Slow Food Picnic

ANOTHER convivial Slow food event - I’ve just had the best fun wending my way up to the top of Lough Ine Hill - my daughter and my well-toned friend from boarding school powered their way ahead, I adopted a more leisurely pace.

This was the annual Slow Food Picnic so I was retracing the steps of Edith Somerville and Violet Martin Ross, who brought a picnic to Lough Ine on the last Sunday in August every year. I wonder if they were interested in wild mushrooms or did they scramble among the wild bilberry bushes in their long skirts to collect the tiny, wild intensively flavoured little berries.

When we eventually reached the top the view was spectacular. The plateau was covered with exuberantly blooming heather. We sat on rounded stones and tucked into Clodagh McKenna’s yummy picnics - our reward for huffing and puffing our way to the top.

There was a choice of four picnics:

Wild Smoked Fish Picnic: A plate of Smoked Wild Fish with Arbutus Irish Soda Bread, and Homemade Mayonnaise. Organic Leaves, Desmond, and Balsamic Vinegar Salad. Glenilen Summer Fruit Cheesecake and a 1/4 bottle of Sauvignon.

West Cork Cheese Picnic: West Cork Cheese Plate which included Durrus, Gubbeen, Cais Dubh (from Fermoy) and Hegarty’s Cheddar, with Fresh Arbutus White Yeast Bread. Rosscarberry Organic Leaves, Desmond, and Balsamic Vinegar Salad. Richard Graham-Leigh’s Franzipane and a 1/4 bottle Sauvignon.

Pate and Charcuterie Picnic: Clodagh’s Chicken Liver Pate and a selection of Frank Krawczyk and Fingal Fergusons Salami’s with Cucumber Pickle on Abrbutus Foccacia Bread. Organic Leaves , Desmond, and Balsamic Vinegar Salad. Glenilen Raspberry Mousse and a 1/4 bottle of Merlot.

Salads Picnic: A Selection of various seasonal salads with Fresh Arbutus Brown Yeast Bread. Joe Hegarty’s Chocolate Cake. A 1/4 bottle of Merlot.

Febvre, who sponsor Slow Food Ireland, had supplied a bottle of Merlot or Sauvignon for each picnic. Civilised people squabbled over the delicious Glen Ilen cheesecakes. My smoked fish picnic included a piece of Wild Ummera smoked salmon (a Slow Food Presidia food), a fillet of Frank Hederman’s smoked mackerel and a chunk of succulent smoked eel.

For those of you who are interested in the Slow Food ethos, log into Slow Food Ireland website www.slowfoodireland.com or Slow Food International at www.slowfood.com

You’ll read all about the huge Slow Food Fair in Turin in October. It is held in the Lingotto building in Turin.