Apple cider vinegar to replace wine, spelt berries to replace rice and broad beans to replace chick peas – these are just some of the innovations that emerge from a new community TV series, as non-Irish nationals take on the ‘Romancing Ireland’ challenge.
‘Romancing Ireland’ sees volunteers from the Brazilian, French, Italian, Romanian and Spanish communities in Ireland, set about gathering ingredients to cook a meal that’s been voted national favourite by their compatriots online. The catch is that they must use only Irish ingredients. These five non-Irish national communities were the only ones found to be growing in numbers in the last census. Coincidentally, they are all romance language speakers, giving the series its name.
The idea came from ‘The Carbon in the Carbonara’ – a research paper that Declan Cassidy wrote at the Italian Department of Trinity College Dublin.
“My research showed that immigrant communities create a demand for produce from their own countries and that this often spills over into the native population,” he explains. “Let’s face it – the average Irish granny wasn’t raised on avocados and prosciutto!
“I found that there were two main reasons why new arrivals looked for foods imported from their homelands. Firstly, there is an impression that Irish fruit and veg are quite tasteless. And, unfortunately, that’s true of a lot of what we find in our supermarkets because it is often imported. The other reason is psychological. Tastes from home are a real comfort to people who are in a new country and feeling homesick. It’s why we send crisps and teabags to our own emigrants.”
Of course, increased imports are neither good for the local economy, nor, importantly, for the climate.
“Romancing Ireland had two main goals,” continues Cassidy. “We wanted viewers to spend some time with representatives of the growing communities within our increasingly multicultural society and we wanted to show that Ireland has incredibly great food – if you use a little imagination and look in the right places.”
To find out more about the series, click here
To view the series, click here
