New Irish Cookery [Hardcover]

`New Irish Cookery' by Irish / Canadian chef / restauranteur / culinary TV hosts Paul and Jeanne Rankin is similar to a lot of Irish, Japanese, Thai, Italian, and you name it books claiming to give new recipes based on a strong existing tradition. Among Irish cuisine books of this type, it is most similar to `Elegant Irish Cooking' by culinary scholar, teacher and professional chef, Noel C. Cullen Ed.D, CMC, AAC in that most of the `new' recipes were developed by the authors at their Irish restaurants.

While this book is substantially less expensive than Cullen's book, it is also a substantially lower value, as Cullen's book (see my review of same) begins with a great survey of Irish culinary history and includes recipes from both the author's chef experience plus recipes from other important Irish chefs. So, while Cullen covers the historical perspective much better, he also covers the modern Irish culinary scene much better than the Rankins.

This book commits the fallacy of touting the value of the recipes by touting the freshness of their ingredients. To an American reader, this is worthless, as we simply do not have access to the same Irish ingredients, at least not as fresh as what is available to the authors. While I have detected an emerging availability of new Irish ingredients in American megamarts, we certainly do not get fresh Irish seafood, lamb, poultry, game, cream, or mushrooms, as we generally have plenty of these of our own. The authors compound their error by identifying the freshness of the ingredients as the thing that makes these recipes Irish!

Just like great hospitality and enjoyment of the table, every major cuisine around the world brags about the freshness of their ingredients. And, most writers make it sound like they were the ones who invented the use of fresh ingredients. I am generally willing to take this flummery with a grain of salt if the book has a lot more to offer. And, this IS a good book of recipes. It's just that it is more accurately labeled as new recipes by two Irish cooks. As the cooks are from a very good restaurant, this makes it just a bit better than `The New Irish Table' by Irish-American culinary journalist, Margaret M. Johnson, but not nearly as good as Cullen's book.

I would also warn inexperienced cooks about the somewhat brief descriptions of recipe procedures in many of these recipes. I found, for example, the instructions for making mayonnaise to be just a bit too brief for an amateur and the rather unusual description of an `in paper' technique to be just a bit odd, as it made it sound as if one was frying tin foil!

Since the author's premise is that these are Irish recipes because they use fresh Irish ingredients, you will find a lot of recipes whose technique looks remarkably French, Spanish, Italian, or even Peruvian (see ceviche).

If you simply must have every available Irish cookbook or you happen to live in Ireland, where all these ingredients are readily available, you will not be disappointed with this book. I am especially happy with the authors' giving both English and metric measurements, as the more books with both brings us closer to being comfortable with metric measurements. But, if you want real `new' Irish cooking, get Cullen's book. If you want traditional Irish cooking, get `Irish Traditional Cooking' by leading Irish cooking school owner, Darina Allen. If you want a healthy dose of Irish cooking and accompanying folklore, get `Celtic Folklore Cooking' by culinary writer and folklorist, JoAnne Asala.

All in all, this is an `average' cookbook that puts too much weight on how great the recipes are because they use ingredients that in general, are not available to us.