Articles

An impressive book by any standards, this beautifully produced coffee table tome weighs in at 2.3kg and – thanks to Christopher Hirscheimer’s stunning photography – presents an extremely appealing, mainly rural, view of Ireland and the simple excellence that is our food culture at its best. Despite its size and weight, it’s an engaging as well as an informative read, successfully setting the renewed Irish respect for quality produce and simple cooking into a balanced historical perspective, with carefully selected recipes illustrating the point.
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Although usually used in sweet dishes, rhubarb is not a fruit but classed as a vegetable. It grows easily in Ireland and is still a familiar feature in gardens all over the country. It dies down in winter and now, as it begins to re-emerge for the new season (later than usual this year, due to the prolonged cold weather over the winter), the new stalks will be at their pinkest and most tender.
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Kettyle Irish Foods is an innovative food company producing a variety of speciality food products developed out of the 500 acre family farm in Co Fermanagh, which had mainly reared beef for export to Europe and beyond. In 2004 Maurice Kettyle realised that there was a niche market for the very best of Irish food products such as dry-aged beef, Lough Erne Lamb, naturally reared Irish rose veal and really good chickens.
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There is a cartoon postcard that friends have been known to send us, entitled ‘THE GUEST FROM HELL’. It depicts a drawing room with blazing fire in front of which the club bore, refilling his glass, is regaling other guests, who are either yawning or have lost consciousness altogether. Even the dog looks frantic.
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The “Just Ask!” Restaurant of the Month winner for March is The King Sitric Restaurant, in Howth, Co Dublin. Long before it was popular or profitable to do so (indeed, ever since he opened Howth’s premier restaurant, in 1971) Euro-Toques proprietor-chef Aidan MacManus’s philosophy was to source the best possible local produce and tell his customers about it – and that dedication has never waivered.
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Agriculture was the prevailing theme at the Irish Food Writers’ Guild Food Awards 2010. From farm to fish, just five indigenous companies were acknowledged as among the finest food producers in Ireland and contribute to Ireland’s growing international reputation for fine food and produce. Presented by one of the pioneers supporting Irish food producers and the promotion of good food in Ireland since the 1960s, Myrtle Allen of Ballymaloe House, Co Cork, the awards for outstanding products went to...
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Helen Finnegan’s wonderful sheeps’ cheese has attracted much praise – most recently earning one of just five of the Irish Food Writers’ Guild annual Awards. Having long yearned to do something on her husband Robert’s family farm located bang in the middle of the village of Stoneyford, Co. Kilkenny, Helen began making cheese in the back kitchen six years ago, as an experiment, using goats milk from a neighbour; as each one tasted better than the last, she became hooked.
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With St Patrick’s Day the highlight of this often chilly month, there’s nothing to beat one of our really traditional dishes, such as a warming bowl of Irish Stew, a plate of bacon and cabbage or a beef and Guinness casserole. The Irish midlands, especially Co Westmeath, are renowned for the quality of beef raised in the area – and sold by...
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Simon Dougan is one of the luminaries of Irish food, and undoubtedly one of the great influences for good in the development of Northern Ireland’s (and indeed the island’s) food culture. Television has introduced him to the wider public in recent years, but it is his simple, uncompromising philosophy of food – shared with his equally respected wife, Jilly Dougan, of Moyallen Foods – that has earned him, and his Yellow Door businesses in Portadown and Belfast, huge loyalty from an appreciative clientèle.
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The “Just Ask!” Restaurant of the Month winner for February is Café Rua, in Castlebar, Co Mayo.
When Ann McMahon opened Café Rua on New Antrim Street, Castlebar, in the mid ‘90s there were few enough establishments concentrating on combining quality with simplicity and making the very best foods accessible to all. Today the business is run by Ann’s children Aran and Colleen and, not only has that philosophy of serving ‘uncomplicated food using seasonal and local ingredients’ endured...
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