basketcase

What's the most risky food you've ever eaten, go on, spill

2012-02-03T13:41:00.000-08:00

Spaghetti with "best-before July 2009" lurking at the back of the cupboard? Cheddar you've scraped the green bit off before toasting on some 2 day old baguette?

We all eat food that is suspect at some point, wondering idly while we chomp down if we'll die in the middle of the night from our righteous attempt at thrift. A Food Safety Authority survey shows that in fact half of us eat foods past their use-by dates. This is despite the fact that use-by dates are worth paying serious attention to... as opposed to best-before dates which are just a general guide.

As the whole best-before, use-by and sell-by date area is clearly a bit of a mindfield, I wrote the following piece for the Irish Independent to give a clearer outline of foods that we can happily eat beyond their best-before dates, and those that might hit you like a punch in the gut, or worse. Have a look, tell me the most risky item you've ever put in your mouth, and let's compare. Mine wins hands down... I promise

Use By Dates: How to find the balance between being safe and wasting food

Irish Independent February 2nd 2009

Most of us have packets of food lurking at the back of the cupboard which are long past their best-before date. But as so many Irish households cut back on their grocery spend, is it a false economy to eat food that is out of date?

A survey by the Food Safety Authority of Ireland (FSAI) showed that nearly half of us eat foodstuffs which have passed their use-by date. The results, from a group of 1,000 questioned by the FSAI and Teagasc, show that consumers rely on their instinct, as opposed to labelling, to judge if something is safe to eat.

The 46pc of Irish consumers who disregard use-by dates said that they were happy to eat food as long as it "looked and smelled okay". The FSAI think the statistic is worrying and shows Irish consumers are still willing to put their health at risk rather than throw something out...

As the article is quite long, check out the rest of it at the following link (no paywall) and let me know your food horror stories. I won't tell a soul.... I promise

http://www.independent.ie/lifestyle/smart-consumer/use-by-dates-how-to-find-the-balance-between-being-safe-and-wasting-food-3007649.html

Trouble in land of the spuds

2012-02-02T03:52:00.000-08:00

We had a lot of reaction to the discussion on RTE Countrywide Saturday on all things potato. I particularly loved the listener who texted in that Rooster potatoes were "muck" and that anyone knew anything about potatoes wouldn't touch them with a barge pole. What's interesting is that it's a topic that enlivens so many people, but the reality is that the demographic eating potatoes in Ireland is getting older, potato sales are falling, and many farmers are leaving the business. The day of the Countrywide report I heard of a farmer, his wife and three kids who were emigrating to Canada just days later having left the potato business.

We talked about several possible solutions to the problems in this sector. Later this month Bord Bia will have research on consumer attitudes to potatoes which will throw a lot of light on buying patterns and how engagement with this wonderful vegetable can be improved. If you're interested in hearing more, the link to the programme is below, with the potato item (myself and Thomas Carpenter from the IFA discussing the issue) at about half way into the programme. The post previous to this also gives an outline of the problems - yes agriculture is thriving in Ireland, but if we turn a blind eye to the the unfair amount of power supermarkets wield and fail to legislate for primary producers, it's not going to stay that way

http://www.rte.ie/radio1/countrywide/

Can we save our spuds?

2012-01-27T07:31:00.000-08:00

The Irish spud is in a bit of a crisis. Sales are declining and Irish farmers say this season they are selling potatoes below the cost of production. Like all commodity producers, potatoes are victims of the marketplace and as Ireland had high yields this year (the crop was very good) there is over supply. Over supply leads to a depressed price, and a very unfortunate situation for farmers who are growing a vegetable that they are ultimately forced to sell at a loss.

Yet many of us still cook potatoes, just less of them. And one of the main reasons in their decline is that we have replaced our staple carbohydrate with newer, glossier contenders - rice, pasta, noodles and even bread. We also import some potatoes, and have turned away from some of the traditional Irish varieties. Tomorrow I'll be on RTE radio discussing this issue and why as consumers are leaving the potato behind.

