I love and support the wonderful food artisans peppered all over the premier county and Ireland as a whole, but I believe that our grandparents would snort with derision at our notions of grandeur. The artisan producer’s passion is to produce first class foodstuffs with a necessary, but usually secondary profit pillar. However, it would have to be said that several generations ago they were doing, as a matter of course and survival, what we hold up as ‘excellence’ today and, indeed, the ‘height of sophistication’. Oh how they would roll in the aisles to see the gourmets and gourmands pontificate about vintage, hand reared, hand made, home produced, organic and natural. Also the high end marketing of such foods to those with disposable income, a more discerning palate and supposed good taste (socially speaking) would, no doubt leave our forefathers absolutely baffled. Isn’t it funny how progress can turn things upside down? Most produce sold and consumed in Ireland up to the middle of the last century was in fact artisan and entire meals, menus and diets were composed of such foods. They just didn’t have fanciful titles on any of it.
Food Snobbery
