A History of Irish Baking (Part 8)

The Protestant Ascendancy: pies, pastries, and puddings

During the ‘Protestant Ascendancy’ (1691-1800), Irish food culture became deeply divided. The Anglo-Irish elite enjoyed a rich diet influenced by English and European tastes, while most of the Irish population relied entirely on the potato and simple dairy products for survival. Increased food exports to England and economic inequality meant that even as Ireland produced substantial amounts of food, much of the population remained poor and food insecure. These conditions set the stage for future crises, including the Great Famine (or rather The Great Hunger) of the 19th century.

It is difficult to discuss the advancements of Irish food (or food in Ireland) during this period as is it a tale of two sides. We may look back at this period now and appreciate Anglo-Irish cooking (which would inform Irish cooking of the 19th and 20th century) but from the perspective of the time the dominance of the Anglo-Irish ruling class, led to most of the Irish population facing food insecurity and social inequality.

However, I will try and park this historic prejudice to outline how food and baking changed in Ireland during this time. As with other periods of Irish food culture, it is not the case of a simple evolution, for example, despite more ovens in Ireland to bake bread, many still cooked unleavened breads on griddle pans over open fires, like the ways in which Irish people had done a thousand years previous.

Change in food culture is always slow and often unnoticed at the time. It is not until a second change happens, that we then notice the first. Scones, now firmly a part of Irish food culture, emerge during this time as a food of the landed class. But traditions merge and we cannot stop food culture changing and evolving.

During this period of social and economic divisions in the Anglo-Irish Protestant elite controlled most of the land and lived in luxury, enjoying fine dining, and imported goods. The native Irish Catholic population, especially peasants and tenant farmers, faced economic hardship and relied on subsistence farming. Penal Laws (enacted in the late 17th and early 18th centuries) restricted Catholic land ownership, leading to widespread poverty and dietary limitations for the native population.

Power was held by 5% of the population, who were Protestants belonging to the Church of Ireland. Protestants controlled all major sectors of the Irish economy: they owned bulk of the farmland, and they directed the legal system for local and national government.

The Anglo-Irish gentry lived in large country estates and consumed a diet like that of the English upper classes. Their meals included wheat bread, meats (beef, lamb, game), butter, and cheeses. Imported goods such as tea, coffee, sugar, wine, and spices became status symbols, as recipe books attest. French and European influences shaped the cooking in wealthy households, with elaborate dishes such as stews, roasts, and desserts.¹

Charles Collins, Still Life with Game (1741)

In contrast to these indulgences, the humble potato became the dominant food source for the lower classes, since it was nutritious, high-yielding, and easy to grow in poor soil. A diet of potatoes and buttermilk provided essential nutrients, making it the staple of the Irish peasantry. While the potato allowed the native population growth, it also made them more vulnerable to famine if the crop failed, which it did, on many occasions. Localized famines occurred throughout the 18th century due to crop failures and economic hardship. The worst was the Great Famine of 1740–1741 caused by a severe winter which led to subsequent harvest failures and mass starvation for the native Irish.

Due to this division of power, there was a decline of traditional Gaelic foodways. The traditional Gaelic cattle-based diet of milk, cheese, and beef declined due to English agricultural policies and export polices. Beef and butter were regularly exported to England, leaving the Irish population with less access to these foods. Furthermore, many Irish people could not afford wheat bread, so they continued to eat oat and barley bread as before. This gave wheaten and leavened bread more cultural capital than oat and barley bread.²

There was major growth of commercial agriculture and food exports. Ireland became a major exporter of beef, butter, pork, and grains to England. Large estates and commercial farms replaced smaller subsistence farms, further displacing rural Irish farmers and the native population. Irish tenant farmers worked the land for many absentee landlords. Irish butter, particularly from Cork, became highly valued as a commodity and was exported across Europe and even to the Americas. Again, there was little benefit for the native Irish population during this time, though towards the end of the 18th century, the aspirational Irish merchant and political class would begin to fight back.³

The Anglo-Irish elite consumed a variety of breads and baked goods that were quite different from the simple oatcakes and barley bread of the Irish peasantry. Their baking traditions were influenced by English, French, and European cuisine, and they had access to refined flour, sugar, butter, eggs, and imported spices, allowing for a more diverse and luxurious selection of baked goods. While this type of baking would eventually trickle down and become part of modern mass culture from the late 19th century, for the moment, there was little access to these ingredients to most of the population.

