A stroll through an Irish supermarket

[dianeduane]

For those of you who may be interested:

The Irish recipe pages at our European Cuisines website are constantly getting search-engine hits from people asking "What do Irish people eat?". With that in mind, we've put a new page up that talks about the subject -- in very broad strokes -- and links to a Flickr photoset of images from our local supermarket, Gillespies' SuperValu of Baltinglass, County Wicklow. (You can also view the images as a slideshow, if you like.) Anyway, if you've been wondering what a small-town supermarket in Ireland might offer, here's your chance to find out.

There are also links on the "What do Irish people eat?" page to our Irish recipe collections, if you're interested.

 

 

 

Comments

[tysolna]

Thanks for the photos; but how did the other shoppers and the people working there to you taking pictures of the shop?

[trdsf.livejournal.com]

Making a splash over here recently are Irish cheeses--mainly white Cheddars (and a perfectly magnificent Irish "Swiss" that's going to have a permanent home in my fridge)--but not many native ones outside of a few flavored cheddars, even in specialty shops. I've already given up all hope of finding any native Polish cheeses outside of a vacation in Kraków. Locally, there's a fairly large Irish festival (http://www.dublinirishfestival.org/) but I can't say I've noticed the food because as soon as I hear the music, I forget about eating. Uilleann pipes get me every single time...

[mizkit.livejournal.com]

I wonder what Marks&Spencer would think of people taking pictures in there. It'd be impossible (at least in the one in Cork) to do so without several dozen people in each shot even if they were amenable to it. Nor would I actually be inclined to, because although M&S has very good fruit, the whole prepackagedness of their entire food section makes me feel slightly nervous. I have no idea why. It's Just Wrong!

That's a great article. Thanks for linking to it!

[crissachappell.livejournal.com]

Have you ever seen those giant Andreas Gursky supermarket shots? I love those pictures!

[krisw.livejournal.com]

I always suspected that Irish people ate...food! some of the recipes look like they make quite tasty food. =)

[dsgood.livejournal.com]

Do the Irish eat the Finnish-American delicacy pasties?

In the Upper Midwest (and in Colorado, and probably parts of Canada), Cornishmen were the experts on mining and immigrants from elsewhere learned from them. And along the way, they picked up pasties -- which are apparently quite handy for eating under the ground.

So: In the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, there's Toivo and Eino's Pasty Sauce. Toivo and Eino are the standard names in jokes about Finnish-Americans; equivalent to Pat and Mike or Ole and Sven.

In Minneapolis supermarkets, the Mexican food sections include: 1) Food imported from Mexico; 2) Food from Texas with labels partly in Spanish, including such exotica as spaghetti; 3) Taco Bell sauces.

I see I will eat well if I ever make it to Ireland!

[cjmr.livejournal.com]

My sister has a supermarket this neat by her in the Metro Detroit area. It seems ridiculous that in D.C., a much more cosmopolitan city theoretically, we're stuck with non-gourmet food chains.

My husband tells me that under no circumstances do I want to know what is in Black Pudding. I can't imagine that it's worse than what's in scrapple or Blutwurst, though. So what's in Black Pudding?