Part Two — Ireland, Memory and the Sea
Waterford — Vikings, Crystal and Rain
After the quiet beauty of the Channel Islands and Scilly, Ireland announced itself with rain.
Not dramatic rain. Not the sort that sends everyone running for shelter.
This was Irish rain — soft, persistent and almost atmospheric.
It turned Waterford into a palette of silvers and greens.
Waterford is Ireland’s oldest city, founded by Vikings in the 9th century. The Viking influence remains one of the most fascinating aspects of the city, particularly around the Viking Triangle, where medieval Waterford can still be traced through its streets, towers and walls.
Yet it was another kind of craftsmanship that captured my attention.
Waterford Crystal.
Watching the craftsmen work was hypnotic. There was heat, breath, concentration and extraordinary patience. A glowing piece of molten glass gradually became a recognisable shape, and then, almost magically, the surface caught the light.
For a moment it seemed to contain the sea itself.
Perhaps craftsmanship naturally catches my attention.
After three generations in the food-service industry, I have always been fascinated by people who take something ordinary and, through knowledge and patience, turn it into something memorable. Whether it is a beautifully prepared dish, a carefully run dining room or a piece of crystal, there is a common principle:
The finished product may look effortless. The skill behind it rarely is.
Waterford also prompted another line of thought.
Ireland’s Jewish history is often overlooked by visitors, yet Jewish communities have been part of Irish life for generations. That became increasingly important as the voyage continued towards Dublin.
For Diane and me, Jewish history has a particular resonance.
We made Aliyah to Israel in the 1980s, but Britain and the wider Jewish world have remained an important part of our lives. My years in kosher hospitality, including 26 years running a Pesach programme in Britain, have taken me into many Jewish communities.
There is a remarkable sense of continuity in discovering another one.
A Taste of Waterford — Irish Apple Tart
Ireland’s orchards and farmhouse baking traditions lend themselves beautifully to a simple apple tart.
Ingredients
Pastry
- 250g plain flour
- 125g butter or suitable kosher substitute
- 50g sugar
- 1 egg
- A little cold water
Filling
- 5–6 apples
- 75g sugar
- 1 tsp cinnamon
- A squeeze of lemon
- Make the pastry and chill for 30 minutes.
- Peel and slice the apples and toss with sugar, cinnamon and lemon.
- Line a tart tin with pastry, fill with apples and cover with a pastry lid.
- Bake at 180°C for approximately 40 minutes.
- Serve warm.
There is something reassuring about an apple tart.
Perhaps because it is the sort of food that crosses generations so easily.
One generation makes it.
Another eats it.
And eventually someone else remembers the taste.
That is one of the things I have come to appreciate most about food during our travels. Recipes may change, ingredients may be substituted and techniques modernised, but the idea of food as a connection between generations remains remarkably constant.
Dublin — The Emotional Centre
If Waterford was a gentle introduction to Ireland, Dublin was where the voyage became personal.
The River Liffey runs through the heart of the city, dividing north from south and providing a constant thread through its history.
There is plenty for the visitor: Trinity College, the Book of Kells, Georgian squares, Dublin Castle, Temple Bar and the many streets where music seems to spill from doorways.
But for me, Dublin meant something more.
Diane and I spent Shabbat with the Dublin Hebrew Congregation in Terenure.
Travel can sometimes make you feel wonderfully anonymous.
You are passing through; nobody knows you; everything is new.
Shabbat does the opposite.
The familiar prayers, the candles, the conversations around the table and the shared meal create an immediate sense of belonging.
For a few hours, Dublin wasn’t somewhere I was visiting.
It felt like somewhere I was part of.
Perhaps that feeling is particularly strong after spending so many years creating Jewish hospitality for others.
For 26 years I ran Pesach programmes in Britain. I know what goes into creating the apparently simple moment when people sit around a table together and feel completely at home.
There is an enormous amount of work behind that feeling.
But when it succeeds, none of the work should be visible.
The guest simply experiences hospitality.
That evening in Dublin, I wasn’t organising the meal.
I was simply enjoying it.
And that was rather wonderful.
The Irish Jewish Museum
After Shabbat came another important stop: the Irish Jewish Museum, housed in the former synagogue on Walworth Road.