Or are we? If you're a champion of the potato and use it in inventive and new ways drop me a comment - it's worth keeping in mind that per gram they have still less fat than pasta and rice and are a super-healthy unprocessed food. And also, in the main, Irish. Have a listen to the programme if you're up and about at 8am or catch it on a podcast afterwards from www.rte.ie/radio. And let me know your spud views!

Back to the future; our fabulous female food producers

2012-01-23T12:36:00.000-08:00

Basketcase has been on a break the last few weeks while I tackled a large amount of pesky print deadlines. But it means I've a couple of strong (and some very entertaining) food stories coming up and an exciting few projects emerging in the next few months. Tomorrow I'm back on the road in my touring office - (otherwise known as the landrover held together with string) to interview a great rural food producer who is also a woman - Mag Kirwan - pictured left. Just in case there's any confusion, Pat Whelan is the butcher bloke and I'm the one in the middle.

As the Irish food and agriculture sector gets stronger each year and provides more of our exports and GDP, I'm noticing many more rural women involved in producing food, whether it be artisan products or in larger food manufacturing. Over the next few weeks I hope to bring some of their stories on air on RTE radio. One of the reasons I want to feature rural women is that they are huge drivers of growth, both economic and in a wider sense, in rural Ireland. Over many years I've spent reporting on farming and rural issues I found it was often women who were at the centre of rural development projects. In LEADER initiatives such as Ballyhoura in Limerick,

IRD Dullhallow in Cork and around the country, they were plugging away on the ground getting community schemes together, with many of them in the area of food.

It's not hard to see why women and food are a natural pairing in Ireland. While farming was traditionally considered "men's work", Irish women ran mini-enterprises from their kitchens. Selling poultry and eggs provided them with a household income that they could control. On mart days when the family livestock were sold, the profits could end up over the counter of the town pub and if they came home they were reinvested back into the

farm or spent on essentials such as animal fodder for winter or a pig to fatten. Poultry was a way for rural women to accrue money for children's clothes, school books or other needs often

seen as non-essential from a traditional farming point of view.

As in developing countries today, women and small businesses are drivers of upwards mobility. By selling crafts, saving money and forming co-ops they can completely change the future of their children through small measures. Rural women such as my grandmothers were enterprising and resourceful. Both managed dairy herds and a steady supply of eggs with my nana Campbell investing in goats to sell goats milk (very unusual in the 1960's) to local people.

My nana McGauran knitted aran jumpers for extra income. As I child I spent many evenings on the floor of her Fermanagh farmhouse holding yarn spread between my two small arms as she gathered the ream into a single huge ball to knit from. I remember the ticking of the loud slow clock and the open turf fire with its gigantic cast iron pots. My grandmothers also kept poultry flocks, turkeys and seasonally had food solutions to fit whatever produce was available. Always the focus was on saving, economising and getting the best out of what they could get trade, sell or grow. It's ironic in a sense, that while we're going through difficult times in Ireland, these women from our past learned that food can make you money; and it's a tradition we're still playing out today.

I was talking to the Food Safety Authority of Ireland during the week who confirmed that huge numbers of queries are still coming into the organisation from people wanting to start new food businesses. Many are from women who are skilled cooks and have a resource to sell. It never fails to amaze me the passion and will to succeed that food producers have to keep doing what they do. To start businesses in difficult times and in an environment that is heavily regulated as Ireland is no mean feat. But there's new food businesses popping up all the time, and much goodwill and positivity in the sector.

