Irish Food History: A Companion demonstrates how food, its availability and consumption, are so critical to understanding a country and its people across time and space. As the editors put it more succinctly in the Introduction, ‘Food permeates every aspect of life and society, from birth to death’ (p. 15). This gathering of many scholars across multiple disciplines to draw on a variety of texts and artefacts give this food history its rigour. Poetry and verse, in Irish and English, appear throughout the text without commentary, transitions inviting the reader to participate in the analysis, adding to the breadth of this project.

Much is learned about the contributions of specific women to the history of food. Dorothy Cashman’s chapter “’Cookery Notes’:  Domestic Economy ‘instructresses’ and the history of their cookbooks in Ireland” is a study of cookbooks authored in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries by a ‘cohort of professional women’ who came to ‘shape the culinary expression of the island for the next several decades’ (p. 597). One ‘instructress’ is Nellie Gifford. Cashman notes that her career was, possibly, an escape from domestic duties foisted on her in the family home when judged a lesser intellect and removed from school early. Formal instruction in laundry, dressmaking and cookery was her gateway to teaching and financial independence. Gifford taught in Meath before returning to Dublin and joining the Citizen Army. She fed a garrison during the Easter Rising.

Caitríona Clear examines “Fact and Fiction” in journalist and writer Maura Laverty’s food writing between 1941-1960. At seventeen, Laverty moved to Spain solo and worked as a governess and, later, as a clerk. There she began writing stories and poems for publication in Irish periodicals. Later, her main income was as a freelance print and radio journalist, but she also wrote plays and novels. It may come as a surprise that Laverty had ‘no formal cookery qualifications’ and, with the ingenuity needed to keep a freelance income regular and profitable, she turned life experience and, possibly, notes made at the Irish Folklore Commission, into a career. Clear observes that, ‘Wherever and however she learned about cookery’ Laverty’s reputation as a ‘media authority on it’ resulted in a commission from the government to write her first cookbook in 1941 (700).

Laverty’s Flour Economy was intended to move the Irish diet away from wheat during wartime scarcity with recipes based on potatoes and oatmeal. Clear notes that the book ‘assures’ its readers that, ‘The conscientious housekeeper’ is ‘a good citizen’ (701). Pride of place is evident in Kind Cooking, published in 1946, where Laverty observes that the ‘four best Irish things are… W. B. Yeats, Barry Fitzgerald, potatoes steamed in their jackets, and soda bread’ (702). The latter was, seemingly, challenged in her most famous cookbook from 1960, Full and Plenty:  complete guide to good cooking. Under the sponsorship of the Irish Flour Millers’ Association, she pushed the ‘value of white bread’ made with yeast as the ‘best of all’ (708). In her conclusion, Clear writes that sponsorship might have compromised the integrity of Laverty’s nutritional advice at times but did not detract from her skill as a writer. Her novels and plays, not under sponsorship, ‘can be taken as authentic’ and make clear Laverty’s ‘appreciation of baking and cooking’ (715).

In the chapter, ‘Life and Legacy’ of Myrtle Allen, Margaret Connolly demonstrates why Allen was a ‘pioneering activist’ who ‘championed, nurtured, and led the way for the creation of a confident, resilient, and proud representation of Irish cuisine’ (745). Her emphasis on the local rather than recreating haute cuisine showcased the quality of Irish food in Ireland and abroad by ‘acknowledging the innate connection between the land and the food it produces’ (749). So much more could be said about this chapter: it is thorough in delving into the influences on her creativity from a young age, her marriage and partnership with Ivan, her mentorship and encouragement of protégés and her entrepreneurial acumen. All contributed to a legacy that included paying producers for the value of ‘excellent ingredients’, a lesson lost on many contemporary grocery chains, and the eventual growth of an industry which continues to draw on Allen’s principles and standards.

Many of the contributions of Irish women are located in chapters that are without a direct focus on particular women. For example, the chapter “Hunger and Starvation in Modern Ireland” by Ian Miller examines this difficult phenomenon from several perspectives including gendered roles and classed-based biases. He highlights the reliance on white bread and tea by families that could not afford a more nutritious diet, and the difficult decisions that had to be made by working-class mothers over who in the family needed the more nutritious food available. Poor women were scapegoated as the reason why their children were undernourished. Working as an anti-poverty activist, Maud Gonne identified the connection between an undernourished population and colonialism rather than blaming mothers. Gonne also addressed the ‘subsistence crises in Ireland’ by working to establish school lunch programs after their introduction in England and Wales (631).

This historical study of food in Ireland is comprehensive in its examination of what was consumed on the island from ancient to contemporary times and in its exploration of the cultural, political and policy insights that flow from the harvest, trade and consumption of foodstuffs. Approaching the final pages the reader will have moved to the continent and into kitchens where Irish food is prepared and will understand the value of food parcels in the diaspora. Accordingly, Irish Food History: A Companion will appeal to scholars across disciplines. Those researching Irish women’s history will find the chapters examining the work of particular women of interest because of how they navigated limits on their freedom to earn and their lives in the public sphere. Otherwise, the text provides insight into women’s lives even when occupying space in the social and economic margins of a particular chapter.

Dr. Susan Martin is a historical sociologist and a member the supervisory panel in UCC’s Food Studies and Irish Foodways programme. Her current project is on Dublin’s women street traders.