Smuggling rashers, sausages and the odd half pig into the United States is an ancient Irish tradition. This rite of passage was doubtless rooted in our collective Famine memory and the rituals involved were unique. Irish travellers arriving in New York or Boston were identifiable, in the good old days, by characteristically pungent bulges in their cardigans and trouser legs and by the subtle frisking they received from waiting relatives eager to assess the pork payload.
But the pound of pale, centreback in the breast pocket has sadly passed into folklore. Firstly, vacuum-packing extracted not only flavour but the thrill of illicit transport, legalising in effect what US customs officials still correctly regard as a dangerous substance. And now a new store in Dorchester, just outside Boston, Massachusetts - Morrissey's of Ireland - is openly selling what previous generations of Irishmen and women risked their reputations to import. More shocking still, Morrissey's hasn't stopped at rashers. Tayto, Mi-Wadi, Mikado, Calvita and more - the answer to an immigrant's prayer (also on sale in aisle two) - are available within Star Market, one of the most fashionable supermarket chains in the US.
"This is the kind of high-profile foothold we need in the US," said Michael Duffy, chief executive of Bord Bia, the Irish Food Board, when Morrissey's opened last month as the anchor to Star Market's World Market section in which 50 countries are represented. Bord Bia developed the 360-square-foot, "traditional Irish store" in co-operation with Star Market and aims eventually to establish Morrissey's in supermarkets throughout the US.
This is not, of course, the first sighting of exotic Celtic comestibles in greater Boston, an area with a large Irish and Irish-American population. Neighbourhood stores have long been reliable sources, but Morrissey's is a new retail mutant - the "speciality concept store" designed to look like the corner shop but constructed specifically for a supermarket setting.
`BRINGS back memories, doesn't it?" Morrissey's manager John Dillon says to an elderly Irish-American couple buying soda bread, cheese and a Riverdance video on a slow Thursday afternoon. And the disconcerting thing is - he's right. If you ignore the vast supermarket enclosing it, this small, mock-Victorian corner could be a midlands grocery. Packet soup and marrowfat peas are stacked alongside aprons and tin whistles, triggering childhood memories of sweet jars, flour bins and brass weights.
None of which is accidental. "Supermarkets have to keep developing new concepts to compete," said the chief executive officer of Star Market, Henry Nasella, "and our customers have expressed a huge appetite for . . . authentic foods from around the world." That explains the appeal of Morrissey's to Americans and to Irish-Americans in particular. But Morrissey's cannot ignore the younger - and increasingly affluent - Irish immigrants who are nostalgic not for shamrocks and shillelaghs but for their native food - for cream crackers, Old Time Irish marmalade and salad cream.
"What is this?" the checkout assistant calls out to her colleague as she waves a bottle of the aforementioned condiment. Mortified by the attention, the young Irish customer turns crimson and pretends to read the ingredients on his Braycot Jumblies.
"I spent $50 here the day it opened," he admits when he sneaks a look at the infantile contents of my basket. "Stupid, isn't it?" Not to Morrissey's which projects first year sales of $160,000. Not to Bord Bia, which hopes to increase annual Irish sales in the US from $20 million in 1996 to $35 million in 1999. And not to Star Market which has yearly sales of over $1,000 million.