If you want to support rural businesses and small producers there's plenty of fabulous food to choose from. Typically when I visit these women and listen to their inspirational stories I am sent home with a bundle of their produce on the passenger

seat of the jeep - delicious cheese, pork, lamb, milk, chocolate... And guess what? I still buy their food, months or even years afterwards. In fact it's not a stretch to say that on any given week a large amount of what we eat at home is produced by the women below, with some of it (Ann Rudden's chocolate, Ballymaloe relish) making an appearance every single day. This isn't an exhaustive list of Ireland's female food producers, but its a picture of those that I've shared a cup of tea with, or buy from regularly as I really believe in their food. I promise to compile a more thorough version when I get a chance as its a great resource for both for Irish business women and foodies. But for the moment, check them out, buy some of their food and you may create a habit, and some friendships of a lifetime x

Birgitta Curtin from Burren Smokehouse, Bernadine Mulhall Coolanowle organic farm, Eileen Dunne Crescenzi, Ann Rudden from Aine Chocolates, Saoirse Roberts Connemara Smokehouse, Debbie Johnston at Sweetbank Farm, Mag Kirwan Goatsbridge Trout, Mary Kelly Moonshine Cheese, Giana Ferguson Gubbeen Cheese, Margaret Farrell of Oldfarm pork, Sarah Furno at Cashel Blue cheese, Avril Allshire-Howe Roscarberry Recipes, Eileen Bergin The Butlers Pantry, Maxine at Ballymaloe Relish, Emma at Glenisk (we couldn't survive without the Cleary family's milk, yoghurt and cream) Nicole Dunphy at Pandora Bell, Bernie Burke of Burke's ice cream, Kate Carmody Beal Organic cheese, Darina and Myrtle Allen, Amy Caviston of Caviston's fishmongers, Janet Drew from Janet's Country Fayre, Lorraine Fanneran restaurateur and Italian Foodie Sauces, Caroline Hennessey from 8 Degrees Brewing, Jen and Claire from the Dungarvan Brewing company, the amazing Margaret Jeffares from Good Food Ireland, Sharon Ni Chonchuir Dingle food seller, Hannah from Waterfall Farm, Santina Kennedy from Kennedy's Enniskerry, Glenillen Farm, and finally The Dominican nuns at An Tairseagh organic food market, Wicklow.

Happy Eating x

It's a new dawn, a new day, a new pie.... and I'm feeling good

2012-01-03T12:24:00.000-08:00

I was glad to read in Psychology Today that a quarter of people fail in their new year resolutions in the first week. Phew, at least I'm not on
my own.

In fact, that's a complete lie. I didn't make any.

You could say this arises from fear of failure but it's probably more a healthy case of can't be bothered. Don't get me wrong - new year resolutions are great, and setting ludicrous goals even better, but for the day that's in it, January 1st doesn't signify anything too dramatic for me; only getting rid of the Christmas detritus, using up half a tonne of frozen turkey and baking a Galette des Rois.

I cheated at my Galette this year. Traditionally it's a cake for the feast of the Epiphany which is Friday the 6th January. But this year I made two Galettes on New Year's Eve for a house party up the valley from us. It was a wild stormy night as we drove up the winding lanes in our

battered Land Rover to the head of the valley. And just like the wise men, there were three of us, transporting gifts of Galettes, wine, Bollinger and a fellow guest with a bandaged head and a broken thumb.

It was that kind of night. Not one of the healthiest starts for the New Year but a brilliant one.

In Catholic France the Galette des Rois celebrated the arrival of the three wise men. It's also the day named "Little Christmas" or in Ireland "Nollaig na nBan" which translates as Women's Christmas. This was possibly because

under the Julian calendar, Christmas Day fell on that day whereas under the Gregorian Calendar, (the present day system) it's the 25th.

Anyway, as we're not great Christmas cake, pudding or mince-pie eaters in our house, the Galette is a Christmas staple, and devoured long before the Epiphany. It's a simple recipe, and if you are pressed for time as I usually am, you can use pre-made puff pastry and the result will still be pretty delicious. After you roll out the pastry it literally takes about five minutes to prepare. It's simple, mouthwatering and for me, the most perfect of French pastry treats.

