The Menu: Head to marvellous Midleton for fEast Cork Food Festival

Plus: the Harvest Festival in Waterford; cooking classes for teens; and good stuff Savage Cabbage

Sat, 02 Sep, 2023 - 02:00

Joe McNamee

The Menu will be hot-footing it to marvellous Midleton next weekend for yet another outing of his Grub Circus food extravaganza at fEast Cork Food Festival (September 7-10) on the closing Sunday, but that is just one part of a multi-faceted programme that begins the previous Thursday with myriad events in the market town and its East Cork hinterland, the edible yin to West Cork’s yang.

From Castlemartyr Hotel and Resort, head “out the gate” and around the corner to near neighbour, The Hunted Hog for an evening feast, while Kate Manning of Ballinookera Farm conducts a number of bee-related events, including one at Grub Circus on the Sunday.

A Taste of France features some fine classical French cooking in Ferrit & Lee, while Climate Conscious Food is a panel discussion and long-table lunch at Ballyvolane House.

Other dining events include a surf ‘n’turf barbecue at Sea Church in Ballycotton, and Brain Food @ The Courtyard is a food quiz, with a fEast Cocktail and Trivia snacks menu, with prizes galore.

Another Grub Circus guest on the Sunday, Niamh Hegarty, of BKultured also hosts BKultured, BKonscious at Ballybrannigan Beach, including a beach clean and junk art workshop withGreywood Arts Centre, with Niamh’s larder dishing out food and drinks.

Erstwhile Crawford Gallery Cafe chef/proprietor Sinead Doran provides an immersive cinema experience, cooking up fine fare so you can literally taste the movie as you watch Chef, starring Jon Favreau, Robert Downey Jr, and Scarlett Johansson, at the Ballymaloe Grainstore.

The festival culminates in a takeover of the entire town with a splendid street market and the Grub Circus market pitched on the site of the Midleton Farmer’s Market, with a day-long and very family-friendly programme.

Along with the above-mentioned, Goldie chef/co-proprietor Aishling Moore teams up with Smokin’ Soul for some live fire seafood dishes while cocktail maestro Oisin Davis previews his new cocktail book, Homemade, with a selection of whiskey cocktails employing some of the ‘local’ beverages from Irish Distillers at Midleton Distillery.

Also turning up will be Orla and Anna Snook O’Carroll, from Valentia Vermouth and Graham ‘The Cupcake Bloke’ Herterich for a baking demo/‘Family Battle’ as a father/daughter combo take on a mother/son pairing.

And, as always at Grub Circus, there will be sips and nibbles for everyone in the marquee, where sharing is most definitely caring!

feastcork.com/new-events

Junior beekeepers help launch Waterford Honey Show. Photograph: Patrick Browne

Harvesting fun, food, and more

The one downside of The Menu’s participation in fEast is that he will be unable to throw himself entirely over into the Harvest Festival (September 8-10) which includes a magnificent celebration of Irish honey with over 1,000 beekeepers at the Waterford Honey Show, as well as live music stages, entertainment and events and a smorgasbord of superb food and sustainability talks with some of the country’s most esteemed food writers, chefs, activists, journalists, and business people.

The Harvest Festival Market spans Waterford’s squares and streets, while the Taste Waterford Kitchen Stage features a host of food producers and chefs. Now run by GIY, the Junior GIYer’s zone takes over O’Connell Street and Cool Food School and GIY will be hosting workshops on seed sowing, growing, and cooking food.

harvest.giy.ie

Cooking classes for teens

Aniar chef-proprietor JP McMahon is beginning cooking classes for aspiring teenage chefs, aged 15-18, following on from the success of the adult version.

Limited to just six students, it takes place over two winter terms, beginning on September 9, and will cover bread, meat, fish, vegetables, savoury baking, and sweet baking, from basic techniques to advanced skills.

Six-week course price of €495 includes an Aniar apron, a copy of JP’s The Irish Cookbook, and a weekly recipe handout.

aniarrestaurant.ie

TODAY’S SPECIAL

The Menu staggered shellshocked and distinctly unseaworthy from the wreckage of Grub Circus at All Together Now at the beginning of August, and almost immediately had to launch himself into other endeavours of a similarly fraught nature, so is only now getting around to a debriefing after yet another magnificent year at the Portlaw, Waterford-based festival where the Grub Circus marquee was packed from the very start of its two-day programme, and chief among the reasons for its success was The Menu’s very wonderful crew, who worked (and partied!) like Trojans for the weekend.

One couple in particular, Mercedes Kevill and Rory Guyett, did especially sterling work behind the scenes, but in addition, found time to step into the spotlight for one event on the GC programme, ‘New Faces, Old Traditions’, featuring some of The Menu’s favourite young up-and-coming faces from the world of Irish food.

Mercedes and Rory are also the brains behind Savage Cabbage, a Clare-based fermentation business where they create a range of krauts: Carrot and ginger, the ‘gateway’ kraut; purple, with nothing more than red cabbage, caraway seeds and salt; yellow, with white cabbage, garlic, onion, turmeric, coriander seeds, sea salt and turmeric, hence the name; and white, a classic rendition with white cabbage, fennel and juniper berries, and of course more salt.

But on stage, along with a very fine kombucha cocktail, the two fabulous fermenters also chose to showcase their kimchi and, for all the fine flavours on show in their krauts, it was this kimchi that stole The Menu’s heart for it is a most excellent condiment, a highly singular proposition by dint of being vegan and therefore shorn of the traditional fish sauce.

While this absence does subtract some of those funkier umami flavours that make kimchi so special, the Savage Cabbage version (Chinese cabbage, daikon, carrot, ginger, garlic, apple, scallions, gochugaru, sea salt) carries its own distinct flavour profile defined by an especially spry brightness that ensures the sweet, spicy and tart notes grace without completely overwhelming any dish to which it is added as an accompaniment — mind you, The Menu upon returning to his cave of solitude back in Menu Towers, managed to consume an entire jar of the stuff with nary another foodstuff to be found within a five-mile radius and it made for most splendid, uplifting, and restorative eating indeed!