Breads available to the Anglo-Irish elite were Manchet bread rolls (a fine white wheat bread made from the best milled flour); wheaten bread (served with butter, cheese, or meat; and French and Italian Bread (some larger estates and urban bakeries produced French-style baguettes and Italian-style bread). Interestibly, the wealthiest estates produced ciabatta-like loaves made using imported olive oil (my grandparents never even had olive oil!).

There was also Maslin bread (originally from Yorkshire) which was a mixture of rye and wheat flour, darker and denser than white bread. This was more common among middle-class Protestants and townspeople but still considered a step above the oat and barley breads of the Irish poor. In her book English Bread and Yeast Cookery (1977) Elizabeth David quotes from a 16th century book, The Dyetary of Helth (1542) observing that:

Maslin bread is made half of wheat and half of rye. And there is also Maslin made half of rye and half of barley.

The Anglo-Irish elite also loved their baking goods, from pastries to pies. A variety of pies from pigeon, steak, and kidney, venison, and even lobster and oyster pie, populated the menus in Irish country houses. Tarts and fruit pies also abounded: sweet shortcrust pastry filled with apple, pears, or plums would have been popular in autumn, while gooseberry, raspberry and strawberry tarts would have appeared in late spring and early summer. Importation of foreign fruit also influenced tart flavours with quinces, almonds, lemons, or fig tarts giving an exotic touch to evening menus (all made with sugar of course, which was still an expensive commodity).

Puddings and baked desserts also featured on the menus. Plum pudding (made with suet, dried fruit, brandy, and spices, boiled in a cloth); Spotted Dick (a suet pudding with dried fruit, served with custard) and Treacle pudding (a steamed sponge pudding covered in golden syrup) are three examples of puddings made during this period of Irish history.

‘To make an Almond Tart’, from the Donovan Family Recipe Book (1713)

French patisserie-style baking was admired and imitated, particularly in Dublin and large Anglo-Irish estates. Some wealthy households imported French bakers to make fine pastries, éclairs, and delicate puff pastries. The use of almond flour, marzipan, and choux pastry was a sign of high status, ambition, ‘good standing and good taste’ (Sexton, 2016).

In her article, ‘How desserts became bling in the 18th century’ (2021), Tara McConnell observes:

Dessert was the 'bling' course at formal Georgian and Regency dinners. Jellies, ices, sweetmeats, syllabubs, cakes, biscuits and both fresh and candied fruits tantalised diners. Pièces montées created by confectioners were all the rage. Emily Fitzgerald [Duchess of Leinster] sniffed that in Ireland, 'every Bodys Housekeeper is their Confectioner'. Aware of her position at the apex of Ascendancy society, Fitzgerald was sure to employ a French confectioner herself. Not everyone, however, scorned desserts produced by housekeepers. Jonathan Swift was flattered when one titled friend assured him that his housekeeper made 'the best sweet puddings' that he ever ate.

An engraving of 18th century confectionary delights by Jacques-Philippe Careme

British cooks were also hired to produce sweet cakes, such as Seed cake (a light sponge cake flavored with caraway seeds), Madeira cake (a dense, rich cake served with Madeira wine), Pound cake (a buttery cake made with equal parts butter, sugar, eggs, and flour); Gingerbread (spiced with ginger, nutmeg, and cinnamon, often molded into elaborate shapes) and Fruitcake (a rich, heavy cake packed with raisins, currants, nuts, and candied citrus peel). These cakes also became common in towns and cities and part of the diets of those who had money to spend on food. Foodways in Ireland were well and truly changing. According to historian Louis Cullen, Irish food culture was so ‘weak’ that it enabled new food systems to flourish in the 17th and 18th century (Cullen, 1981).

The first recipe collections in Ireland emerge from this period, complied by gentry women of landed estates who embraced both British and European trends of cookery. Many of these manuscripts now reside in the National Library of Ireland. The Smythe of Barbavilla Papers (Co. Westmeath) are particularly revealing of the foodways of the period between the late 17th and early 18th century and contain many of the food stuffs discussed in this article.

