Darina Allen: 'I’m on a mission to teach everyone how to make a loaf of soda bread'

From sourdough to soda, Darina Allen wants to teach a new generation how to make the perfect loaf. She talks to Joe McNamee about The New Ballymaloe Bread Book

Darina Allen mixing the flour, bread soda and salt for her Traditional Irish White Soda Bread at Ballymaloe Cookery School in Shanagarry, Co. Cork. Pic: David Creedon

DARINA says she is ‘retiring’. 

Fair enough, the grande dame of the Irish food world is 75. If anyone is entitled to take a step back, then it is surely the most influential person in Irish food.