The Menu: Samhain Food Festival, mushroom foraging and more Halloween fun

Plus longtime Menu favourites and legendary Irish food pioneers, Ballyhoura Mushrooms, will be embarking on more of their ever-excellent mushroom foraging expeditions.

Trick or treat

It’s coming close to the end of a splendid run for the Meat & Potatoes exhibition in Crawford Art Gallery and its attendant programme of ancillary events. Samhain: The Origins of an Irish Halloween and The Festive Foods of Humans and Fairies (Oct 31, 3-5.30pm), may well fit the bill for some afternoon’s entertainment for off-school children before an evening of trick and treating, as food and culinary historian Regina Sexton and UCC folklorist Dr Jenny Butler engage in a hands-on workshop, digging up spuds and cooking colcannon while discovering traditional dishes of the festival, looking at the pre-Christian and folk dimensions of an Irish Halloween, and the role of food in the festival. Suitable for all ages, and pre-trick or treating Halloween costumes are welcomed.

• www.crawfordartgallery.ie

Fabulous funghi

Chanterelle mushrooms aplenty on a Ballyhoura Mushrooms guiding foraging expedition

Longtime Menu favourites and legendary Irish food pioneers, Ballyhoura Mushrooms, will be embarking on more of their ever-excellent mushroom foraging and identification expeditions, a highly engaging, thoroughly informative ‘walk in the woods’ that more than pays for its cost in superb wild Irish mushrooms foraged by participants, most especially when it comes to rooting out Irish chanterelles. There may be a last-minute opportunity for the digitally fleet of foot to book a remaining spot on tomorrow’s (October 30) trek through the Glen of Aherlow but The Menu is especially recommending a Chanterelle Extravaganza (November 6) at a secret location between Mitchelstown and Cahir which Ballyhoura’s Chief Forager, Mark Cribben, likens to picking strawberries at a fruit farm, such is the abundance of this fabulous fungal foodstuff. Pre-booking essential, events limited to 20 persons with children under 12 free of charge.

• www.ballyhouramushrooms.ie

Festival fun

Ireland’s favourite Mexican chef, Lily Ramirez-Foran, appearing at Samhain Food Festival, in Kells, Co Meath

Boyne Valley Flavours has assembled a quite superb programme and a line-up of chefs, cookbook authors, culinary experts, and international guest speakers for this autumn’s Samhain Food Festival (November 3-6), now in its fourth year, as some of the major players in Irish food fetch up in Kells, Co, Meath for a packed programme celebrating 5,000 years of Irish food and culture, including cookery demos, cocktail making masterclasses, a long table seasonal supper, kids cookery classes, food and drink tastings, farm tours, visits to artisan producers, farmers markets, panel discussions, and more.

The Samhain Symposium examines the subject of Irish Food Culture, chaired by food writer John McKenna, who will be joined by Rinaldo Giacomo Rava, of the University of Gastronomic Science, in Pollenzo, Italy, TU Dublin’s Mairtin Mac Con Iomaire, Darina Allen, Chef JP McMahon, Kevin Sheridan (Sheridan’s Cheesemongers), and local producer, Maria Flynn (Ballymakenny Farm). The Samhain Symposium is free to attend but the capacity of the venue is limited to 100 people so you are encouraged to book your complimentary ticket online (www.boynevalleyflavours.ie) to avoid disappointment.

Live cookery demos come from JP McMahon, Jess Murphy, The GastroGays, Kwanghi Chan, Lily Ramirez-Foran, Darina Allen, and Graham Herterich aka The Cupcake Bloke amongst others.

Devin O’Sullivan, Founder of social enterprise, Feast Ireland, whose forthcoming book is entitled, The Story Matters Most, explores the present and the future of food in a unique and interactive presentation, uncovering the truth behind farmed salmon, the impact that food waste has on the environment, how supermarkets trick you into buying ‘local food’ grown thousands of miles away, and much more, while Grow It Yourself (GIY) Ireland’s Founder, Michael Kelly, shares excerpts from GIY Diaries, a newly released account of his own growing year. A History of Cider In Ireland: The Original Wine Of Our Land is led by the very wonderful Mark Jenkinson of The Cider Mill and an Irish Cheese & Craft Beer Tasting With Kevin Sheridan and Judith Boyle also comes highly recommended.

• www.boynevalleyflavours.ie

TODAY’S SPECIAL

Lemon Citrus Meringue Tart from Arán Bakery, in Kilkenny, this year’s Blás na hÉireann Supreme Champion award winners

A fine town in which to put on the nosebag, Kilkenny’s food offering has been greatly bolstered in recent years by Bart Pawlukojc and Nicole Server-Pawlukojc’s Arán Artisan Bakery & Bistro. Though Bart did much of his growing up in Ireland and began his culinary career here, the pair met as chefs in Denmark where they worked in what amounts to an estimable roll call of some of the best restaurants in the world, though it is one of the lesser known names that truly introduced them to the wonders of fine bread, Restaurant Mielcke & Hurtigkarl, exquisitely located in The Royal Danish Horticultural Society gardens.

Their Marble City home may be a bantamweight venue in terms of floor space but it punches with all the power of a national heavyweight and now has yet another ‘belt’ to prove it, having been crowned Supreme Champion at the Blás na hÉireann Irish Food Awards. It is not the first time, Bart and Nicole and their team have prospered so in Dingle but this year they took gold for a quite sublime Citrus Meringue Tart, soft shortbread pastry housing a citrus curd and topped with torched Swiss meringue and a delightful raspberry confiture.

A multi-seed sourdough took silver in the sourdough category while a very excellent heritage sourdough took bronze and they captured all three spots on the podium with gold for their Spelt Sourdough with black and white sesame seeds.

Made from 70% Kells Wholemeal spelt flour grown locally by one farmer in Kilkenny, it is a gorgeous sourdough loaf with a moist, tangy, elastic crumb with a rustic, nutty, chewy crust, the same loaf which saw them so deservedly crowned Leinster and Supreme champions, and that has featured at breakfast, lunch and dinner all week Chez Menu.

• www.arankilkenny.ie