‘To Make Saffron Cakes’, from Smythe of Barbavilla Papers (NLI, MS 41,603)

During the 17th and 18th centuries, Dublin's baking industry was organized through guilds rather than individual commercial bakeries as we know them today. The Bakers' Guild, formally known as the Guild of St. Anne and St. Clement was established in 1478. This guild regulated the baking profession, overseeing standards, training, and the operation of its members within the city.

Members of the Bakers' Guild operated from their homes or small workshops, producing bread and other baked goods for local consumption. These bakers were responsible for supplying daily bread, cakes and pastries to Dublin's inhabitants, and their operations were integral to the city's food supply. The guild maintained quality control and fair pricing, ensuring that the bread met specific standards and was accessible to the populace.

While individual bakeries as standalone shops were not common during this period, the collective efforts of the guild members ensured a steady supply of baked goods throughout Dublin. The transition to recognizable commercial bakeries began in the 19th century, with establishments like Boland's Bakery which became prominent in the late 1800s.

Buns and small baked goods abounded in town and cities. There were Hot Cross buns (spiced sweet buns with dried fruit, traditionally eaten at Easter), Sally Lunn buns (large, sweet, yeasted buns like brioche), Chelsea buns (cinnamon and sugar-filled rolls, like modern sticky buns; and Bath buns (yeast-based, butter-rich rolls topped with sugar and fruit.

In 17th and 18th century Dublin, buns and pastries were made in private kitchens, bakers’ workshops, taverns, and coffeehouses. By the late 18th century, commercial bakeries and market stalls became more common, allowing Dubliners greater access to baked goods. Buns and pastries were commonly made in the kitchens of Dublin taverns, coffeehouses, and coaching inns. Coffeehouses (popular by the early 18th century) served hot cross buns, scones, and sweet rolls alongside tea and coffee. Taverns and alehouses often served meat pies, hot pastries, and suet puddings to travellers and locals.

By the 18th century, some bakers began selling goods from market stalls and street carts. Moore Street Market and the Tholsel Market were known for food vendors, who may have sold freshly baked buns and pastries. Street vendors, known as ‘cake-women’ sold hot cakes, sugared buns, and spiced biscuits to Dubliners.

Some Catholic monasteries and convents (despite restrictions) maintained baking traditions. These religious houses occasionally produced breads, cakes, and pastries for religious feasts or special occasions.

The Anglo-Irish elite enjoyed a sophisticated and diverse baking culture, featuring fine wheat breads, sweet pastries, rich cakes, and elaborate pies. Their baking was heavily influenced by English, French, and European traditions, while most of the Irish population lived on simple oat and barley bread. This culinary divide reflected the wider social and economic inequalities of the time.

As difficult as it is to conceive, the baking of the Anglo-Irish elite profoundly influenced the direction of baking in Ireland, especially in the 20th century. While this change was slow, and was initially part of a colonial project, it changed Irish foodways forever, for better or worse, depending on the ways in which you see the role of the Protestant Ascendancy in Ireland. As Roy Foster observes in Modern Ireland, 1600–1972 (1988) by the end of 18th century, the Anglo-Irish ruling class had come to see Ireland, not England, as their native country. Just as the Norse and Normans before them.

Hence the continued difficulty of the foodways of this period. Do we call this baking in Ireland or Irish baking? Or do these terms even encapsulate the fluidly of food culture in Ireland? For Louis Cullen in his book The Emergence of Modern Ireland, 1600-1900, this period represents the transition from the medieval to the modern in Irish food culture. But whose food culture? And whose modernity?

Charles Collins, Lobster on a Delft Dish (1738)

Since the beginning of the 21st century, we have started to reclaim this period as part of our food culture as opposed to something imposed on us. The new independent Ireland of 1922 tried to discount the protestant aspect of Irish culture as an aberration, as something ‘not Irish’, but this attitude has well and truly been challenged by food historians such as Regina Sexton and Dorothy Cashman.

Next week, we’ll look at the period 1801–1923, which will cover the Famine and the Gaelic Revival. A tale of two Irelands will still be played out through the foodways and food cultures of the people residing on the island.

Until next week,

Jp.

1. See Regina Sexton ‘Food and Culinary Cultures in Pre-Famine Ireland’, Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy: Archaeology, Celtic Studies, History, Literature, 115C (2015), 257–306.

2. This continues in Irish food culture of the present were yeasts breads or sourdough have more symbolic status that soda bread or scones.

3. The Penal laws began to be dismantled from 1766.