Menu: Coffee fans and tea devotees wanted for a scientific study in Cork
One of Guatemala’s top chefs, Debora Fadul joins Irish heritage potato farmer Maria Flynn for a special online Trocaire event, Wild and Traditional Food Recovery
Guatemala’s top chef, Debora Fadul, is to join Irish heritage potato farmer, Maria Flynn, of Ballymakenny Farm, for a very special online demo, Wild And Traditional Food Recovery (April 6) in conjunction with Irish aid NGO Trócaire.
Geopolitical events allied to the impact of climate change means that the whole area of food security, sovereignty and resilience has moved from an obscure topic to mainstream debate in just a few years.
The Menu is delighted to learn of this Trócaire initiative to celebrate how diversity ensures food security and how the use of wild and traditional foods can have a beneficial nutritional impact while making a positive fiscal contribution.
The demo will showcase dishes made with traditional and wild foods from Ireland and developing countries to improve nutrition, food security and farmer income, while also demonstrating how using traditional foods can protect biodiversity and combat climate change.
Maria will share the story of herself and her husband David making their farm more economically viable and sustainable by switching to heritage crops, while Debora Fadul will demonstrate a Guatemala maize dish and showcase the importance of re-popularising traditional foods in today’s processed world.
Farmers and partner field officers working with Trócaire running food fairs and seed banks in Guatemala and Zimbabwe will also describe their wild and traditional food recovery activities.
The event is free, register online here.
The Menu will be covering this year’s Food on the Edge symposium (Oct 17/18) in greater detail closer to its return to Airfield Estate in Dublin, after the pandemic’s dilution of all such events over the last two years. Early Bird tickets are now on sale at €250 for two days including lunch on both days
And, as a taster of things to come, confirmed chef speakers include Rasmus Monk, of Copenhagen’s Alchemist Restaurant, Paolo Casagrande, of Barcelona’s 3 Michelin star Lasarte, Calum Franklin, ‘the Pie King’ of The Pie Room in London’s Holborn Dining Room, Søren Ørbek Ledet, co-owner and sommelier of 3 Michelin-star Geranium, Denmark, Simon Rogan, of three-starred L’Enclume, and Matt Orlando, of Amass, in Copenhagen. Also attending will be a bevy of other authors, chefs and activists including food-educator Alice Zaslavsky, Jess Murphy of Kai Galway, social gastronomy disruptor Joshna Maharaj and thought-leader on food and cities, Carolyn Steel.
Closing date for Early Bird tickets 2-day tickets is June 30, foodontheedge.ie
APC Microbiome Ireland, the world leading SFI Research Centre headquartered in UCC, is seeking participants for a study of how coffee consumption affects the brain and gut microbiota of healthy adults between 30 and 50 years-old. They will be looking for bodies such as The Menu, for whom the daily cuppa Joe is as essential as H2O, just as they will be looking for non-coffee drinkers.
Specifically, they require moderate coffee drinkers (three to five cups a day), living near Cork city, to make four in-person visits to the lab over six weeks, while non-coffee drinkers will only have to make two, the first of which can be carried out online. Moderate coffee consumption can have a positive impact on human health and the study hopes to establish more about the effect of coffee consumption on the gut microbiota, stress and cognition.
Anyone in the market for some premium lamb for a traditional Easter Sunday dinner (and a fair bit more to put in the freezer,) would do well to jump on a very special offer from Calvey’s of Achill.
To celebrate their recent Irish Food Writers Guild Food Award, they are offering a side of their very fine Salt Marsh Lamb, reviewed previously in this column, for just €120 delivered to your door anywhere in the country.
The Menu continues his quest for immortality, or at least a fair shot at seeing out the next decade, with the latest addition to his daily diet.
Biasol Super Milled Grains come in the form of a fine powder derived from spent grain left over from the process of brewing beer, which accounts for 85% of all brewing waste. Most commendably, Biasol founders, siblings Niamh and Ruairi Dooley have instead turned this waste product sourced from Irish craft brewers into a highly nutritious superfood with multiple applications, in the process becoming certified as Ireland’s first official member of the Upcycled Food Association, a non-profit working to prevent food waste and extracting the maximum nutritional benefits and uses from all foodstuffs.
The grains are extremely high in fibre and protein, contain beta glucans which can help lower cholesterol and stabilise blood glucose and insulin levels, and are chockful of amino acids and minerals, including iron, zinc, calcium and bountiful B vitamins.
The Menu has been foisting it on himself and the progeny in all sorts of edible Trojan horses: smoothies, overnight oats and porridge, at breakfast; and soups, stews, stocks and sauces, for lunch and dinner. It is particularly good in the ‘mid-range’ of the flavour profile of savoury dishes and adds flavour depth to any home baked savoury offering.
BiaSol also offer a range of pre-mixed dried products including scone mix, brown bread mix and cookie mix.
