My 93-year-old mother, who loves to cook, often says, “Nothing I make tastes like what my mother used to make.” She complains, “Today tomatoes are unblemished and red, but they have no flavor. Nothing tastes like it used to when it was home grown the old-fashioned way without fancy fertilizers and chemicals.”

I agree with her but didn’t realize how much our ingredients had changed in flavor until I visited Albania. The Albanian government’s isolationist policy kept it a rural country...

When my husband, John, and I were in Roscommon, Ireland, in June 2011, we contacted Sarah Browne (Antogher Rd., Roscommon, Co. Roscommon; phone 0879439446) to set up a cooking experience featuring Irish food.

She offers a variety of cooking classes, ranging in cost from $43 to $157. Though there were no classes scheduled on the days we were in the area, she kindly offered to prepare a traditional Irish meal with us for the cost of the ingredients.

I had always considered...