Start the day with an Ulster Fry - bacon, eggs and sausages alongside potato bread with local butter then make for St. Georges Market in Belfast. At Saturday's bustling Farm and Speciality Market you'll find local apple juice alongside seafood, beef and pork from nearby farms – and ostrich from Ballyclone! Strangford Loch has wildlife and whirlpools – and fabulous oysters, enjoy them at a friendly pub, served on ice with a pint of Guinness or hot and spiced with a glass of wine in a bustling bistro, either way they're as special as the scenery.

Traditional menus feature Irish Stew, tender local lamb simmering gently amongst potatoes, carrots and onions and Champ, creamy mashed potatoes flecked with green scallions. New Irish Cuisine is a gastronomic adventure combining the cream of local produce with flavours from the Pacific Rim and touches of California.

Look for cheese with Dulse in it, the tangy edible seaweed ‘showing off' the perfection of creamy cheese made from local milk. Autumn orchards are heavy with Bramley apples to be made into deep, fruity pies in family bakeries piled high with flour dusted wheaten farls. The Old Bushmills distillery has had a licence to distil since 1608, revel in the taste of generations of expertise in a shining crystal glass, in a delectable Irish coffee or in a sumptuous sauce over locally caught salmon.

Northern Ireland's lakes and rivers provide an abundance of fish, such as salmon, trout, pike, perch and eels. The sea provides lobsters, prawns, oysters and mussels and all kinds of fish including cod, skate, plaice, herrings and mackerel. Dulse is a red seaweed which has traditionally been gathered and used as food. It can be mixed with mashed potato to make dulse champ. Carrageen, or Irish moss, is usually gathered from the sea in the spring and used fresh or dried in various dishes.

Seafood week
Seafood Week is one of the biggest, exciting and most inclusive national events of the year with thousands of seafood businesses and organisations working together to celebrate seafood and the many benefits it offers. Now in its sixth year, Seafood Week runs from 6-13th October 2006. It is the biggest celebration of seafood in the UK with a track record of boosting sales across the sector. The theme for Seafood week is '2 a week'.The ‘2 a week’ campaign aims to raise awareness of the wide variety of delicious seafood available from the Irish Sea and the many health benefits of eating it regularly.

The Food Standards Agency recommends everyone eats a minimum of two portions of seafood a week to ensure good health but only 20% of people in the UK currently eat the recommended two portions. NIS want to encourage more people to add seafood to their diet, and this campaign provides opportunities for each sector of the industry to participate and benefit. Restaurants, bars supermarkets and fishmongers across Northern Ireland will be backing the campaign with specially created menus, promotions, offers and advice.

Encouraging consumers to try new varieties of seafood Malcolm Emery, Chief Executive of NIS said "We want to support consumers as they try different seafood dishes as they follow the '2 a week' advice. Fishmongers in supermarkets, independents and market stalls are only too happy to guide and advise customers on storing, preparing and cooking seafood.”

Source:http://www.bbc.co.uk
           http://www.niseafood.co.uk
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