Story, Horse?

That's short for "What's the story, Horse?" It's the Irish form of "wassup?'' Since we're off to Ireland today, I thought is was fitting.

We've been looking forward to this trip with Stephanie and Nicky. This past week, I started thinking about the food. The only Irish food I know is corned beef and cabbage (which I love) and Irish soda bread--which I heard of, but didn't't really know anything about. Then, there's green beer and Guiness, but I don't drink beer, so that's out.

I was telling Butch about the Irish soda bread, so he printed a description for me. It sounds pretty good, so I'm looking forward to trying that.

Then I thought of cockles and mussels---because, well, they are mentioned in the song (cockles and mussels alive alive oh). We like mussels, but I always say, you have to just eat them without looking at them. I could totally do the food eating challenge on Survivor if they had mussels. But cockles? That's  another matter entirely. I just don't think I can do it.

They just look nasty---and rubbery. Maybe that's Irish soda bread on the side. No, I can't do it.

On second thought, mussels are pretty nasty looking too. They are definitely hard to look at! That's why you can't.

In order to find out more about the food in Ireland, I did an internet search. Turns out, corned beef and cabbage didn't even make the list. They have bacon and cabbage. The cockles and mussels were on the list along with langoustines---which I'll definitely have. They are just little lobsters. I used to get them at Red Lobster.

Irish stew was listed. I'd forgotten about that, but I've never had it. It contains either lamb, mutton or goat! Eeeew, I just don't know.

There were other things mentioned that I've never heard of.

Colcannon and champ, boxty, coddle, black and white pudding (similar to haggis in Scotland. I definitely won't be eating it---there's blood in the black pudding which makes it black. It contains pork meat, fat and blood mixed with barley, suet and oatmeal in an intensely flavoured sausage. Barmbrack is served with afternoon tea. That sounds like fruitcake. I'll try it, but fruitcake is not my thing.

I can be a pretty adventuresome eater, so I'll likely try many new things. But Stephanie is the most adventurous eater of all! When she was little---say 10 or so, we took the girls on a Disney cruise. Since all the food is included, she decided that she was going to try something she never heard of every night. And she did! That was a great place to do it since you are not paying for a potential mistake (well, you know what I mean).

Really, there are few things I won't eat---liver and snails. It makes me sick to even think about! 

You can pretty much bet that I'll be taking plenty of food photos to share with you! 

So that's the story, horse!