Grease is Good

Who says people can’t throw lavish dinner parties in post-crisis Ireland? Not me, anyway.

While many of us can no longer serve up lobster thermidore or huge hunks of Chateaubriand to our friends (and most never did anyway, but you get the point), it doesn’t mean we have to return to the bygone days of boil-blasted cabbage and ossified pork chops. If the boom didn’t teach us gastronomic humility, the crash can teach us gastronomic utility. During the boom, we did learn some things about food, and perhaps the crash is bound to ground us in in the gifts of time and flavour.

Certainly, since I’ve lost my job, I’ve used it as an opportunity to re-discover offal, folk-knowledge lost in one of Quinnsworth’s aisles twenty years ago. On top of that, time spent in the municipal markets of France and Spain helped me realise not just what we’re missing, but the close and respectful relationship many in those countries have with the animals they cook and eat. Just as we lost sight of our origins, we lost sight of what went into us, too.

Very soon, I’m going to have to put my meat where my mouth is and come up with a winning dinner menu that’ll blow the gaskets off offal’s bad image. So I’ve given myself the task of putting together a dinner menu for some friends. I’ve already become competitive about it. And so be it. I feel like I’m rediscovering something lost to us, but I feel it’s a way to spread the good word. As more people have realised that food is life, and not something to be boiled for two hours in a pot and thrown on a plate, I think it could be soul-enriching to help people realise that, even if they are cash-strapped, that they can still enjoy great food. Not only that, but greater passion for all that animals can offer in food is less wasteful and better for the environment.

The Menu

Here’s what I’m thinking so far:

Pre-starter: Oxtail velouté
Starter: Roast bone marrow and head-cheese terrine with toast
Main: Roast stuffed lamb’s heart served on fontant celeriac and red-wine and sage reduction
Dessert: Tarte Tatin

I have no idea how to cook these, so stay posted.

Edit: I didn’t manage to cook three-quarters of this. I couldn’t get the ingredients in time. Instead, the menu looked like this:

Pre-starter: Mint pea and ham soup
Starter: Chicken, pork and pistachio terrine
Main: Mackerel eschabeche with patatas bravas
Dessert: Tarte Tatin