Where is the bacon? Musings from my vacation in Ireland

black and white pudding

I just returned from my vacation in Ireland or as the Irish would say, my holiday. I truly enjoy traveling the new places.  I love trying the regional dishes.  As unusual they sometimes seem at first, I simply say, "when in Rome, do as the Romans, do." Or, perhaps a more accurate statement would be, I will try anything... once.”

My husband, on the other hand, tiptoes around anything new.  I have to give him credit, however, because if I tease him enough he will even take a tiny taste of say, black pudding.  

Black and white puddings are pretty popular in Ireland. What, you may ask, are black and white puddings?  To the American ear, the word pudding brings to mind, sweet and creamy desserts like chocolate or banana, or even tapioca. (Seriously, if we are talking about weird dishes here, what the heck is tapioca anyway?) 

But I digress.  White and black puddings are a type of breakfast sausage.  The white consists of sausage meats, seasonings, and some types of grain, like oatmeal.  The black sausage is a blood sausage.  Yup, that's what I said. It has the same ingredients as the white pudding with the addition of blood.  So the white pudding tastes like a mildly seasoned and less greasy pork sausage patty.  The black pudding tastes very similar, but the thought of cooked blood is hard to get out of your head.

White and black puddings are on all the breakfast menus in Ireland, as are baked beans.  What?  Did I really say baked beans, the staple of all American backyard cookouts?  Well, yes, I did.  Baked beans like the kind you sometimes got out of a can when you had hot dogs are a staple of the Irish breakfast.  It's as common a side dish as hash browns are in American breakfasts.  

Not being a bean eater even with hot dogs, I avoided the stuff which husband dear ate eagerly. Guess he had a lot of hot dogs as a kid.

The oddest thing, I think, was the lack of bacon.  It wasn't a total surprise since I’d already experienced that omission in Greece.  Order a bacon cheeseburger in Greece and your burger will not be topped with a crispy strip of smoky goodness, but a big honking slice of ham.

Ireland it seems feels the same way about bacon.  Yes, breakfast menus listed, juicy bacon as a side but you soon discover it is, again, ham.  You get used to it, however, so when you see the word bacon you are not as surprised.  What is it Shakespeare said?“A rose by any other name would smell as sweet.”  I think old Will was talking about bacon here. And actually, ham is a lot healthier than bacon. 

I didn't go into McDonald's although they are all over the place so I cannot vouch for whether or not Micky Dees, is on board with the bacon/ham debate.

The food, all in all, was fantastic.  Everything, fresh and tasty and served with a pint of Guinness. Shoot, they use Guinness in everything, stew, tarts, and soups.  

Next post, castles, blarney stone and more fun things from the emerald isle.

When it comes to food what are your least favorite vegetables?

So when it comes to food what are your favorite vegetables?  And if you have favorites, it stands to reason you will also have those that you detest.

In my particular case I love almost all vegetables.  There are two, however, that I have never been able to eat.  My veggie nemeses are beets and cooked carrots.  I don’t know why but something happens to a carrot when it is cooked.  Eaten raw, they area crisp, sweet, and tasty.  Cooked, well I wont 't into detail but in my case they are definitely unpleasant.

And this distaste has been the bane of my existence since I was a tiny tot in a high chair.  My dad tells me that we were the only house in the neighborhood that had walls decorated in chunks of orange.  Why they continued to try and feed me strained carrots I can only blame on my pediatrician.  They are good for you.  I get it, but how much good is it when they are splattered on floors, walls and unsuspecting passers by?

So I assume my parents eventually had to give up feeding me carrots.  Always thinking of good nutrition, they moved on to beets.  Let me say that while carrots on clothing, walls, and more are not exactly pleasant; beets on the other hand, have been used for centuries to dye many things.  And back when I was a tot, they didn’t have the heavy duty stain removers of today!

Recently, at a restaurant I ordered roasted vegetables since the regular vegetable mix contained carrots.  Much to my surprise the roasted ones had a considerable amount of beets.  (Never thought about asking if they were part of the mix)  After 40 years, I put on my big girl pants and tried a beet.  Amazingly, it wasn’t as bad as I thought and I did eat about 1/3 of them before I lost my steam.  Still, while they weren’t as detestable as imagined, I seriously doubt that I will be going out and buying beets for home meals.

So I will still pick out the cooked carrots from soups, stews, potpies, and more.  I’ll set them on the side of the plate in a lonely pile.  I’ll toss them to the dog.  And I will never serve them to my poor carrot-loving husband.  He will just have to wait to order them from a restaurant.

And while we are at it what are your favorite and least favorite fruits?  Hmmmmm well, I can’t stand the taste of mangoes, but that discussion is best left for another post.  So what are your favorite vegetables?