As an American nutritionist traveling to Ireland, I was intent upon trying new foods. These included two fish I was unfamiliar with – brill and hake. Brill is a wonderful flaky flat white fish closely related to turbot. Check out the picture to the left. The UK Good Food Channel has a lot of great recipes, if you’re interested.

According to the New York Seafood Council, hake is a member of the cod family of fish. Because I grew up in New England and love the taste of cod, I was wondering why I’d never heard of hake. Turns out it’s all in the name. The two most abundant species are red hake (a.k.a. ling) and silver hake (a.k.a. whiting).

I’m not a vegetarian, so my objectives when dining out are two – 1) fresh protein of a moderate portion and 2) a large serving of fresh vegetables. In Ireland I found plenty of great tasting meat (beef, lamb, chicken, and fish). It was a bit tougher finding a large variety of vegetables. Root vegetables such as carrots and potatoes were often featured. A few times when the menu read that both potatoes and vegetables were served, I was indeed served a mixture of steamed veggies…plus TWO types of potatoes – usually mashed AND au gratin (or scalloped potatoes). Those Irish love their potatoes!