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This volume of essays, which originated in the inaugural Dublin Gastronomy Symposium held in the Dublin Institute of Technology in June 2012, offers fascinating insights into the significant role played by gastronomy in Irish literature and culture.
The book opens with an exploration of food in literature, covering figures as varied as Maria Edgeworth, James Joyce, Charles Dickens, Enid Blyton, John McGahern and Sebastian Barry. Other chapters examine culinary practices among the Dublin working classes in the 1950s, offering a stark contrast to the haute cuisine served in the iconic Jammet's Restaurant; new trends among Ireland's 'foodie' generation; and the economic and tourism possibilities created by the development of a gastronomic nationalism. The volume concludes by looking at the sacramental aspects of the production and consumption of Guinness and examining the place where it is most often consumed: the Irish pub.
List of contents
Contents: Darra Goldstein: Foreword - Máirtín Mac Con Iomaire/Eamon Maher: Introduction - Section I Literary Representations of Irish Gastronomy - Dorothy Cashman: 'That delicate sweetmeat, the Irish plum': The Culinary World of Maria Edgeworth (1768-1849) - Flicka Small: 'Know Me Come Eat With Me': What Food Says about Leopold Bloom - Michael Flanagan: Cowpie, Gruel and Midnight Feasts: The Representation of Food in Popular Children's Literature - Eamon Maher: The Rituals of Food and Drink in the Work of John McGahern - Rhona Richman Kenneally: The Elusive Landscape of History: Food and Empowerment in Sebastian Barry's Annie Dunne - Tony Kiely: 'We Managed': Reflections on the Culinary Practices of Dublin's Working Class Poor in the 1950s - Máirtín Mac Con Iomaire: 'From Jammet's to Guilbaud's': The Influence of French Haute Cuisine on the Development of Dublin Restaurants - Marjorie Deleuze: A New Craze for Food: Why is Ireland Turning into a Foodie Nation? - John Mulcahy: Transforming Ireland through Gastronomic Nationalism - Tara McConnell: 'Brew as much as possible during the proper season': Beer Consumption in Elite Households in Eighteenth-Century Ireland - Brian Murphy: The Irish Pub Abroad: Lessons in the Commodification of Gastronomic Culture - Eugene O'Brien: Bloomsday and Arthur's Day: Secular Sacraments as Symbolic and Cultural Capital.
About the author
Máirtín Mac Con Iomaire is a lecturer in culinary arts at the Dublin Institute of Technology. He is an award-winning chef, culinary historian, food writer, broadcaster and ballad singer. He has presented two series of the cookery programme Aingeal sa Christin for RTÉ and has featured on numerous other radio and television programmes. He is chair and co-founder of the Dublin Gastronomy Symposium.
Eamon Maher is Director of the National Centre for Franco-Irish Studies at the Institute of Technology, Tallaght (Dublin), where he also lectures in humanities. His most recent book, co-edited with Eugene O¿Brien, is From Prosperity to Austerity: A Socio-Cultural Critique of the Celtic Tiger and its Aftermath (2014).
Report
«This collection will enlighten and delight readers. [...] The writers and editors are to be congratulated on their original research and new insights into a topic that interests everyone: food.»
(Éilís Ní Dhuibhne, The Irish Times, 28 June 2014)
«This diverse collection of well-researched and sometimes provocative essays gives us much to think about, and should inspire further research. The editors and authors are to be congratulated on what they have done.»
(Barbara Ketcham Wheaton, Canadian Journal of Irish Studies, 38/2014)
