Drinking and eating it in at Litfest
We can shout about how our cheeses stand up to the ancient cheeses of France, how, particularly, our washed rinds and blues have been winning awards around the globe and attracting the attention of very discerning chefs.
For me, the Ballymaloe Literary Festival started with a quote about Irish dairy, that swam in my head as I chatted to the many inspiring people gathered in a shed, in a country house and in a cookery school not far from my home, in East Cork. One of the panellists in the first of the mornings talks used a quote from the grand dame of Ballymaloe herself, Myrtle Allen.
On chatting to the gentleman delivering his sisters’ butter to the Ballymaloe kitchen, Myrtle mentioned how nice it had been of late. He replied, “That field always gave great butter.” It is that knowing your food, your area, that connection with the history and soil that came up over and over again as I listened to an array of speakers. People I had read about and whose books I have collected and flicked through over the years.
Jancis Robinson’s talk on wine was a highlight of the festival for me, tasting a nutty, woody sherry, delicate Madeira, and learning along the way. Talking about the soil in vineyards and minerals reminded me of the quote by Myrtle Allen. Robinson is one of the world’s most experienced wine writers. She has 182,500 followers on Twitter; her popularity is down to the fact that she can simplify the descriptions yet add enough information to keep the experts engaged at the same time.
A fringe to the main festival was hosted in the aptly named Big Shed. A working grain storage shed was cleared out and boy, it was huge. Everything inside was built from recycled wood: The long banquet tables, a bar selling whiskey and beer, and a children’s corner where howls of laughter reigned all weekend. There were stalls showcasing the best local food and drink businesses and, of course, there was room for a dance. The baristas from Filter café served perfectly formed coffees; Rocketman dished out healthy salads and bottles of tasty rocket fuel; Green Saffron displayed the excellent spices that they bring to Ireland; Wild Side Catering and Gubeen served up big hearty plates of meat. The younger generation of food producers are using the local but pulling in influences from their travels and experiences outside of Ireland. It makes for an exciting snapshot of the future.
On chatting to Fingal Ferguson, the second generation of food makers in the Gubeen family, he described how he saw a way of using the waste from his mother’s cheesemaking business. Fingal feeds his pigs with the whey that is left over once the curds are extracted. It gives a beautifully sweet meat that he barbecued all weekend in a purpose-built oven.
Caroline from 8 Degrees Brewing joined the conversation, telling how their business was similar. They give the spent hops to her father and he brings them up the mountain to feed his cattle. These businesses feed other businesses, as well as creating interesting and nourishing foods for us to enjoy.
Talking in the midst of a rowdy crowd over some velvety smooth jamon and nice, cold pint of that 8 Degrees beer, David Thomson, writer of the revered book Thai Food, filled me in on his passion for cooking, and how it was definitely not his mother’s influence that got him into the kitchen. On reflection, he jokes that perhaps it was a survival technique to get him away from his mother’s culinary disasters that may have been a trigger. He left his native Australia in the ’80s and wandered to Thailand, where he settled. He is often called the chef who knows more about Thai food that most Thais. I ask if this had bred animosity and he says: Hell yes! He was the first chef to win a Michelin star for his style of cooking. He has written a second book on Thai street food.
Everyone there, even those such as David Thomson, who has adopted the cuisine of another culture, has a passion for the field in which the food is grown and even more passion for staying true to the freshness of the flavours that the vegetables and herbs he uses bring to a dish. He talked about the intricacies of Thai cuisine the street food from the country he has embraced and mentioned a particular slow roasted pork cheek. The lady cooking it has no fridge and just one little coal burner. Every morning she starts her day in the market picking the freshest local herbs, going to the butcher choosing the juiciest looking cut and taking it to her perch. She spends the morning organising the recipe she prepares every day, the recipe her mother prepared before her on the side of a street, producing one of the tastiest dishes David has ever tasted, a dish that he longs for when he is away from Bangkok.
Another chef who has taken influences from his travels is Stevie Parle. His show on Channel 4, Spice Trip, shows him gathering recipes and ingredients as he explores the history of spices in different parts of the world. Stevie was the youngest ever student to attend the three-month course at Ballymaloe and is one of its many very successful graduates. He left the cookery school with a holistic approach to food and a great love for cooking. He describes it as: “A perspective I suppose, an approach, a sensitivity. Something about integrity and truth to ingredients, a connection made between produce and growers that wasn’t there in my childhood in Birmingham, and could have never been made had I gone straight from school to professional kitchens in London.”
He often themes his menus basing them on favourite food writers, certain food cultures, or an ingredient that excites him. He calls his kitchen experimental. Stevie was voted young chef of the year by the Observer’s Food Monthly magazine in 2010 and the first of his three books, Real Food From Near and Far, was nominated for the prestigious André Simon award. All this at only 27.
I will go to bed now, dreaming of sherry, passionately cooked Thai street food and Madhur Jaffrey’s amazingly intense blue shawl and slight frame standing in front a Patrick Scott picture, and of the breakfasts I was served of scones smothered in that lovely butter.
Roll on the next Ballymaloe Literary Festival. I hope it was one of many.
