Cookbook Profile: The New Irish Table

The New Irish Table
70 Contemporary Recipes

by Margaret Johnson

Just in time for St. Patrick's Day, Margaret Johnson reveals the delicious results of Ireland's food revolution in The New Irish Table (Chronicle Books). Johnson's love of Ireland permeates page after glorious page of mouthwatering Irish dishes in her new book. With 70 recipes collected from home and professional chefs throughout the Emerald Isle, The New Irish Table reflects the traditions of the national cuisine and also showcases the most exciting new tastes of the culinary renaissance in Ireland today.

Old World ingredients—farmhouse cheeses; beef, lamb, fish, and pork; wild fruits and berries—are interpreted anew in such dishes as Baked Rock Oysters with Bacon, Cabbage and Guinness Sabayon; Black Pudding-Stuffed Breast of Pheasant with Mustard Cream Sauce; Lamb Cutlets with Honey, Apricot and Tarragon Sauce; Boilie-Stuffed Chicken Breasts with Red Pepper Cream Sauce; and Smoked Salmon Chowder.

Ireland boasts an economy that outpaces all others, is one of the most popular tourist destinations for visitors from the Continent, and saw the number of visitors from North America grow to one million in 2000. It comes as no surprise that food in Ireland has kept pace with these dynamics and has taken on a distinctive new identity.

The New Irish Table shows how the food of Ireland, often used in Irish literature to provide focus, punctuation, rhythm, and in some instances, entire plots, has moved boldly into the new millennium, no longer, as James Joyce once wrote, "an outcast from life's feast."

Lavish color photographs of the food, the landscapes, and the people are woven through the text, making The New Irish Table the next best thing to sitting down at a table in Ireland itself.

Margaret Johnson has written for such publication as the Los Angeles Times, Dublin's Food and Wine, and the Irish Echo, and is also the author of The Irish Heritage Cookbook from Chronicle Books. She lives in New York.

Christopher Hirsheimer's photographs appear regularly in Saveur magazine, and she has illustrated numerous cookbooks, including Saveur Cooks Authentic American, Saveur Cooks Authentic French (both from Chronicle Books), and books by Emeril Lagasse, Julia Child, and Jacques Pepin, among others. She lives in Pennsylvania.

Buy the Book!

The New Irish Table
70 Contemporary Recipes
by Margaret Johnson
Photographs by Margaret Johnson
Food Photographs by Christopher Hirsheimer
Chronicle Books
Price: $24.95
ISBN: 0-8118-3387-9
Information provided by the publisher.