Thornton’s Restauarnt: a Culinary Case Study

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Thornton’s Restaurant is an interesting example of the intersection of the conceived “purity” of Irish agriculture and the urban Irish culinary scene. Many of the dishes demonstrate global culinary fusion and traditional Irish ingredients, but the best example is by far the ‘Eireyu’ Beef with Pomme Mousseline and Shallot Sauce. By examining the dish and tracing its ingredients, this urban/rural culinary intersection is revealed – primarily while tracing the beef and potatoes within the dish.

 thorntomThe meal


More on Eireyu Beef

More on Potatoes

More About the Chef

Incorporation of Rural Agricultural Tradition in Irish Urban Cuisine

 

 

 

 

Erin Fein, Danielle Heerey, and Sophie Potter

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Irish Cuisine is often overlooked in the cosmopolitan cuisine world. It is quickly written off as bland and unimaginative – a “peasant” cuisine which does not easily translate into the urban competitive culinary scene.

Particularly interesting is the rhetoric of “tradition” when describing Irish cuisine – Irish food blogs (such as “I Married an Irish Farmer”), television specials, and general pop culture often refer to Irish recipes not as just Irish, but “Traditional Irish” dishes. A quick Google search of Irish cuisine shows this rhetoric well:screenshot.40

“Tradition” is, essentially, an easy way to undermine Irish culinary authority. However, it also engages in another aspect of Ireland food culture: Irish cuisine as representative of an “authentic” Ireland. Irish agriculture is unique because it engages in a long history of Ireland’s land as extraordinarily beautiful, plentiful, and inherent to Ireland’s national identity. As Nicholas Allen argues in Ireland, Empire, and Archipelago, Ireland’s relationship to a faltering Britain after WWI propelled a “self-help” movement in Ireland, which placed an enormous value in local economy, local goods, and, as a result, an “authentic” Ireland: “Ireland was shaped by this change [England], which radicalized a part of the population that otherwise had subsisted on the edges of visible society. The growth in foreign imports displaced already marginal trades, which in turn propelled the growth of self-help movements that evangelized the merits of a local economy” (6). This “local economy” rhetoric  parallels and explains the use of the word “traditional” in Irish cuisine.


Urban Irish cuisine puts a similar emphasis on this idea of “tradition” when presenting its cuisine – however, in recent years the urban culinary scene, particularly in Dublin, has put an emphasis simultaneously on fusion cuisine. In order to elevate “traditional” Irish cuisine, many restaurants utilize fusion cuisine, particularly French fusion, so that the presentation of Irish cuisine on the global stage is never a “pure” Irish. There is a disconnect here, however, as these restaurants place a great deal of investment into presenting “pure” Irish ingredients. The “country” cuisine of a “traditional” (or, alternatively, a rural) Ireland gets reshaped in the urban culinary scene, while its agricultural origins remain  intact (and are boasted about).

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 Thornton’s Restaurant in Dublin is an interesting case study of this division between “pure” Irish agricultural production and its presentation in the urban culinary world. Kevin Thornton, regarded often as one of Ireland’s best chefs, was the first Irish chef to receive two Michelin stars. His food philosophy relies heavily on ideas from the Localvore movement (Kevin Thornton at TEDxDublin), emphasizing the necessity in the food world to switch to local “pure” ingredients. In examining his restaurant, the connection between urban cuisine and rural agriculture is essential. His emphasis on his produce and ingredients (for example, his unique Eireyu beef) has made his restaurant particularly notable in Dublin’s food scene, because it goes above and beyond just using “pure” Irish ingredients: it has livestock tailored into the perfect pure Irish product.


A Meal at Thornton’s

More About the Localvore Movement