Food for thought

What did we do before fruit smoothies were invented? Well the answer is we ate fruit the boring ‘old fashioned’ way, but it raises an interesting topic on modern methods of consuming food.
Within the lifetime of most of our parents, such exotic meals as lasagne, tagliatelle, cappuccino, korma, stroganoff and other continental and eastern delights were not just unusual, they were unheard of.
And nowadays we can get tagliatelle in a packet, korma sauce in a jar with some celebrity chef’s head on the label and even the most rudimentary of restaurants will serve you up a frothy coffee with some cocoa powder on top.
The kid of today is as likely to ask for coleslaw or garlic mayonnaise with their chips as they are tomato sauce.
The coffee connoisseur was a rare beast even 15 years ago, but now everybody has a favourite coffee, whether it be a double espresso or a skinny half-calf latte with a shot of hazelnut and vanilla.
And the influence of other cultures has been accelerated by the more open European Union created in the last decade. Many of us have tried traditional Eastern European dishes such is the increasing proliferation of Polish restaurants and supermarkets.
But the eating habits of yesteryear are never too far from the surface in Irish life. I was down in Durkin’s pub in Ballinacarrow earlier this year and during a music session, the very welcoming family who run the pub broke out some superb grub.
Included among the potato wedges and sausage rolls were boiled spare ribs (not barbecued, not roasted, boiled), a food I haven’t consumed since the dark days of the 1980s. I enjoyed picking every scrap of meat off them, I don’t mind admitting.
On the occasions where I’ve talked to the older generation about food, some of the descriptions would turn the stomach of a lesser-constitutioned listener.
I’ve heard all manner of less recognisable animal parts being used for family meals, and not just the, nowadays quaint, ones like cow’s tongue or pig’s trotters.
Of course, Ireland’s history with food and famine is something every successive generation has been reminded of and its importance to our national identity is such that even in this time of relative prosperity, culinary diversity and cultural diffusion, we still recall the million that died, the million that left and the millions left behind.
So the next time you order a strawberry and banana smoothie to go alongside your cajun chicken and sun-dried tomato panini, think about what our ancestors would make of what is on our plates today.