The Menu: The perfect ‘hang sangidge’
There is something especially fitting about food festivals taking place as the bounty of a glorious summer is gathered in from the gardens, fields and orchards, from the hedges, woods and forests and even the shoreline. The Waterford Harvest Festival (9-15 Sept) includes the Kinchi Dine in the Dark tasting menu with the palate flying solo, nary a visual clue. The wonderful Theatre of Food turn up for the first time, with local star chef Michael Quinn’s Wild Harvest surely unmissable. www.waterfordharvestfestival.ie
The Harvest Offaly Food Festival (13-15 Sept) is a brand new event but with a splendid seven-course long table dinner on the canal banks as just one highlight, it sounds like a keeper. www.harvestoffalyfoodfestival.com
While West Cork may soak up the bulk of Rebel County’s culinary kudos, gourmands would do well to remember they’ve been ‘doing food’ in East Cork (Ballymaloe’s stomping ground) for quite a bit longer and the Midleton Farmer’s Market was once dubbed the best in Ireland and Britain by TV chef Rick Stein. For the Midleton Food & Drink Festival (Sept 14), the entire Main St becomes one giant food hall lined with stalls, with cooking demos aplenty and a Jameson cocktail masterclass. Pick of the bunch has to be chef Kevin Aherne of Sage Restaurant reprising his highly successful Maritime Escapade from the Kenmare Food Carnival, a boat departing Rostellan Pier (Sept 12) for a Demo & Dine tour of Cork harbour with a few tunes thrown in for good measure. www.midletonfoodfestival.ie
The ‘birth’ of modern Irish food may have occurred in East Cork courtesy of Myrtle Allen but within a few years she was turning her eyes West, giving Veronica Steele and her fledgling Milleens Cheese the leg-up that saw it become an international superstar of the global cheeseboard. The wonderful Veronica along with another great culinary talent, chef and food writer Carmel Somers, of Good Things Cafe, in Durrus are just two members of the excellent judging team (The Menu is only included to lick the plates clean) for the Celtic Cookoff (Sept 11), as part of the Taste of West Cork Food Festival (6-15 Sept). The proverbial ‘free lunch’ is on offer at designated restaurants in the area courtesy of Field’s Supermarket providing you furnish your travel or accommodation receipts incurred while attending the festival. Limited places, see www.atasteofwestcork.com
If a body is to have a ‘hang sangidge’, in The Menu’s opinion, the mustard is every bit as important as the bread and the meat. A slice of oven-baked Woodside Farm ham and a soft floury roll from Arbutus Bread are about as good as you’ll get anywhere in the world but the creation of a Holy Trinity truly occurred with the inclusion of Killabraher Clove Mustard. Solo, it has a high, sweet, almost metallic zing but in this culinary menage a trois, it effortlessly provides the grace notes that cause The Menu’s hang sangidge to ascend into the heavens. www.killabraher.net
