Eat, pray, love
The fifth Dingle Food Festival kicks off next weekend, with it the Blás na hÉireann food awards, and the profile of the county’s artisans, restaurateurs and seafood producers is speedily going stellar.
So where did it all go right? Part of the answer surely lies in the landscape. Kerry’s rugged Atlantic coast chimes through its wild and farmed seafood; the Kingdom’s mountains crawl with black-faced lamb; its dairy produce is being re-imagined in ice-cream and farmhouse cheeses.
Recession has also played a role, boosting the trend amongst Irish consumers to support local ingredients and food with a story — from chocolatiers to butchers, bakers and pie-makers.
Throw in the custom of a steady tourist trade and a looser approach to business leases, and you’ve got the conditions for artisans, restaurateurs and retailers to take a punt.
The Irish artisan and speciality food sector currently employs 3,000 people with an output of €400 million, according to Bord Bia. In Kerry, the sense that those specialists are networked is strong, with hotels and restaurants showcasing local producers, and festivals like the Dingle one serving up a focal point, and creating a sense of the region as a foodie frontier.
Most of all, though, it’s the people themselves — many of whom have overcome serious odds to turn their dreams into viable food businesses. Here are just three.
SANDRA DUNLEA and her husband Peter have opened Miss Courtney’s, The Smoke House, a new restaurant at West End House and The Markets in Killarney — all during the recession.
“With Miss Courtney’s Tearooms, I set up something I loved myself, and I stuck to that 100%... I like vintage stuff, I wear vintage clothes, watch old movies and drive an old Mark 2 Jag. I love that era, and I think there’s an appetite for it in consumers. I think you have to stick exactly to your vision, otherwise it looks wishy-washy, the same as everywhere else, and it’s not memorable…
“The premises here has been in the family since 1909. My family lived upstairs and my mother, grandmother and great grand-aunt all ran a similar business in the past… I wasn’t scared opening the tearooms. I’m an occupational therapist by profession, I hadn’t been used to spending wildly, and after I had kids, I didn’t want to go back to work full-time. It made sense.
“Obviously I’m biased, but Kerry is a good spot. We have a strong farming community (I’m a farmer’s daughter myself) and people like Spillane’s seafood supplied my mum. A lot of businesses in Killarney are family-owned for several generations, and that’s nice to deal with.
“My mum is baking most of the stuff for Miss Courtney’s at the moment, but an older lady, Marie Sugrue, does the apple tarts. At West End House, Peter sometimes gets deer being culled from the local herd. Cronin’s Butchers is right next door. Herbs, salads, pretty much everything is local.”
Will there be a Miss Courtney’s franchise? “No. I have been approached by people, but I don’t have any interest in that. It’s not really my name to sell, it’s named after my grandmother, and it won’t be special any more if there are loads of them. It won’t make me happy…
“What’s going to happen in the next 10 years? I don’t know. I like what’s happening as a result of the recession. We’re going back, looking at what worked years ago, what was nice about things being a little bit slower, getting to know the people who produce your food… that’s exciting.”
AFTER losing his Skelligs and Cocoa Bean chocolate factory to a fire last November, Colm Healy is bouncing back with a new premises due to open by December.
“A tourist came in recently, and said ‘Oh my God, what are you guys doing here in the middle of nowhere?’ A member of staff turned around and said, ‘Well Sir, it’s very much down to perspective. For us, it’s the centre of the universe.’
“We have the great fortune to be located in St Finian’s Bay, directly overlooking Skellig Michael. You could do the mechanics of what we’re doing somewhere else, in an industrial estate. But so much of our business is based on our location… people feel like they’ve discovered us for themselves.
“We have two brands — Skelligs Chocolate and the Cocoa Bean Chocolate Company. Both are very much upper middle class products, using good quality ingredients — like a Cooley Distillery blend of whiskey, an Irish honey from Waterville or Killarney, or the best Jamaican rum.
“We have eight staff here, and when you come in, you see the chocolate being made. Often if we’re developing something new, we’ll bring over the samples to the customers who happen to be standing there. Tasting is a big thing for us. We’re not cheap, but tasting closes the sale every time.
“Last November, I was away doing research and marketing, when I got a phone call. Catherine, my general manager, who is very adept at the understatement, said there had been a bit of a fire. By the end of the conversation, it was: ‘No Colm, you’re going to have to accept it. It’s gone.’
“I came back two days later in shock. We still haven’t had the conclusive report back. Thankfully, nobody was injured.
“I felt numb. There is no other way of describing it. But I can be a bit stubborn. I did not want to be beaten by a random act of God. I also had a responsibility to the staff. There were mortgages, bills, livelihoods; it was more than just me. So we decided to rebuild, and be better.
“We’ve been in a temporary location in Cahirsiveen since last March. But we’ll be back home making chocolate in Ballinskelligs before Christmas.”
AFTER losing her husband to cancer, Kate Carmody found banks slamming doors in her face. Then she won backing for her Beál cheese on RTÉ’s Dragon’s Den.
“Where I live is essential to Beál, my handmade cheeses. We are at the mouth of the River Shannon. We are battered by salty winds in the winter, and it’s mostly a very lush climate in the summer. That gives the quality to the milk. And because it’s organic, the animals are not stressed.
“So much of modern food culture is just homogenous, tasteless rubbish — cheap food which is very expensive when you consider what it is doing to the health of the nation.
“The difference is that I have full traceability. The milk comes from my farm, I know what field it was made in, and that’s reflected in the flavour.
“I grew up in Liverpool. My mother was a Yorkshire woman and a tremendous cook. We used to come to Kerry for a month every summer, and my parents became so immersed in the local culture, they built a house here. I moved over in 1980 and married into agriculture.
“Sadly, my husband Patrick died in 2007 of aggressive prostate cancer. He was a great counterweight to me. I’m very passionate about everything I do; he was always a good grounding force. But I’m a great believer that even though we die, our spirit lives on in the people we leave behind.
“I put so much energy into looking after him that after he died I had to release that energy into something else.
”I’m a bit of a dynamo when I get going. On January 6, 2010, we recorded Dragon’s Den, which totally changed my way of life, you might say. I first founded the business in 1987, but I was slightly stunned by my reception on TV. It’s a cash investment, and Niall and Bobby meet me every couple of months. They trust me. They even ring up for advice themselves sometimes, because I know the food market in Ireland very well. They have a great respect for the fact that I am very principled. That is the Yorkshire Methodist in me!
“A year to the day after Dragon’s Den, I prolapsed a disc in my neck. That’s an ongoing problem, but that’s life, you just have to reinvent yourself the whole time… I’m turning my farm into a model of diversity. It’s hard work, but it’s creating a way of life that is wonderful.”
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