I really do think about other things than food(!), but the place where I work will be holding an afternoon tea with Irish harp music as the entertainment, and I need to come up with a list of food and decorations. I'd like to follow through with the Irish theme as much as possible, so I need suggestions for food to serve. I love the way these boards include people from all over the world, so is anyone here from Ireland? Does anyone have any suggestions?

I do have some cookbooks with recommendations, but I am looking for as many ideas as possible. We are on a tight budget, so I don't know whether I can afford to buy any imported cheeses, etc. Also, I can't prepare anything myself; it all has to come from a commercial kitchen, but I have found a small business that will prepare things to order if I give them a recipe.

Thanks in advance for any responses.

Tea??? I dunno - thought it had to be Guinness <g>

c.

I'm afraid that this is going to be the second unhelpful answer to your question, but Cookiesmom, have you heard of the novel Angela's Ashes, written by Frank McCourt? The author writes about his miserable childhood in Limerick, Ireland. The poor boy and his brothers were raised almost entirely on tea and bread, and if they were lucky, they had some sugar with their tea!

So I guess you could serve a very austere and frugal Irish tea, consisting only of tea, bread and some sugar!

Ann

Could this link maybe help?

http://oldfashionedliving.com/irishtea.html

malu

Cc, you're not the first person to mention Guinness, but unfortunately we're not allowed to serve alcohol. If we were, we'd have something more lively than harp music.

Ann, thanks for the reference, but I want people to enjoy the experience . . . .

Malu, thanks very much for the link!

Still open to other suggestions.

I don't know how the irish do it, but a popular thing in New Zealand from the UK used to be scones with jam and cream served with tea. Normally accompanied with club sandwiches as well...

If you put green dye in with the scones or made them clover shaped they could count as 'irish' i suppose.

But generally most irish people I know drink beer or spirits, and in very large quantities... don't think I've seem them drink tea.

All I can think of is a tea called Irish Breakfast Tea, which is a very good tea. I don't know how often it's drunk in Ireland, though!

Here are a couple of sites which may help you out - although I can't speak to the accuracy of it:

Irish Tea Traditions

How To Hold A Colonial Irish Tea

LabRat

I posed your question to my co-worker who was born and raised just north of Dublin. This was his reply:

"Tea in Ireland isn't a fancy affair with sconces and clotted cream and biscuits (cookies). It's a light meal. They have breakfast, dinner (which is lunchtime) and tea. For tea we'd have what my dad called a 'fry up'. We'd have black (blood) pudding, sausage, bacon. Mom used to make boxty (potato cakes) from the leftovers from dinner. In the summertime we'd usually have something lighter, like a chef salad or cheese sandwiches. We'd have grilled cheese sandwiches, too, though that's not really Irish."

He went on to joke that the purpose of tea time was to have something in your stomach before you went out drinking in the pub for the evening. He laughed and said that his father would often rail against the image of the Irish as heavy drinkers - but that his dad would usually have a drink in his hand while doing so.

ETA: 1500 posts! I just reached "Merriweather"!

Sue's co-worker said:

That's exactly why I thought that the chocolate potato cake sounded like a good idea. When I was a kid, mom baked a lot of cakes, and very occasionally she'd bake a potato cake - not an Irish one, mind you, but a cake with cold mashed potatoes and almonds. I remember that I liked them, because they were richer and moister than the usual sandcakes.

So I think that if you bake an Irish potato cake it will taste good. It will also be an interesting treat for your guests, because they will probably not have eaten anything like that before. It will also be a typically Irish cake, and personally I think it will be "doubly Irish", because potatoes used to be an incredibly important staple food on the Emerald Island. And as you can see, the first Irish person that Sue came across used to be served such cakes at home! Maybe not chocolate potato cakes, but some sort of potato cakes, at least.

If you check out that recipe page that Malu and LabRat both sent you, you will find the recipe for the chocolate potato cake there.

Congratulations on being a Merriwether, Sue!

Ann

Thanks, Sue and Ann! Congrats, Sue!

My first thought was tea and scones. Irish Breakfast Tea is very good and strong. Or you could do a punch.

I would recommend buying scones unless you are an accomplished cook. I sure can't make them taste good.

Also small "finger sandwiches" are usual. You have to cut the crusts off the bread and halve the sandwich in in half catercorner or you can do three long cuts. This is where the famous cucumber sandwich came from. My mother used to do this. She usually had 3 kinds. There was a cream cheese with diced black olives, a ground roast beef with mayonnaise and a third type with cheddar cheese spread. (It doesn't need to be expensive imported stuff.)
In the US, the relish tray is very popular. Carrots, celery, small tomatoes (cherry tomatoes) and olives with a dip. You can get premade trays in grocery stores.
What the British call biscuits for dessert would be good. Can you believe the board here wouldn't let me post the American word for biscuits because it thought it was a HTML code? Then I got a flood warning! AAARGH.
Have fun & good luck.
Off to tea with my sewing buddies
Artemis