I wish you all a happy and healthy 2012; may cooking and food provide you with respite, comfort and fun in these strange and often unsettling times that we are living in. Basketcase will still be here; keeping you company in your travails; supplying scandal, food news, the wild, obscure and occasionally profane.

But in the meantime have a slice of Galette, and let me know how you get on. Happy Eating.

Galette des Rois

100 grams ground almonds

100 grams caster sugar

100 grams butter

one egg, lightly beaten

400 grams home made or ready made puff pastry

three drops almond essence

Mix the butter and caster sugar into a paste then add the ground almonds and the almond essence. Bind together with the beaten egg.

Roll out the pastry into two 10 inch rounds. Spread the almond paste on the first round, spreading it out to within an inch of the edge. Place the second round of pastry on top of the first, press the edges together, and score the top in semi-circular lines. Brush with a beaten egg and bake at 180 for 25 minutes.

You better be hungry x

Dancing at the crossroads, for real

2011-12-26T08:59:00.000-08:00

I thought you folks might like this clip of the Curtlestown wren boys playing at my local crossroads which is a rural Irish tradition on St. Stephen's Day. These days no wren is hunted or killed as was the pre-Christian custom but the wren boys (and girls) still wear the traditional raggy clothes, straw "mummers" hats and disguise themselves. Many years ago the wren boys hunted a wren through the hedgerows which eventually came to a sticky end, poor thing. The wren had a lot of negative beliefs associated with it but as those superstitions passed the musical tradition lived on. In many areas of rural Ireland you will see the the wren boys out on St. Stephen's Day; playing traditional Irish music and collecting for local charities once the short concert ends. This is dancing at the crossroads for real, and even in the times we live in we had couples waltzing, a slip reel danced by a very competant Irish dancer and I even did a few turns myself with my small daughter. The first clip is of my neighbours dancing a waltz and below that is the handsomely attired tiger wren doing a short number with a brush. Enjoy x

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CyqFG0jUdYg&context=C37b6c9aADOEgsToPDskK9TiFjiypR4CkE_eUPEatY

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jWJjjTkQizI&context=C37b6c9aADOEgsToPDskK9TiFjiypR4CkE_eUPEatY

Avoca's new venture: high concept, well-executed and beautiful

2011-12-11T14:56:00.001-08:00

In my part of the country the Avoca brand is a bit of a food institution. When news appeared that the Pratt family were opening a new branch of their food/lifestyles business in Monkstown, South Dublin it was greeted with much glee by all who enjoy decent grub. The new outlet, in an area perfectly pitched for its customers is sure to be as consistently busy (even in planet recession) as their other food shops and restaurants.

For my foreign readers here's a bit of background: Avoca Handweavers (which the chain was originally named) grew from a cafe and crafts shop at the Avoca woollen mill in the small village of the same name in rural Wicklow. The mill is still there, as is the shop and cafe, but in the last decade the Pratt family who bought the business have extended their homewares, food shops and cafes to outlets all around the country. The shops have become food and homewares meccas; a great stop for buying a quick gift, picking up a set of meringue nests for an emergency dinner or grabbing a chocolate cake to die for en route to a childrens party.

What's interesting about the new shop in Monkstown is that there is now fresh fruit, vegetables and meat on offer. As someone who lives sandwiched between the Enniskerry and Kilmacanogue outlets I often run in to grab a salami for a pasta dish, goats cheese or some lovely Aine Rudden chocolate made in Co. Cavan. But I cursed the fact that picking up veg or fresh meat at the same time wasn't an option.In the Pratt's new venture fresh vegetables are on offer, there's a beautiful cheese room, rotisserie Irish chicken and most exciting of all a new butcher shop outlet from Pat Whelan from Clonmel.

Pat is a great believer in local food, farms his own cattle and it's great to see his type of quality beef landing up in my neck of the woods. The range of veg is the Monkstown outlet is gorgeous; all kinds of exiting things but one thing I'd like to have seen more of was Irish produce. I know that if you

want courgettes in December you're not going to find them grown in Ireland but I think there is more local vegetables available then what they are stocking at present. This could be an issue of availability - sourcing Irish is often confined to particular volumes and of course price, but hopefully in the future we'll see more of our local vegetables on the shelves.

