Zest for the best
Our Top 8 on International Women’s Day today celebrates women in food. No competition for marks here, these eight Munster-based women are as individual as their produce.
They have forged a way, putting their energy into all aspects of their businesses, unafraid to dirty their hands with building work, digging, painting, hauling, creating spaces for their businesses, often starting in their kitchens, tasting and tweaking along the way.
Experimentation done, they took the leap from cottage industry to investing in buildings and equipment to make their enterprises viable. They encourage women chefs (they are still thin on the ground, but increasing in number) and supply their male chef friends who are in tune with their aims of continuing to maintain the integrity of their produce.
There are excellent female retailers who stock speciality foods, doing their best to promote top quality Irish produce. For now, we have picked women across a range of products who have led the way and encouraged others to get involved in the food that has made Ireland a desirable food destination.
We celebrate them and take heart when we see how many of them are nurturing the next generation of artisan producers.
Jeffa Gill, Durrus Farmhouse Cheese
Jeffa has been making Durrus Farmhouse cheese on the Sheep’s Head peninsula since 1979, with the encouragement of the much-missed Veronica Steele, the cheesemaker who paved the way for many others. Milk for her cheese first came from her own cows and is now supplied from two nearby farms. Her daughter, Sarah Hennessy, has joined the enterprise where traditionally handmade Coomkeen, Durrus and Durrus Og feature on prestigious restaurant cheeseboards.
Giana Ferguson, Gubbeen Farmhouse Cheese
In the early ’70s Londoner Giana Ferguson married Tom Ferguson and moved to his 250-acre coastal farm close to Schull, West Cork. Her strong energy soon translated into experimenting with the farm milk to make Gubbeen cheese. Firstborn Fingal now smokes farm produce. Her daughter Clovisse is working an acre of garden with four polytunnels providing herbs for Gubbeen and supplying local restaurants with vegetables, salad leaves and fruit.
Siobhan Ní Ghairbhith, St Tola
Twenty one years ago, Siobhan Ní Ghairbhith took over the goat farm and cheese making from neighbours Meg and Derrick Gordon in Inagh, Co Clare. Increasing the herd of 70 to 220, she sells 90% of her cheese in Ireland, the rest to the Neal’s Yard in London and Wholefoods in the USA. The former primary school teacher has embraced farm life but still likes to impart knowledge, giving tours of the farm, providing her with the balance and quality of life she enjoys.
Yasmin Hyde, Ballymaloe Foods
Yasmin Hyde set the bar high when she created the Ballymaloe Relish brand to bring her mother Myrtle Allen’s recipe to a broader audience. Since 1990, she has developed the business to include other relishes, dressings, pasta sauces. Next will be a fiery relish and a ‘hidden veggie’ pasta sauce with children in mind. Daughter Maxine joined the company in 2008 and three years ago daughter Rose joined to manage operations. Last year the company’s turnover was €6.2m, delivered by a staff of 35.
Sally Barnes, Woodcock Smokery
Since 1979, first a fisherwoman, then a fish smoker, Sally Barnes has been outspoken about many issues affecting the production of food in Ireland. When wild salmon stocks declined, she avoided using farmed fish to fill orders, experimenting instead with hot smoking tuna, along with seasonal mackerel, haddock, hake and pollock. She now focuses on keeping traditional methods alive by holding smoking masterclasses in her smokery at Gortbrack, Skibbereen.
Helena Hickey, Skeaghanore West Cork Farm
Helena went from nursing/midwifery to nurturing ducks. In 1994 she reared 30 on her partner’s family dairy farm. Some 26 years later, 800 ducks a week are processed on-site with a staff of four who have been with her from the start, with more seasonal additions. Son Daniel, an agricultural graduate of CIT, has become part of the business, managing 70% of smoked and fresh duck and chicken products to restaurants, 30% to supermarkets.
Virginia O’Gara, My Goodness
In 2006 scientist Virginia O’Gara came to Cork from Texas to study permaculture. She found local cabbage and root vegetables were best to ferment for salads, and introduced kefir and kombucha drinks at her stalls at Cork farmers’ markets. Her English Market stall My Goodness sells vegan foods which highlight her influences from time in Mexico and Guatemala. Another project she is involved in, The Cork Urban Soil Project, aims for Mahon Point Market to be the first zero-waste market in Ireland.
Working as a chef for 10 years in Cork’s Farm Gate, a decade ago Clare discovered she was coeliac. So extreme was her condition that she could not work in a room with flour in it. With calm determination, she experimented with gluten-free flours and now produces a range of breads and sweet treats which she sells in Cork’s Mahon Point market and to restaurants. When she misses cheffing, she hosts dinners in pop-up restaurants in Kinsale where she lives.
