Welcome to Tastes – a fairly eclectic and very personalised collections of culinary bits and pieces. I will include recipes – Irish cuisine initially but I will probably widen the scope and include dishes, snacks and main meals that I have enjoyed world-wide. Other times, it might be snippets of information about culinary oddities, explanations, queries and so on.
First off the rank, as I say, is traditional, Irish Mince pies that were always served to visitors and family in my childhood Dublin. I found an old, ratty cookery book belonging to my mother stuffed into the back of the kitchen cupboard here in Perth. I have no idea how old the book is, the cover and half a dozen pages are missing but it was a promotional booklet issued by Unilever, some type of multi national that, along with a myriad of other products also made margarine and every recipe in the booklet, under headings like Rock Cakes, Sandwich Cakes and Sponges, Icings and Fillings, Pastry, Fish, Meat & Poultry, Batters and Hot Puddings, includes a healthy dose of margarine.
In an age when cholesterol levels were an unknown factor and the emphasis was on taste, coupled, I suppose, with economy, margarine was the king among ingredients!
Oh, one last thing, I have a rather pretentious photo of a place setting which I will use as the featured image for Tastes.
I hope you find something you like, or at least can laugh at – i.e. my attempt at very Short crust pastry mince pies.
Red Branch Chronicles 