Joe McNamee: Good broth is the magic gold elixir we all need
Joe McNamee: "Broth, including lamb and barley, is a revered dish in Scotland and my Granny’s version would raise the dead although nobody ever called it Scotch Broth — that usage is just to weed out the Sassenachs."
Recently struck down with the dreaded lurgy, when I could finally eat again, I craved only one dish, hot chicken broth. I have always loved broth, the word alone giving me succour.
My Glasgow Granny used to tell me when we’d visit that I was her ‘wee broth of a boy’ even though, a sickly wain, I was more akin to watery gruel.
Broth, including lamb and barley, is a revered dish in Scotland and my Granny’s version would raise the dead although nobody ever called it Scotch Broth — that usage is just to weed out the Sassenachs.
Broth is very much back in the form of the current trend for ‘bone broth’. I wrote recently of spurious culinary notions associated with the wellness world but a good broth brooks no criticism from me.
Apart from inherent deliciousness, it has myriad health benefits. Scientific studies demonstrate its immense nutritional qualities, containing beneficial amino acids such as glycine and proline, and easily absorbable minerals.
It supports joint health through glucosamine and chondroitin and aids the reduction of chronic inflammation, an increasingly common side effect of contemporary ultra-processed food diets and which can eventually lead to cancer.
That broth, however, is a freshly unearthed TikTok hack is laughable for it has been on the menu for millennia. For prehistoric ancestors, it was an elemental way to access every single ounce of nutrition to be gleaned from an animal, prolonged simmering in hot water breaking down connective tissues and marrow from bones into a satiating, energy-rich broth. The earliest text reference is in the Old Testament, in the Book of Judges, dating to 1200BC, as Gideon prepares a holy offering of goat, unleavened bread and broth.
It has long been a nutritional and medicinal staple in peasant cuisines, prominent in ancient Chinese and Greek medicine, and allowing the very poorest to maximise the nutritional value of cheap scraps of meat and bones. Indeed, it was regularly employed as a literary device to symbolise poverty.
Broth is to be found in most global cuisines: in Japan, it is osumashi; in Italy, it is brodo; in Spain, it is caldo; and khash is a traditional Armenian broth made from beef or sheep, including the head, hooves and stomach.
That symbolic association with poverty flashed through my head while recently sitting through the glitz and glam of the Michelin Guide Awards 2026 ceremony in Dublin. After all, this salubrious shindig, including an afterparty with Champagne bar and a cornucopia of superb Irish food, was celebrating an industry that started out selling broth.
The first ancestor of the modern restaurant was opened by Mathurin Roze on Rue des Poulie, in Paris, in the 1760s, serving a ‘restorative’ dish, from the French word ‘restaurer’, to restore, hence ‘restaurant’. That dish was made of meat and egg cooked in hot water. It was called ‘bouillon’, the French word for broth.
Broth is back in fashion, not just because of its nutritional and healthy qualities, but also because it is an essential part of truly sustainable nose-to-tail consumption of an animal.
It is also delightfully simple to execute — I’m not quite sure just how ‘many cooks’ it would take to ‘spoil the broth’, other than a heavy hand with the salt.
My own favourite literary reference to the healing elixir is WB Yeats and Lady Gregory’s one-act play, The Pot of Broth, written for and staged in The Abbey, in 1904, and a reworking of an old folk tale to be found throughout Europe.
A ravenous tramp calls to a cottage in search of food where he finds the owner, Sibby, preparing to cook a chicken for the local priest but, a mean woman, she has no intention of feeding her scruffy visitor. But the tramp persuades her that he owns a magical stone that is all you need to make the most delicious broth of all. All she needs to give him is water and a pot in which to boil it.
He then smooth-talks her into adding other ingredients to make it more delicious again. First, salt, then herbs, then onions and eventually the chicken itself. When the exquisite broth is complete, he sells her the magical broth stone and makes off with the entire pot of broth for himself, proving broth is also good for the brain.
I’ve been hearing good things about the Lodge Bar & Kitchen, at Pine Lodge, in the little coastal village of Myrtleville, a regular spin away for generations of Cork city Sunday drivers.
While their menu is predominantly Indian cuisine, they are certainly not averse to roaming further afield and an upcoming Latin-American event (Feb 25 & 26) sees the kitchen switch to a menu of classic Latin American dishes, including ceviche, empanadas, cachapas, feijoada, quesadillas and fish tacos, all served tapas style.
- To book: Call 021 483 3426 or email info@thelodgebar.ie
To celebrate International Women’s Day, Cork’s River Lee hotel has a special wine dinner (March 4) in The Grill Room at The River Lee, hosted by Sophie ‘Champagne Sophie’ Kutten, international brand ambassador for Champagne house Charles Heidsieck. This six-courser is paired with a tasting of the Champagne house’s most celebrated wines.
- Click here.
I’ve taken to accompanying my after-lunch espresso with quite delicious All Butter Cinnamon Sticks (€4.99) from Wicklow Fine Foods. No, it is not entirely butter but there is no denying the buttery sumptuousness of the shortbread-style fingers.
What takes them into another league entirely is the crisp sugar coating and the gentle hand employed in administering that most sublime spice, cinnamon, a superlative partner for all manner of baked sweet treats. From The Chocolate Garden and good food shops.
