Moran's Oyster Cottage: renowned for its superb seafood.

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Diversion Magazine - October 1984

Fare Ireland - What's cooking in the Emerald Isle
by Carole Martin

'One sure way to develop a reputation for exceptional hospitality is to feed your guests well. In Ireland, which almost always lives up to its sobriquet, Land of a Hundred Thousand Welcomes, they feed you best by forgoing ruffles and flourishes, emphasizing the plain and wholesome. It's the high-quality ingredients that have always been the strength of Irish cookery....

.....The Kingfish is Salmon. Ireland's grandest dish is undoubtedly its fat, sweet salmon. I still remember standing on the Salmon Weir Bridge across from the Catholic Cathedral in Galway the first time I visited Ireland some 20 years ago and watching the big silver fish fight their way upstream to their spawning grounds. Inspired by that sight, I ordered salmon for lunch or dinner every day for the rest of my holiday. When salmon held pride of place on the banquet tables of Ireland's ancient kings, it was boiled, baked, or roasted on a spit (often with a basting of honey and hazelnuts). Poaching, baking and grilling are still the preferred methods of preparing fresh salmon in Ireland, although today it is frequently poached and served cold with a dollop of mayonnaise.

The calibre of oak-smoked Irish salmon (there are partisans who prefer the Scottish version) can be inferred from the high prices it commands in fancy food shops in Europe and the United States. Even more telling is the number of departing visitors who board their planes at Shannon Airport carrying vacuum-packed sides of smoked salmon along with their Waterford crystal, Aran Islands sweaters, and Donegal tweeds.

Visitors arriving at Shannon often head straight for Moran's Oyster Cottage, The Weir, Kilcolgan, County Galway, for a plate of oysters. The European flat oyster (Ostrea edulis), so abundant along Ireland's Gulf Stream-warmed west coast, is considered by many to be the best-flavoured oyster in the world. The Galway Oyster Festival, held in late September each year to celebrate the completion of the oyster's summer-spawning period, is the most important food festival on the Irish calendar. (The epicenter of the celebration is in the village of Clarinbridge.) Although occasionally the oysters are served cooked, the Irish prefer them raw on the half shell, set on a bed of ice with lemon wedges and accompanied by an ample side order of coarse brown bread slathered with butter. To wash them down, there is plenty of velvety Guinness Stout - the slightly bitter, near-black brew with a head like thick cream that the Irish drink by the pint. I have never been one to tamper with local custom.....'

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