RORY MORAHAN THE DRUIDCHEF

Rory Morahan

The Druid Chef

Creating fantastic Celtic Cuisine from our landscape and literature.

My childhood was seeped in culture and history. Ever since, I have thrilled at the possibilities that our Irishness gives to good and healthy food.

Like all chefs, I have travelled extensively. Like them, I have fed the great and the good and have a list of celebrity diners to match any. And along the way, it weighted heavily with me that we were missing out on the possibilities of great food created through interpreting what we have at our feet – our landscape and our literature.

What we have missed most during this lockdown has been the ability to stay in intimate touch with family and friends. We express our togetherness at the family table whether for the traditional Sunday lunch, the birthday or anniversary event. Yet, only two generations ago many households had neither cutlery nor an actual kitchen table. They shared the same bowl passed around as they sat by the fireside. Our belief in the importance of community is expressed through the club, the gathering, the meitheal, weddings and funerals. Yet as I write, this connectedness has been taken from us and many fear that it will not return.

For many years, I was encouraged to interpret Irish literature when preparing ‘The Dead Dinner’ at the James Joyce House of ‘The Dead’ at 15 Usher’s Island on the banks of Joyce’s Anna Livia. I am reminded of the passages describing Gabriel’s worries and boasts as he prepared to deliver the after-dinner speech in his aunt’s gaunt house.

He ran over the headings of his speech: Irish hospitality, sad memories …

…the generation which is now on the wane among us may have had its faults but for my part I think it had certain qualities of hospitality, of humour, of humanity…

—I feel more strongly with every recurring year that our country has no tradition which does it so much honour and which it should guard so jealously as that of its hospitality. It is a tradition that is unique so far as my experience goes (and I have visited not a few places abroad) among the modern nations.

Of one thing, at least, I am sure. As long as this one roof shelters the good ladies aforesaid—and I wish from my heart it may do so for many and many a long year to come—the tradition of genuine warmhearted courteous Irish hospitality, which our forefathers have handed down to us and which we in turn must hand down to our descendants, is still alive among us.

James Joyce, (Dubliners, The Dead), 1909.

As the man said: ‘nuff said.

Rory

The Druid Chef

Rory Morahan

The Druid Chef

Creating fantastic Celtic Cuisine from our landscape and literature.

My childhood was seeped in culture and history. Ever since, I have thrilled at the possibilities that our Irishness gives to good and healthy food.

Like all chefs, I have travelled extensively. Like them, I have fed the great and the good and have a list of celebrity diners to match any. And along the way, it weighted heavily with me that we were missing out on the possibilities of great food created through interpreting what we have at our feet – our landscape and our literature.

What we have missed most during this lockdown has been the ability to stay in intimate touch with family and friends. We express our togetherness at the family table whether for the traditional Sunday lunch, the birthday or anniversary event. Yet, only two generations ago many households had neither cutlery nor an actual kitchen table. They shared the same bowl passed around as they sat by the fireside. Our belief in the importance of community is expressed through the club, the gathering, the meitheal, weddings and funerals. Yet as I write, this connectedness has been taken from us and many fear that it will not return.

For many years, I was encouraged to interpret Irish literature when preparing ‘The Dead Dinner’ at the James Joyce House of ‘The Dead’ at 15 Usher’s Island on the banks of Joyce’s Anna Livia. I am reminded of the passages describing Gabriel’s worries and boasts as he prepared to deliver the after-dinner speech in his aunt’s gaunt house.

He ran over the headings of his speech: Irish hospitality, sad memories …

…the generation which is now on the wane among us may have had its faults but for my part I think it had certain qualities of hospitality, of humour, of humanity…

—I feel more strongly with every recurring year that our country has no tradition which does it so much honour and which it should guard so jealously as that of its hospitality. It is a tradition that is unique so far as my experience goes (and I have visited not a few places abroad) among the modern nations.

Of one thing, at least, I am sure. As long as this one roof shelters the good ladies aforesaid—and I wish from my heart it may do so for many and many a long year to come—the tradition of genuine warmhearted courteous Irish hospitality, which our forefathers have handed down to us and which we in turn must hand down to our descendants, is still alive among us.

James Joyce, (Dubliners, The Dead), 1909.

As the man said: ‘nuff said.

Rory

The Druid Chef

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