Home Cookin'

(Grilled cheese with vintage Irish cheddar and 'red sauce' or ketchup -- American food, Irish style!)

Most college students eat very differently when we are at school versus at home -- even if school is technically our home for that academic term or whatever. School food consists of things in cans, in plastic packages...things that you may need to boil water for, but that's it. There's a lot of spaghetti, a lot of Ramen, and a lot of whatever the dining hall is serving.

Naturally, Irish school food is even stranger. There's the usual switch to the school-type pasta, but I find myself doing things with it that I would never do at school, probably due to the fact that the food Irish people eat, not even including the traditional pub fare and blood sausage you're thinking of, is very different from what Americans choose to eat.

Here, for your pleasure, is a description of some of the most different things I eat in Ireland, most of them with pictures:

Heinz Beans -- They say they're baked, but that's a lie. It's really kind of hard to describe the difference between these beans and baked beans back home, but imagine the sauce from Spaghettios mixed with just the beans from baked beans -- no bacon, no fat, no weird smoked flavor. The Irish and British eat this type of bean on toast for 'tea', a meal I have yet to figure out.

Kraft Light Herb and Garlic Dressing -- Picture ranch on crack. God, it's good. It's like a combination of ranch and maybe ceasar, which they recommend to put on potato salad with 'streaky bacon'. I discovered this in a search for something to dip my pizza crust in, and now I eat it on potatoes, pasta, rice....anything with a starch, and I pull out the dressing. Awesome.

Cadbury Bournville -- I have to admit that the first time I came to Ireland, I thought Green and Black's chocolate was the absolute pinnacle of chocolately goodness. And it is, but the fact that you can actually get it in the US and I just didn't know it has somehow taken the shine off those five-euro bars of organic chocolate. So I've switched to the two-euro Bournville, which is dark chocolate. Just that. Nothing else. A massive 200 gram hunk of marvelous Cadbury heaven. Yummm. It also comes in a drinking chocolate version. :)

Nutella -- I never eat this in the States, and I don't know why. It's really pretty easy to get and not that expensive. Here, though, it's cheaper than peanut butter (which the Irish and apparently the British don't get, by the way -- my Scottish friend demanded to know the other day why in God's name anyone would put peanut butter on a sandwich). It's really best when served on the next thing on this list or crepes, not bread, though you can do it.

Digestive biscuits -- Okay, first know that a biscuit is usually a word for cookie. Now realize that these are not really like cookies, either, but kind of like sweet crackers -- like a graham cracker, actually, but round and thicker. A close relation is the tea biscuit, which has the same concept but I think it's made with white flour and isn't brown. Again, eaten for 'tea', whatever that is, though I usually eat them with Nutella for breakfast or as a study snack.

Walkers Sensations -- Only the best potato chips in the world. These are, as my Scottish friend calls them, 'posh crisps' that come in flavors like Roast Chicken and Thyme, Cheddar and Red Onion Chutney, and my favorite, Caramelized Onion and Balsamic Vinaigrette. And since they don't come in the 'prawn cocktail' variety many other chips here do...I'm all for them.

Ethnic Food -- I don't know whether this is because we're closer to Europe/Asia or there's a greater immigrant population here, but Uncle Ben's (of the rice?) makes bottled Indian and Chinese food sauces like Sweet and Sour and Tikka Masala. And it's not just Uncle Ben's -- it's even in the generic store brands. It throws me, because while usually we do have ethnic food of this sort, it's not really as mainstream (except at Wegmans, but even there you just have bottled soy sauce and satay sauce sometimes, never anything as complicated as Tikka Masala). And they keep it next to the tomato sauce like it's totally normal...but you can't get Mexican food, like salsa or chips, for anything. Go figure. Maybe it's a hemisphere thing.

Good thing I am doing all this walking, or else I'd weigh four million pounds by now. Next time, actually going-out-and-eating-real-meals food :)