The Menu: West Waterford Festival of Food seeks to impress

Plus: new Michelin stars all over the place in Cork, going organic, and new trout roe from Goatsbridge

Paul Flynn and Eunice Power launching West Waterford Festival of Food

Follow the food path to Dungarvan

What has always been one of The Menu’s most favourite Irish food festivals rolls around again next week as the West Waterford Festival of Food (April 13-16), primarily based in the wonderful town of Dungarvan, returns to its rightful slot at start of the annual Irish food festival calendar, with events also taking place in Lismore and elsewhere in West Waterford.

Curated by the indefatigable Eunice Power, this year’s programme is studded with gems including Chocolate Masterclass; Food Photography with Cliodhna Prendergast (whose recent work with JR Ryall for Ballymaloe Desserts is a sublime illustration of her talent); a Lismore Castle Gala Dinner in tribute to Paul Flynn (the mightiest of mighty Dungarvan men); a Burlesque Dinner in Merry’s; Bus Bia tours of fine producers in the region; a Georgian Dungarvan restaurant trail with each course in a different building; a Picnic and River cruise of the beautiful Blackwater; chef Mark Moriarty at the Tannery; Blackwater Distillery, doing cocktails and pizza; and Goldie, with a seafood lunch in the Tannery Cookery School. 

Bia not Bluster is headed up by former Idaho Cafe supremo Richard Jacobs who hosts a series of panel discussions (including Peaches Kemp, John McKenna and Caitlin Ruth) on the future of Irish hospitality and agriculture, and a Toast Off cookery competition pits three top Cork chefs against three of Waterford’s finest to make the best cheese toastie.

• westwaterfordfestivaloffood.com

Dede Restaurant in Baltimore has won a second Michelin star. Executive Chef and Co-Owner, Ahmet Dede, is pictured in Baltimore this morning. Picture: Andy Gibson.

Cork all-stars

Well, the Michelin madness is receding once more although The Menu warrants a few bottles are still being popped, not least in Cork which is where all the new awards were handed out. Congrats to Vincent Crepel and team at Terre in Castlemartyr, where The Menu recently enjoyed some very excellent food and especially fine service — a star came as no surprise at all. 

When The Menu ate in the magnificent Dede in Baltimore, last summer, he predicted a second star was very likely; he returned again in November to find that, if anything, the food had improved even more and left absolutely convinced the second was in the bag. Finally, his heart was equally gladdened to see one of his most favourite of all restaurants, St Francis Provisions in Kinsale, awarded a Michelin Bib Gourmand; just recognition of a tiny little slip of a restaurant that nonetheless encapsulates everything that is life-enhancing about Irish hospitality and food.

Don’t panic over organic

When the question of going organic ever arises, The Menu finds it most irksome indeed that certain commentators invariably dismiss it with the tired old trope that it is a middle-class affectation and fails to appreciate the “realities of life”. 

Yes, they say, it’s all very well and ideally everyone would eat chemical-free food which would be best for our bodies and for the planet but in the “real world” there are people who simply cannot afford to eat organic food, the implication being that said commentators are more alive to the struggles of the working class poor when it comes to putting food on the table and that advocates for organic are in fact callous and unthinking to even preach such a gospel. 

The Menu doesn’t dispute for a moment that there are those who can’t afford to eat organic food, but he equally finds that aforementioned stock response indicative of a passive unthinking acceptance of the status quo and a deep failure to think further with any depth or imagination. In fact, he finds that attitude to be unthinkingly callous.

The correct response should be to ask the following question: Why are we not cringing with shame that we allow those at the bottom tier of society to eat the worst food of all — industrially processed, heavily adulterated with chemicals and nutritionally inferior? And what do we need to do to change the system to ensure everyone, not just those with better incomes, gets to eat healthy, fresh, nutritious, chemical-free, organic food?

If you want to find out what it means to truly embrace an organic lifestyle and why it benefits not just you and your family but society at large and the planet around us then the Organic Centre offer a terrific Organic for Life course (April 16), that is well worth checking out.

• theorganiccentre.ie

Goatsbridge Wasabi Mayonnaise, The Menu’s food pick this week

TODAY’S SPECIAL

The latest release from the ever innovative Goatsbridge stable is entirely in keeping with the standards set by Mag and Ger Kirwan in what is one of the most innovative Irish food businesses of all, taking the primary produce of their trout farm near Thomastown, in Co Kilkenny and creating a range of very splendid value-added products that have become staples in the most discerning Irish kitchens, both domestic and professional.

Their trout roe is now a standard in most top restaurants in the country and a new and very good trout-based chowder is light yet creamy, much closer to the original origins of the dish, unlike some of the overly thickened sludge that often passes for chowder around these parts.

But moving away from fish altogether is mayonnaise, which, at first glance, might not seem the most obvious offering from a fish farm but is in fact a most wonderful companion for the trout. Fresh beetroot flavour incorporating little brunoise cubes of beetroot is a delicious sweet condiment which The Menu has been putting into sandwiches, particularly wholemeal sourdough with spiced beef and rocket. 

There is also a cranberry flavour which The Menu has yet to sample, but the real revelation is the fresh wasabi flavour, made with Irish wasabi, grown by Beotanics, in Kilkenny, which presents as a lovely creamy emulsion textured with grated wasabi that furnishes a delightful nip akin to horseradish. It is quite perfect with smoked Goatsbridge trout but The Menu has employed it for all manner of pairings: a salad of warm potatoes and fresh scallions; gorgeous with poached leeks; and it excelled with delicious crispy thrice-cooked skinny fries, a tin of good sardines and fresh green leaves.

• www.goatsbridgetrout.ie