Bloomsday

Before we went to Ireland last year, Larry read James Joyce’s Ulysses; it was a multi-month project. He then arranged our trip so we would be in Dublin a year ago today, June 16th, Bloomsday, the day on which the story of Ulysses takes place.

The lead character in the book, Leopold Bloom, stopped at Davy Byrne’s pub for lunch that day in 1904. He had a gorgonzola sandwich and a glass of burgundy. It helped take his mind off the fact that his wife was having an affair with Blazes Boylan.

Bloomsday is quite the celebration in Dublin, the city which Joyce so accurately described in Ulysses. People dressed in turn-of-the-century outfits and pubs throughout the city sold gorgonzola sandwiches. We took a tour with a young actor (a student at Trinity College) who led us along part of the route Leopold Bloom had taken through Dublin that day, and read to us from the book at each stop.

We went to readings in Temple Bar, and immersed ourselves in the Bloomsday spirit, yet somehow I managed not to have a gorgonzola sandwich for lunch. I think the idea of it intimidated me somehow. How good can a gorgonzola sandwich be?

Well, I made one recently as an experiment, and I have to say it was awfully good.

The sandwich started with home-made Irish bread. The best bread I had in Ireland was made by the innkeeper at Iskeroon, a bed-and-breakfast we stayed at on the Ring of Kerry. He added pin oats (finely ground oats sold here as Scottish oatmeal by Bob’s Red Mill) for extra taste and texture.

I adapted this recipe from Coming Home to Cook by Mary Sheehan, an Irish American who moved to the west of Ireland to live near her kin. I bought the book in the west coast fishing village of Dingle, south of The Burren where Sheehan now lives.

It is a quick bread that tastes more like a yeast bread than a soda bread, probably because of the yogurt that helps the rising. I have made it in a 10-inch round cake pan, but for sandwiches I used a regular loaf pan. The bread makes wonderful sandwiches and toast, and it freezes well.

I bought some gorgonzola at Trader Joe's, and I'll make sandwiches for our dinner tonight, with a small salad and a glass of red wine. We'll cut our sandwiches into slender strips, and toast James Joyce, who brought early 20th century Dublin to life.


Irish Brown Bread
1 1/2 cups white flour
3 1/2 cups whole wheat flour
1 cup pin oats
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp baking powder
3 tbsp dark brown sugar
1 egg
2 cups plain whole-milk yogurt
1 cup milk

Preheat oven to 350°F.

In a large bowl, combine the dry ingredients. Beat the egg with the yogurt and milk. Add to dry ingredients and mix well. Pour into a well-greased pan - either a 10" round cake pan or 9x4 loaf pan. (Mound the dough in the center of the loaf pan - it will seem like it will overflow the loaf pan, but it won't.)

Bake the round pan for at least 40 minutes and the loaf for 1-3/4 hours. You will know it's cooked when a wooden skewer inserted into the middle comes out with just a few crumbs on it.

Let the loaf cool for a few minutes before removing it from the pan. Set it on a rack to cool to room temperature before slicing.