Irish Specialties, Real Taste Treats
by Woodene Merriman

Mary Murray's blue eyes flash when she talks about American ideas of Irish food. "We don't eat corned beef and cabbage," she insists. So for eight days in another March, when Ireland was 40 shades of green and the daffodils and gorse were in bloom, Mary set out to prove hshe was right. We feasted our way from Galway Bay to Dublin, eating in farm houses, pubs, hotels and fancy restaurants, and never confronted corned beef and cabbage. Corned beef, yes. But it was braised with fresh garden peas and carrots. Cabbage, too. But it was cooked with bacon, which Mary says is the Irish way. Instead, Dublin-born Mary introduced what she calls the real Irish specialities.

At Moran's on the Weir on Galway Bay, where that famous sund goes dow, we lunched on the oysters Ireland calls her very best. Shucked within minutes of being scooped out of the water, they're served raw on the half shell, along with Mrs. Moran's brown bread and a pint of stout.

The Galway oysters are so delicious (they're natural, not cultivated, and the water is unpolluted, the locals explain) that people come from around the world to sample them. The Morans like to tell about two men who came pounding on the door of their thatched cottage, right next door in the middle of one night. Moran obligingly got up and served them. The two ate on into the next day. Their names, they said, were John Huston and Paul Newman and they were from Hollywood, U.S.A.

Our oysters were served in the snug, a completely enclosed table where women, priests and policemen who dared to frequent pubs were served in the old days. The door to the snug is split half way up. The upper half can be kept closed, food and drink slipped in through the lower half, and the waiter can't see who's inside.

Seafood abounds in Ireland. County Cork has oysters almost as fine as Galway's. Dublin is proud of its prawns. And everywhere here is oak-smoked salmon. Thin slices of salmon with capers, a bit of sliced onion and a wedge of lemon are routinely served as a first course....

| Last | | Next | | Reviews |

_________________________________________________________________
|Home| |History| |Menu| |Location| |Awards| |Reviews||Hall of Fame| |About Oysters| |Oyster Festival| |Contact Us|

Copyright 2002 © Moran's Oyster cottage
Site design: Eirdesign