais: Cheese
Caudel: Warm drink of spiced or sweetened wine and egg, similar to eggnog; often used in pies, such as the hartichoke pie
Champ: Comfort food dish of mashed potatoes, butter, warm milk, and chopped spring onions; see recipe
Colcannon: Mashed potatoes mixed with butter, milk, chopped cabbage, and herbs
Collared Head: Terrine of pork comprised of bits from long-cooked pigs head and pigs feet
Crubeens: Pigs feet
Drisheen: A type of black pudding (see above) made from boiled pig's or sheep's blood, milk, salt, fat, and breadcrumbs
Dulse: A salty seaweed snack found at markets and some bars
Fadge: Potato pancake served with traditional Irish breakfast
Farl: Pan bread
Flummery: Pudding made with stewed fruit and thickened with cornstarch
Gammon: Ham
Griskins: Miscellaneous bits of pork
Irish Stew: A one-pot meal of mutton or lamb cooked with carrots, onions, potatoes, and stock.
Kedgeree(ked-juh-ree): Traditional Indian-influenced British breakfast that consists of curried rice, smoked fish, boiled eggs, parsley, and lemon juice
Mealie Greachie: Toasted oatmeal
Packet and Tripe: A dish consisting of Drisheen (see above) and tripe; eaten often in Cork and Limerick
Panhaggerty: Potato gratin with onion, bacon, and cheddar cheese
Pasty: Mixture of meat, sometimes with onions and mashed potato; encased in pastry dough, like a meat pie
Potted Meat: Preserved meat terrine
Pratie Oaten: Griddled mashed potato oak cake
Rashers: Thin slices of lean back bacon traditionally eaten as part of an Irish breakfast; also used for flavoring in cooking
Spotted Dog: Irish bread pudding speckled with dried fruit
Stirabout: Porridge made from steel cut oats or barley
Syllabub: dessert made from a combination of wine, lemon juice, cream, sometimes frothed with egg white
Ulster Fry: Full Irish breakfast that usually consists of Irish bacon, eggs, black and white puddings, lamb kidneys, quartered mushrooms, grilled tomato and more.
Veda Bread: Malted bread, eaten with butter and cheese
White Pudding: Sausage made from pork fat and bits of meat and filler such as oatmeal
Yalla male: Eaten primarily in Northern Ireland, bread made from yellow meal
Yellowman: Golden confection with a texture similar to honeycomb
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