It is intimate rather than grand.
And perhaps that makes it more powerful.
Photographs, objects and family stories bring Irish Jewish life down to the level of individuals — people who arrived, built businesses, raised families, celebrated festivals and became part of the fabric of Irish society.
Walking through the museum, I found myself thinking about the extraordinary journeys that families undertake.
Our own journey took Diane and me from Britain to Israel in the 1980s.
Other Jewish families travelled in entirely different directions.
Some came to Ireland.
Some remained in Britain.
Some eventually moved elsewhere.
Yet wherever they went, they carried traditions with them.
Food was part of that story.
So was family.
So was hospitality.
And so was the determination to maintain Jewish life in a changing world.
Later, Dublin returned to its familiar rhythms.
Trinity College.
Temple Bar.
Music.
The Liffey at night.
Walking beside the river, with the lights reflected on the water, I found myself thinking about how many different communities have passed through this city and left something behind.
A Taste of Dublin — Dublin Coddle
Coddle is one of Dublin’s great comfort foods.
The traditional dish uses potatoes, onions, kosher sausages and smoked meat, cooked slowly together.
For a kosher kitchen, of course, the ingredients need to be carefully selected.
Ingredients
- 1kg potatoes
- 500g kosher sausages
- 250g smoked meat
- 3 large onions
- 750ml stock
- Parsley
- Salt and pepper
- Layer the potatoes, onions and meat in a heavy casserole.
- Add the stock and season.
- Cover and cook slowly at about 160°C for 1½–2 hours.
- Finish with plenty of fresh parsley.
It is humble food, but that is precisely its charm.
After a lifetime in food service, I have probably become more convinced rather than less convinced that simple food is often the most difficult food to get right.
There is nowhere to hide.
When the ingredients are straightforward, the cooking has to be good.
Belfast — A City That Remembers
Belfast felt different.
Industrial.
Energetic.
Artistic.
And determinedly forward-looking.
The city carries its history openly.
The Titanic Quarter tells one of the most extraordinary stories of industrial Belfast. Here the great ship was designed and built in a city whose shipyards were once among the most important in the world.
Standing in the Titanic Quarter, it is difficult not to think about the extraordinary confidence of that era — the belief that technology could conquer almost anything.
And then, of course, came the tragedy.
There was an unexpected connection for me in standing beside those shipyards.
So much of my own professional life has been spent around ships and the sea.
Since 1997, I have been involved in catering at sea, and later became involved in kosher river cruising. I have therefore spent years thinking about ships not merely as vessels, but as temporary communities.
A ship carries people with different backgrounds, expectations and stories.
For a few days or weeks, they eat together, travel together and share the same horizon.
Looking at Belfast’s shipbuilding heritage, I found myself thinking about all the people who once stood in these yards building the vessels that would carry those communities across the world’s oceans.
Ships are machines.
But they are also places where human stories unfold.
Elsewhere in Belfast, the murals tell another story.
They are more than decoration. They form an open-air archive of identity, conflict, politics and community.
The city has experienced profound division, but it is also a city engaged in the long process of reconciliation.
Jewish life is quieter here, but still present. The synagogue on Somerton Road provides a steady reminder of continuity — another community maintaining its identity within a city whose own identity has changed dramatically.
Again, I found myself thinking about the importance of continuity.
Communities survive because people keep showing up.
They open the doors.
They cook the food.
They celebrate the festivals.
They welcome the next generation.
It is a lesson I have seen repeatedly throughout my own life.
A Taste of Belfast — Irish Champ
There is something wonderfully appropriate about following such a complicated city with a dish that is uncomplicated.
Champ is mashed potato enriched with spring onions and butter.
Ingredients
- 1kg potatoes
- 6–8 spring onions
- 75g butter
- 150ml milk
- Salt and pepper
- Boil the potatoes until tender.
- Warm the milk with the chopped spring onions.
- Mash the potatoes and beat in the milk mixture and butter.
- Season generously.
It is simple, comforting and unmistakably Irish.
And perhaps that is what food does best.
It gives you something familiar after a day spent thinking about complicated things.
Douglas — Beauty and a Difficult Past
The Isle of Man brought another change of atmosphere.
