Irish cuisine

Since we are supposed to dedicate a blog post to Irish culture I thought why not write a little bit about typical Irish food and Irish recipes.

Actually I first wanted to write about Ed Sheeran one of my favorite singers and songwriters but after doing some research I found out that he actually is British and only his grandparents on his father’s side are Irish.

Howsoever, let’s get started with some typical Irish food items. First of all, one of the most important basic food in Ireland is the potato since a lot of meals are based on it. Other common vegetables are cabbage, tomatoes and carrots. As for grains wheat is dominating. Of course meat is also part of Ireland’s food especially beef, pork but also chicken and lamb.

To get to the real meals, a rather traditional one is corned beef with cabbage. It mainly consists of corned beef and cabbage as its name already say but potatoes, onions and carrots are usually added as well. Cooking this dish is rather easy, however, takes a lot of time since you have to stew it for about seven hours.

I found a recipe for corned beef and cabbage on this website: http://www.food.com/recipe/slow-cooker-corned-beef-and-cabbage-205367

Another traditional dish is soda bread. Although soda bread is present in a few cuisines of different countries it can be seen as typical Irish since there is a very own version popular in Ireland containing raisins. Other than usual bread it doesn’t contain yeast but baking soda and buttermilk instead.

If you like to try to make it at home I’ve found a recipe for the typical Irish soda bread: http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Irish-Soda-Bread/Detail.aspx?evt19=1

Another element of the Irish cuisine is not a meal but a beverage. Any clue? No, I’m not talking about Guinness which would be typically Irish as well but about Irish coffee. This hot beverage combines two very different drinks black coffee and whiskey. Normally it also comes with whipped cream on top but traditionally this cream shouldn’t be whipped, though.

Here is a recipe for Irish coffee and the website also talks a little about the history of this beverage: http://cocktails.about.com/od/atozcocktailrecipes/r/irsh_cfe_cktl.htm

Of course there are many more but for now these should be enough.

Register

To be honest, I never really paid too much attention to the different registers of language before. Of course I had to deal with the appropriate register at every day’s situations depending on who I talk to and for homework assignments at school as well as at university but I never really gave it too much thought. However, I really tried to watch out for it in order to write this post and what I found out is actually quite interesting.

I've already mentioned quite a few times that I love the TV show Supernatural (Yeah I know, I keep rambling about it over and over again and anyone reading this blog must think I’m obsessed with it and that it might get annoying to a certain extend but so what) and now I want to talk about the dialogues and of course their register.

Well, first of all the main part of the dialogues are informal as well as happening between the two brothers Sam and Dean. These informal speeches are very direct, mostly use rather simple language apart from some specialist terms concerning hunting and the supernatural and are larded with swear words.

This is, however, not the only type of language which is used since especially Sam applies more neutral to rather formal language when talking to police officers, doctors and relatives of the victims pretending to be an FBI agent. Also Castiel, an Angel of the Lord (Yeah, you read right, there are not only demons but also angels on this show) is very formal as well as stiff which is one of his overall characteristic features.

I’m not 100% sure if this belongs to register as well but Crowley, the Crossroad demon aka the King of Hell, is talking in British English using all the belonging expressions which are sometimes hard to understand, other times sounding rather funny.

All in all, I personally find it very intriguing that register is this present in every day’s life and even in a show that I watch a lot.

 

I found a video which gives quite a good insight into the different types of register I mentioned above. So just have a look at it:

Happy New Year :)

So 2013 is almost over and a brand new year is ahead of us. Most people would use this opportunity to post a recap of the previous year on their blog, but not me. I won’t start talking about New Year’s resolutions either, since I normally don’t keep them and therefore don’t make any, anymore.

Instead I thought about talking about some New Year’s traditions.

Well to start with, a very common custom in Austria is to melt lead and to poor it into water (preferably cold) afterwards so it solidifies again. Then you look at the shape to tell your fortune for the upcoming year. (Every shape has it’s own meaning: For example a clover means luck, a horseshoe good business, a hat good news and so on)

In Spain and some Latin American countries, however, eating twelve grapes at midnight is said to bring good luck in the New Year.

Another tradition which I found on the internet is by the Irish. (I personally think this one is the most interesting one I came across) They apparently bang white bread against the wall to get rid off the bad luck.

I also found a website which gives twelve examples of other New Year’s traditions: http://abclocal.go.com/ktrk/story?section=news/national_world&id=9377008

Just check it out – there are some pretty amusing ones among them as well such as Greek people throwing pomegranates out of their doors for good luck.