A great fire, banked high and red, flamed in the grate and under the ivytwined branches of the chandelier the Christmas table was spread. They had come home a little late and still dinner was not ready: but it would be ready in a jiffy, his mother had said. They were waiting for the door to open and for the servants to come in, holding the big dishes covered with their heavy metal covers.
A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man by James Joyce 1904
While waiting for the meats to be brought, Ailill lay in the opening of the tent staring beyond the fire at that great blackness. Maeve was at the back of the tent sharing nuts that had been stewed in honey…’There is roast meat, My dear. There is fish stewed in milk, and birds boiled with spices. There are puddings of minced flesh and sweet bread. There is white thin milk, and thick yellow milk.’
In the Land of Youth by James Stephens 1924
We went across to the crevice, my head aching with the roar of the waves. Pádrig thrust his hand in and drew out a thrush. He thrust it in again and drew out another. We got fifteen in all…Óch the devil, we have roast for the night, so.’
Twenty Years A-Growing by Maurice O’Sullivan 1933
I sat against the wall.
And ate the griddle cake.
I was Henry smart. I was sitting in a cell in Kilmainham Gaol and I was eating a griddle cake that had been cooked very recently by my wife. It was her best yet, the best and only thing I’d ever tasted. But I didn’t cry.
A Star Called Henry by Roddy Doyle 1999
Ma turns up the wick, making the shapes dance when Slapper comes in. I think of the way she turns up the oven when she puts the second loaf in. She braids my hair in two long plaits while I eat spaghetti hoops and a sausage…the cast-iron pot with the Star of Bethlehem swinging on its hinge outside the window. I don’t want to go to school.
Antarctica by Claire Keegan 1999
Breakfast he takes alone, – at a small table in the ingle-nook of the kitchen – no I did not recall an ingle, not to speak of a nook – solitude being the preferred mode to partake of what he frequently and portentously announces the most important meal of the day. Mrs Vavasour is content not to disturb him, and serves him his rashers and eggs and black pudding in a sardonic silence.
The Sea by John Banville 2005
Tinteán 