Joe McNamee is back with part two of his annual food accolades
Real Bread Ireland to celebrating the 10th anniversary of what Joe McNamee considers to be one of the most important Irish food organisations in living memory.
Just a few months ago, in Hen’s Teeth, in Dublin, I joined almost 70 others, representatives of the over 200 baker members of Real Bread Ireland to celebrate the 10th anniversary of what I consider to be one of the most important Irish food organisations in living memory.
Since the inaugural meeting, in January 2015, of Real Bread Ireland, at Highbank Orchards, in Kilkenny, when six of Ireland’s finest bakers first gathered to establish this splendid organisation, promoting real bread (made from nothing more than flour, water and time) over the pappy, additive-laden output of the industrial bread manufacturers, RBI has since expanded to a vibrant membership spanning the entire island of Ireland.
The original Gang of Six were all present and correct, as was food activist Keith Bohanna, who deserves especial commendation for gathering together the bakers for that first meeting and ever since steering the mothership with his entirely unremunerated advocacy and administrative work for RBI.
RBI has enabled a thriving market for real bread, demonstrating to aspiring bakers that it was possible to build a self-sustaining business and then providing an ongoing daily support network to address all the problems and challenges that arise.
The membership also includes grain growers, raising crops of Irish grain and heritage grains for the first time in generations, ensuring that it is now possible to get a completely Irish loaf of real bread, good enough to rival any elsewhere in the world, all thanks to Real Bread Ireland, my Food Organisation of the Year 2025.
Visit realbreadireland.org
As ever, the Irish market for cookbooks continues to flourish, wonderful new titles arriving each year. There was something genuinely homely about Eunice Power’s My Irish Kitchen Table (Gill), her first cookbook, as the heartfelt recipes were true reflections of her culinary style, that began when she learned to cook alongside her mother in their farmhouse kitchen.
I don’t really need to say anything at all about Around The Table (Mitchell Beazley), other than that it is the latest from Diana Henry, one of our most beloved of all food writers. If you’ve never heard of her, this is a perfect starting point, 52 essays about food and food-related travel selected from more than two decades of her work.
The work of Real Bread Ireland to create a market in Ireland for real sourdough bread where none heretofore existed certainly benefited Charlotte Leonard-Kane and Shane Palmer of Scéal Bakery, in Wicklow, and their magnificent tome, Scéal: Seasonal Recipes and Stories from a Modern Irish Bakery (Quadrille) goes more than some way to repaying the favour.
The follow-up to their gorgeous production, The Irish Kitchen, Cherie Denham and Andrew Montgomery’s The Irish Bakery (Montgomery Press) is another impressive production, most especially Montgomery’s stunning photography which presents with all the atmosphere of a Dutch Master.
Kristin Jensen has revolutionised the Irish cookbook sector and Jess Murphy’s The Kai Cookbook: A Love letter to the West of Ireland, on Jensen’s Nine Bean Rows imprint was a real contender, very close to my favourite of the year, an idiosyncratic and eclectic collection of fine recipes, further enhanced by the beautifully simpatico photography of Nathalie Marquez Courtney.
However, it was a book from Jensen’s other imprint, the Blasta Book series, that completely stole my heart this year and that is , by Izz Alkarajeh and Eman Aburabi.
In another time I would be commending this production for its gorgeous recipes and beautiful illustrations.
But right now, after all that has gone on in Gaza as the Israelis continue to slaughter Palestinians in genocidal fashion, this book has become so much more, a message of defiance and hope against all the odds, and a prayer for the power of food to bring people together.
While I had encountered his meat on several menus around Cork city over the last few years, this was the year I first visited Peter Twomey’s Glenbrook Farm, just 15 minutes drive from the centre of Cork, on the city’s Northside, where he raises his free range pigs.
Back in 2018, as the then third generation dairy farmer despaired during a summer drought that left his pastures as little more than cracked, dry stubble, Twomey decided to begin farming outdoor-raised free range pigs but it is only in more recent years that he has scaled up his operation to a level that might be self-sustaining.
The difference between free range pork and the intensively farmed stuff is like the difference between … actually, it is beyond the reach even of metaphor, for a single mouthful, say, of roasted shoulder of Glenbrook Farm Pork, lush, tender and succulent meat, contrasting with the crisp, savoury crunch of the crackling will tell you more about its quality than a thousand words.
Even the sausages, so dense with meat, it is best to braise them, constituted one of my home-cooked meals of the year, served up with Puy lentils and buttery, mashed potatoes.
You’d imagine such a magnificent product could anticipate a long and successful commercial life ahead but the vicissitudes of knuckle-headed State agriculture policy means it is becoming harder and harder for small livestock farmers such as Twomey to find somewhere to have their animals slaughtered.
So, not only should you seek out and relish my Irish Food Product of the Year, but you should also hassle every single politician you know to try and revive the Irish small abattoir sector to ensure we consumers can continue to enjoy the finest of Irish meat.
Visit glenbrookfarm.ie
