Treasure trove of cookbooks

COMING up to Christmas lots of newly published cookbooks arrived on my desk. There were so many that I simply couldn’t manage to mull over each one.

Now that I’ve had a bit more time to digest the various tomes I’d like to pass on my thoughts.

There were several treasures, including one I had been eagerly awaiting, The Irish Seaweed Kitchen by Dr Prannie Rhatigan. Even though I was brought up in the midlands – about as far away from the sea as one can be in Ireland – I was always aware of the power-house of nutrition that grew around our coast. Unlike me, Prannie lived on the west coast of Ireland where the rhythm of the tides and the love of the sea provided a back drop to every day life. As children, their father took them harvesting seaweed and sea vegetables.