Tere!

“Northern Ireland is a part of the UK, Northern Ireland is part of Republic Ireland, so there are not many differences.”

Have you ever thought like this?

Then, have you searched about food culture in Northern Ireland before? It is indeed variant.

Surely, there are no big differences, but even slight differences are still differences, and its trivialness makes it unique in the culture.

This time I will talk about Northern Irish cuisine which is not so well-known.

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Table of Contents

     1. Fifteens
     2. Champ
     3. Soda bread
     4. Potato farl
     5. Ulster fry
     ★Summary

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1. Fifteens

First of all, let’s talk about “fifteens”! This is a kind of sweet in Northern Ireland.

It’s called “fifteens” because almost each ingredient needs 15 stuff.

How simple. 😂

“almost each ingredient needs 15 stuff” means that it requires 15 marshmallows, 15 glacé cherries in addition to 15 digestive biscuits. Additionally, you need a bit more extra ingredients to make fifteens. You can find fifteens’ recipes online very easily like BBC’s webpage.

I want to try to make fifteens some day, so once I make them, I will upload a picture of them on my social media channels and this blog. (I’m not sure if I can obtain cherry stuff in Estonia…)

2. Champ

Secondly “champ” is Northern Irish mashed potatoes.

It’s different from ordinary mashed potatoes because champ contains green onions.

It is good (although I’m usually not a big fan of mashed potato because I don’t have to chew a lot).

On the day tour in Northern Ireland by Viator which I participated in, you will have an opportunity to have some lunch in a town called Ballintoy, where you can have champ. The restaurant’s name is “The Fullerton Arms”.

3. Soda bread

Soda bread can be an implication of Ireland. In fact people in the Republic of Ireland also eat soda bread.

The recipe is fairly easy, and the ingredients are simple too, but often the recipes require buttermilk.

Is it butter or milk.

That’s what I often want to say. (I know it is a product called “buttermilk”.)

In Estonia, it is hard to find unflavoured buttermilk. It is called “hapendatud piimatood” or “petipiim” in Estonian. Luckily, recently I found Lidl discounted unflavoured buttermilk, so I will try to make soda bread.

Also, usually bread making needs yeast, and yet soda bread needs baking soda instead of yeast. No egg is necessary either. (Some recipes still require eggs though.)

It’s quite dry bread, but I personally like its simplicity. It matches butter well.

4. Potato farl

Farl is a flat bread. I saw not only potato farl but also soda farl (which seems to be a bit different from soda bread) at a supermarket in Belfast. I bought soda farls and tried them, and it actually tasted good.

Technically, potato farls per se aren’t Northern Irish particular food, but it is often served in Ulster fry in Northern Ireland.

5. Ulster fry

When going to the UK, many of you might have English breakfast.

But English breakfast isn’t everything!

Both Irish breakfast in the Republic of Ireland and Scottish breakfast in Scotland are slightly different. As they are different, the breakfast in Northern Ireland called “Ulster fry” is also different.

Then, how different are they?

The basic components in each type of breakfast is often

• bacons
• sausages
• fried eggs
• mushrooms
• tomatoes
• tomato-flavoured beans

(The portion and some other details can be changed, depending on the restaurant or who serves it to you.)

I made a table to compare each type of breakfast except for English breakfast.

Irish breakfast	Scottish breakfast	Ulster fry
Black puddingWhite pudding	Only black pudding	Only black pudding
Sometimes hash browns	Square sausagesSometimes haggis
Regular toasts are common	Scottish breakfast rolls	Soda breadPotato farl

Now you see the differences, don’t you!?

I had ulster fry at a restaurant called Bright’s Restaurant in Belfast.

In the picture, the one under the fried egg is a potato farl, and the one under the bacon is soda.

It is tasty, and it makes you full, but it’s still greasy, so if you can’t handle oil well, you might want to choose a small size.

When it comes to the regions in the UK, I haven’t been to Wales yet, so I’m curious about their food culture. I wonder if they have “Welsh breakfast”.

★Summary

There are not many, but you might have thought surprisingly there were, yeah?

Actually, there are a bit more, but since I didn’t get them, I didn’t include them in this article.

The potato farl was pretty good, so I want to eat it again.

If you have any plans to visit Northern Ireland, try Ulster fry!

By the way, it might be hard to get to Northern Ireland from Estonia nowadays due to no flight operation to Dublin by Ryanair anymore.

Aitäh! 🙂