For a Taste of Ireland, Have a Big Mac?

As delicious as the golden arches' minty nod to St. Patrick's Day—the Shamrock Shake—may be (or as delicious as I remember thinking it was the last time I had one, circa 1978), it's not exactly Irish. Surprisingly, something on the McDonald's menu is authentically Irish, and green to boot: its beef.

Not green as in artificially colored (like the shake); green as in "good for the environment." As in grass-fed, which is the standard in Ireland, unlike in the United States and many other countries, where cows are often fattened with grain on massive feed lots. If you've ever been to the Emerald Isle, or even seen a picture of it, you know why: the country really is just lousy with chlorophyll. The first time I visited my Irish friend Annette, a farm girl from County Kilkenny, it was January. Just as I was thinking to myself that I'd never seen so much grass in my life, Annette said she wished I could see the country in summer, when it would really be green.

As for the other kind of green, vis-à-vis Mickey D's and its burgers, some qualifications are in order: This grass-fed Irish beef is available only in Europe, and only in about one in five burgers. Also, opinions differ on whether even grass-fed beef production is sustainable. But most people can agree that grass-fed is at least an improvement over grain-fed—it's leaner and its production emits less greenhouse gas. This week the worldwide chain reported that it had increased its export of Irish beef to its European outlets by 37 percent, to 110 million Euros. (Ironically, in the United States McDonald's has taken flak for importing some of its beef from New Zealand—where grass-fed is also the norm—to supplement its domestic meat purchases.)

All of this underscores another trend in the Republic of Ireland: a renewed emphasis on farming following the collapse of the "Celtic Tiger" economy, which had transformed the country from the late 1990s to 2008. During the boom, Irish citizens who had once had to emigrate to find employment (I met Annette in 1992 in Germany, where we both found temporary work as hotel maids) could return or stay home. For the first time in recent history, mass immigration was happening in the other direction. When I last visited, in 2000, this transformation was in its early stages. The dirty old town of Dublin I remembered from my first trip was starting to sprout gleaming skyscrapers and trendy cafés.

Since the bubble burst, agriculture has been one of the few bright spots in the wounded economy. Irish agricultural exports grew almost 10 percent in 2010 over the previous year, according to The National, which also cited a government report identifying "the agrifood and fisheries sectors as the country's most important and largest indigenous industry." Teagasc, the Irish agriculture and food development authority, says agriculture and its associated professions account for 10 percent of employment there. Some Irish workers who had abandoned or rejected farming during the 1990s construction boom have returned to the livelihood that sustained their parents and grandparents.

Blessed with abundant pasture land and little need for irrigation, Ireland is well-positioned to help satisfy growing world food demand, the government believes. The strong market in developed nations for artisanal foods is also a natural fit for Irish dairy producers. Teagasc recently reported that Ireland's milk was rated as having the lowest (tied with Austria) carbon footprint in the European Union, and its meat had one of the lowest.

I remember my first taste of unpasteurized milk from grass-fed Irish cows on Annette's family's farm. The cream rose to the top of the pitcher, and even the milk below it was far creamier and more delicious than any dairy I had ever tasted. Maybe McDonald's should try using it in its Shamrock Shakes. They already contain another ingredient associated with Ireland: carrageenan.

Lisa Bramen | | READ MORE

Lisa Bramen was a frequent contributor to Smithsonian.com's Food and Think blog. She is based in northern New York and is also an associate editor at Adirondack Life magazine.