Douglas has the unmistakable character of an old Victorian seaside resort.
Its promenade curves around the bay, lined with elegant buildings and the sea stretching beyond.
It is a place made for walking.
Yet beneath the Victorian charm lies a much darker chapter.
During the Second World War, the Isle of Man became the site of internment camps for civilians considered enemy aliens. Among those interned were Jewish refugees who had themselves fled Nazi persecution.
That paradox stayed with me.
People had escaped persecution and reached Britain, only to find themselves behind barbed wire on an island that looked, from the outside, like a holiday destination.
Walking along the Douglas waterfront, I found myself imagining the extraordinary emotional dissonance of it.
Beauty on one side.
Uncertainty on the other.
The sea between them.
There is something about travelling by sea that makes such stories particularly poignant.
The sea can represent escape.
It can represent exile.
It can represent opportunity.
And it can also represent separation.
For Diane and me, whose own lives have crossed borders and countries, these stories inevitably resonate.
We know what it means to leave one country and build a life somewhere else.
We know that a journey is not always simply about arriving at a destination.
Sometimes the journey changes who you are.
A Taste of the Isle of Man — Manx Bonnag
Bonnag is a traditional Manx bread or griddle cake, simple and rustic.
Ingredients
- 450g plain flour
- 2 tsp baking powder
- 75g butter
- 75g sugar
- 150ml milk
- 1 egg
- Pinch of salt
- Rub the butter into the flour and baking powder.
- Add sugar and salt.
- Beat the egg with the milk and mix into a soft dough.
- Shape into a round and bake at approximately 180°C until golden.
It is the sort of food that feels right beside a cup of tea while looking out across Douglas Bay.
There is a reason such simple foods survive.
They don’t try to be fashionable.
They simply work.
A Life Between Britain and Israel
As we travelled onward, I found myself thinking increasingly about the curious path our lives had taken.
Brighton.
Israel.
Britain again and again for Pesach.
Ships.
Hotels.
Kosher kitchens.
River cruises.
And now Diane and I travelling together simply because we wanted to see what was around the next corner.
Our son and daughter have grown up with much of this world around them, and our six grandchildren are now the newest generation of the family.
Three generations in food service is something I am proud of.
But what matters more to me is what has been passed between those generations.
Not simply recipes.
Not simply business knowledge.
But an understanding that feeding people is an act of hospitality.
That a table can bring strangers together.
That a holiday meal can become a family memory.
And that the best hospitality is often the hospitality nobody notices because everything has simply worked.
Towards Scotland
And now the voyage changes once again.
Ireland disappears behind us.
The sea grows broader.
The air feels cooler.
Ahead lies Scotland.
The islands of Islay and Jura await, followed by the extraordinary basalt columns of Staffa, the spiritual stillness of Iona, and finally Oban.
The journey is beginning to feel less like a collection of ports and more like a single story.
Different islands.
Different histories.
Different peoples.
Different foods.
Different memories.
But one sea connecting them all.
For Diane and me, there is also the anticipation of Scotland’s whisky.
I have always found whisky fascinating because it carries a sense of place. The water, the barley, the wood, the climate and the passage of time all leave their mark.
And in the world of kosher hospitality, there is another consideration: what is suitable for our table and what is not.
That has become part of the way I think about food and drink.
The traveller asks:
“What is this?”
The food professional asks:
“How was it made?”
The kosher traveller adds:
“And can I serve it?”
After a lifetime in this business, those questions have become almost automatic.
Ahead lies Scotland, where whisky will move from being a drink to becoming part of the landscape — and eventually, part of the food on our table.
Islay.
Jura.
Staffa.
Iona.
Oban.
The Atlantic awaits.
And somewhere beyond the horizon, another chapter of our journey is already beginning.
To be continued in Part Three — Scotland: Whisky, Wilderness and the Atlantic
Malcolm Green comes from three generations of caterers and has spent his life running kosher hotels, catering companies, destination weddings, and more than 70 glatt-kosher cruises around the world. Having absorbed global cuisines throughout his travels, he brings that experience into every menu he creates. Today, he oversees our kosher menu planning and food logistics, with all meals freshly prepared in our onboard kosher kitchens.
