Nine Bean Rows – serie

In Ireland, a pint – having one, going for one, buying one – is a cultural institution. It’s about so much more than 568ml of beer in a glass. But how did a simple pint become such a phenomenon? In A Compendium of Irish Pints, Ali Dunworth delves into the culture, customs and craic surrounding pints in Ireland, from airport pints to unplanned pints, pints for celebrations and pints for commiserations, festival pints, quiet pints, crisps and pints and everything in between.With illustrations by Stephen Heffernan, aka Hephee, that perfectly capture the culture of pints in his iconic style, you’ll find yourself working up a thirst and sending that text we all love to get: ‘Pint?’

Alice Kelly set up @FromScratchBaker in early 2022 after purchasing a disused horsebox for €600. Turning a renovation project into a successful business, Alice began posting her baking experiences – both the successes and the failures – on TikTok and soon amassed a dedicated following, with millions of followers around the world.In From Scratch: 80 Foolproof Recipes by @fromscratchbaker, from Easy Traybakes to Showstopping Cakes, her hotly anticipated debut book, Alice provides a sweet mix of easy recipes, demystifies patisserie, breaks down advanced concepts to make them accessible, reveals the secrets behind her viral bakes and, above all, makes baking fun for anyone!

Blood. The Irish have been dining on it for centuries and they love it. It has sustained warriors in epic battles, staved off hunger, offered protection from bad luck and provided sustenance during winter. It’s been drawn from living animals and caught from dead ones, stuffed into guts and boiled until cooked or stirred into bloody porridges over turf fires. It’s even in the mortar of castle walls. Mostly we know it as the moody melange of blood and guts that completes the breakfast fry. But this food is older than potatoes, soda bread, whiskey, stout and coddle. Blood is an ancient food from a time when the Irish diet was one of milky, oaty, salty things. No surprise, then, that the best puddings are made when all four unite to form a singularly perfect food. Yet Ireland’s ancient tradition of consuming the fresh blood of animals as food is in danger of disappearing forever, and with it an intricate, nuanced foodway that ties together the history of Ireland, its people and their communities, rituals and recipes, craft and custom. Blood, Guts and Black Pudding charts the complete history of Ireland’s great pudding tradition, from pre-Christian times to the modern era, celebrating the many ways blood has been cooked, eaten and enjoyed, and questions what else is lost when the blood is gone.

In Filthy Queens, Dr Christina Wade looks at the history of beer alongside some of the biggest events in the story of Ireland. You’ll find 18th-century courtesans who had a wicked streak of beer snobbery and early medieval monks who wrote beer reviews so terrible any Untappd fan would feel right at home. There will be beer tastings, parties, music and wakes. You’ll meet thieves and murderers, saints and goddesses. You’ll hear stories of kings and paupers, witches and bishops, Irish, English and Vikings from the Late Iron Age all the way up to the early 20th century. And don’t forget the rules, from medieval edicts about malt quality to early modern water regulations. Of course, there will be some marked differences, notably the human sacrifice. And the zombies.Throughout the book, Christina also makes connections to tangible links to the past, whether it’s buildings that still dot the landscape, artefacts in museums, things you pass on your daily commute or the pint glass you drink out of. We’ve been drinking beer for millennia, so it’s a perfect way to embrace the past and those who lived in it. In the end, you’ll see that the history of beer is intimately intertwined with the history of us.

It’s never been a better time to be a food lover. We binge Bake Off, follow foodie influencers, queue for trending hotspots and scroll endlessly for ideas on what to cook next. But for all this appetite, how much do we really know about what goes on behind the scenes with our food? And what can we really do to change things? That’s where this handbook comes in. In Good Taste is a guide to the issues shaping our edible world today. It’s not exhaustive and it’s not meant to be preachy. It’s a starting point to help us see the bigger picture and find our place in it. Starting with a bird’s eye view of how the food system works (and why it urgently needs transforming), the book then covers: • The players: Who holds the power, makes decisions and to what extent, and what food policy means for our everyday lives. • The people: How global trade and colonisation created inequality and continue to shape what we eat – and who gets left behind. • The planet: How we got here – and what’s at stake for the environment and the climate. • Positive, practical change: Tangible ways food lovers can make an impact with what’s on our plates and beyond. If enough of us take an interest, we become powerful ingredients in making a difference in what really matters in food and drink today.