I haven’t read Leo Varadkar’s new book. I have, however, asked a trusted political correspondent pal who has read it if one of the most defining moments of Leo’s career has made it into the pages of Speaking my Mind. I’m referring, of course, to Pancakegate.
In February 2018, Varadkar posted a photo on Twitter of truly one of the saddest creations Pancake Tuesday has ever seen. It was a crepe so anaemic that the BBC ran a headline about the “Scandal of Irish PM’s transparent pancake”. The fact that the pancake was being consumed as a last hurrah before the austerity of Lent made it all even sadder. I’m surprised there wasn’t a whole chapter dedicated to the episode. I would have loved to have heard Angela Merkel’s take on it.
I’ve long been a curious observer of what I’ve dubbed Varadkar’s “grim aesthetic”. There was that Battenberg birthday cake selfie, a meal prep fridge shot he posted on Instagram which prompted the Food Safety Authority of Ireland to issue a warning about correct food storage. These posts were all set against a backdrop of a dining table strewn with backpacks and a set of matching leatherette placemats, the type that nobody ever buys but instead just show up in a drawer in the Good Room of a quintessential Irish bungalow. You know the ones.
Last week our former taoiseach added another artefact into his record of domestic life. He posted a dinner photo on his Instagram Stories, with the caption: “A Nobel Prize for whoever invented the airfryer”.
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Until this point, I wasn’t sure if there was any agenda behind Varadkar’s culinary vignettes. In an article published in a 2023 issue of the journal Irish Studies Review, UCD’s Eoin Ó Gaora examines how Varadkar’s social media posts form “a key part of [his] efforts to position himself as the ardent champion of neoliberalism”. The very essence of a man who gets up early in the morning, if you will.
This time, I’m convinced the photo is tactical. Why else would it have been photographed at such heinously close range? The air fryer drawer is lined with a silicon insert – saves on the washing up in fairness – and inside is a meal of what looks like meatballs in sauce and two roast potatoes have just been saved from incineration. Tens of people sent me the update via DM. “I just thought you needed to see this,” said one. “He’s at it again,” said another.
“He’s a genius,” was my first thought. The dinner is nowhere near as sad as the 2018 pancake, nor as austere as the meal prep lunch boxes, but it’s just grim enough that I’m willing to call it rage bait. “This’ll get them talking,” I imagine him whispering as the steam from the air fryer drawer misted his smartphone camera lens. It’s the perfect guerrilla marketing. He’s got a book to sell, and there’s no such thing as bad publicity. And look, I have no doubt that he enjoyed his meatballs, and we know he’s a fan of kitchen innovation and particularly his air fryer, which came into his life around a year ago – he talked about it at the time on a podcast with chef Mark Moriarty. I just think he saw an opportunity and took it.
There is, of course, a chance that Varadkar’s food posts are not a cynical ploy to drum up book chat, or an attempt to portray what Eoin Ó Gaora called “a paradoxical approach to consumerism which is at once self-restrained and indulgent”. It’s highly possible that he just thought his meatballs looked nice. The image is not dissimilar to one I might take myself (I too lack skill in food photography), but then I am not the former leader of a country. Whatever his motivation behind posting, it does feel forbidden to see inside the air fryer of a one-time head of state.
[ I sometimes wonder if I’ll be on antidepressants for the rest of my lifeOpens in new window ]
A line in the opening paragraph of my colleague Patrick Freyne’s sit down with Varadkar in the former taoiseach’s “large and pristine kitchen in Dublin 8” notes that the pair are drinking instant coffee. My default state as a mistruster of politicians is a little mollified by the revelation that Varadkar is not a coffee bore and not afraid to bring out the granules for company. I would not be a bit surprised to open a press in that kitchen and find a backstock of those boxes of instant cappuccino, the ones with the little sachet of chocolate powder to sprinkle on the top to make it fancy. The epitome of neoliberal, no, Leo-liberal restraint and indulgence.
