Menu: A Cork man's inventive sauces and we honour Sally Barnes of Woodcock Smokery
Savage Sauces is a genuinely innovative take on the whole area of condiments, relishes and sauces.
Ruth Healy’s Urru, in Bandon, is a state of mind as much as it is one of the finest food and culinary shops in the land, as Twitter users familiar with Ruth’s regular online ‘Good Food News’ missives will confirm, a reflection of her total immersion in matters edible.
These Tweets feature a photo of a chalked message on the in-store blackboard, some food-related gem always scribed in the most exquisite calligraphy: a historical fact (‘the first commercial ice rinks were made from pig lard and salts’!), a cooking tip, local food news, details of a new product, a random quotation and, very regularly, cookbook references, for Urru houses a veritable library of superbly selected cookbooks and culinary tomes, and attempting to lighten the load on those shelves has gravely wounded The Menu’s wallet in the past.
There is a cracking selection of kitchenware and associated culinary kit and caboodle for the keen domestic cook as well as a range of Irish natural beauty care, and, should the hunger come upon you, hot drinks and lovely light lunches are available in house.
Best of all is the sublimely sourced and expertly husbanded selection of some of the finest Irish speciality produce, including Irish farmhouse cheeses, supplemented by judicious imports and newly baked sourdough bread and fresh produce from local suppliers. Put a bed in the place, and The Menu might well make it a permanent home.
So much of it spent in the home, thoughts naturally turned more than ever to eating and more than a few fine flavours passed over The Menu’s hardworking palate — all eminently worthy of recall: gorgeously crafted Grá Chocolates, from the 2019 Eurotoques Young Chef of the Year, Gráinne Mullins, in Galway; more chocolate, this time from NearyNógs, in Mourne country, in Co Down, one of Ireland’s original bean-to-bar chocolatiers; Roaring Water Bay mussels, cooked over charcoal during the summer heatwave alongside the West Cork seas from whence they came; A Bit On The Side’s superb range of jellied condiments made with premium Irish produce; Bushby’s Elsantas and Sonatas, the vintage champagne of Irish strawberries; and truly exceptional Harry’s Nut Butter.
But The Menu’s product of the year is Sean Cotter’s Savage Sauces, a genuinely innovative take on the whole area of condiments, relishes and sauces — a section of the marketplace now heavily overloaded with too many tired revisitations of overly familiar old tropes.
Having started his fledgling business in Dublin, Sean this year relocated the operation to his native Cork, where he now produces his three sauces, made in small batches from natural ingredients, using no preservatives, imbuing them with zestful life and food energy.
Hawaiian Teriyaki blends soy sauce with orange and pineapple juices and honey for a salty, fruity sweetness; tart apple cider vinegar cuts through and lifts; while a schichimi spice mix and pickled ginger add a peppery, chilli finish.
Sriracha is an absolute delight, a rather ‘industrial’ version of this Korean classic having become a guilty pleasure for many an Irish punter over the last decade, so this infinitely superior take, is bliss — balanced profile of sweet and spicy garlic, chilli and yellow pepper. But what truly elevates is the lactic funkiness that comes from fermenting the chillis, adding a grace note missing from most other condiments on Irish shelves.
Best of all, to The Menu’s mind, is Orange Miso Sauce, which blends miso paste with Irish apple cider vinegar, orange juice, honey, pickled ginger, and spices, resulting in a sweet citric fruit mouthful of umami with boundless applications in the kitchen for the creative cook.
It is a rare beast, a genuine culinary innovator who brings something entirely new to this sector of the marketplace and Sean Cotter does so with real epicurean aplomb.
The Menu rarely if ever uses the word, ‘artisan’, to describe any food producer, so traduced has it become by the industrial food marketing machine, a shorthand for all manner of culinary chicanery — but he will always make an exception for fish smoker, Sally Barnes. She is one of the originals of Irish speciality food production, mastering her craft for more than 40 years and a key member of that select group of redoubtable and pioneering West Cork women who have served as the pathfinders for the modern Irish food movement since the 1970s.
Encomiums such as this are usually victory laps for the accoladed, but what makes Sally Barnes so special in The Menu’s eyes is that in choosing to work with only wild salmon and other wild fish, she continues to face ongoing challenges on a daily basis, to experience hardships that are more usual in the early stages of establishing a speciality food business. Yet Sally continues to operate her Woodcock Smokery, near Castletownshend, in West Cork, with the same stoic vigour, creative verve, and raucous good humour that has served her so well since she first arrived in West Cork in the early 1970s.
This year, crucially, with the aid of food conservationist Max Jones, she launched The Keep — a splendid erstwhile semi-al fresco hospitality venue and classroom where she now teaches masterclasses covering traditional techniques (salt preservation; hardwood smoking) and offering an overview of that craft’s continued relevance and importance in a deeply damaged marine and aquatic ecosystem. While her smoked sea fish is exquisite, preserving her precious, so hard-won expertise and knowledge for future generations is greater nourishment still. It is for that reason and many others that The Menu selects Sally Barnes as his Food Hero of the Year.