Research shows that even in the midst of recession consumers like buying Irish. I think retailers should exploit this more and remember that "Irish" and "local" conveys a halo affect onto everything around it - a fascinating dynamic often abused by the large supermarkets but used to great affect by Supervalu and smaller independent shops. What the Monkstown store has plenty of is Irish pork from small farmers and producers, Irish Chicken and of course Pat's meat.

This is premium food in a premium location. The restaurant in this outlet, named Salt is superb, and booking is recommended - as usual with any new Avoca venture it was out-the-door busy. This shop is not the sort of place many are going to do their weekly groceries. At the same time retail such as this is crucial in re-branding Irish food as contemporary, authentic and desirable.

Avoca food always delivers on taste. It's not cheap but I don't think good value is about something being cheap. Cheap food is a downwards spiral for all of us as it narrows our methods of producing food into a "lowest margin possible" morass that ultimately resembles factory farming.

It's funny for me to write about Avoca as I feel a strange vested interest towards the place. Several of my friends work in the Avoca shops and restaurants near to me. I frequently have work meetings there as it saves

people travelling up the godforsaken mountain roads to visit me and my kids are well familiar with me landing in them in the door for coffee and cake. I wish them the

best in their new shop. To a degree we all should be proud of what the Avoca brand has achieved. It's a successful re-imagining of what Irish food and Irish retail should be. It's high concept, well-executed and always a pleasure to visit. Keep up the good work x

Budget Day - and €105 taken out of Irish Agriculture, what does it mean for farmers and food producers?

2011-12-05T12:53:00.000-08:00

Round One of Budget 2012 happened earlier today, with the axe falling on €1.4 billion of public spending by the Irish Government. The main headlines were changes to child benefit, increased registration fees for students and changes to health spending. But across the country many from the farming and food sector anxiously watched Minister Brendan Howlin's budget speech for news on what would happen to farm incomes. Then it was announced that €105 million is to be taken out of the agriculture budget, a move that will affect 50,000 full and part-time farmers. In that respect it could have been a better day. But to be honest it could also have been a hell of a lot worse.

I've outlined the main points of the cuts below. On the positive side (yes there is one), farmers countrywide are relieved to see no change in the suckler cow welfare scheme, which aids those producing beef animals. There's also beef discussion group funding and money for the BVD scheme. The main cut is to the Disadvantaged Area Scheme where €30 million is to be taken out of the system. This will really be felt by the farm families who farm in less productive parts of the country, where in short, it can be very hard to make money. Uplands, wetlands and bog is all too common in Ireland and while it might look poetic, it certainly isn't poetic trying to pull an income out of it.

Also notable is the €6 million being cut from the agri and food bodies such as Teagasc, Bord Bia and BIM which offer invaluable support to farmers, food producers and promote Irish food both here and abroad. In reality a lot of this €6 million saving will occur anyway through employees not being replaced and changes to funding models. But it may still mean a merging of some agri-food bodies which was what had been rumoured.

Summary of the cuts:

Disadvantaged Area Scheme

This will be implemented through reduction of those entering the scheme via eligibility and

qualifying criteria. The proposed amendments are subject to approval by the

European Commission. Planned saving - €30 million

ERAD, Disease eradication scheme

Savings from anticipated lower disease incidence and operational changes. €10 million

REPs

Implement reduction in expenditure through changes in the payment of transaction costs to scheme participants. The proposed amendments will require Commission approval.

€19 million in savings over 2012

Administrative Budget of the Department of Agriculture

"D/AF&M rigorously reviews every area of expenditure and is committed to further staffing reductions and reductions in costs, including in procurement and shared services."

€12 million in savings

Non Commercial State Sponsored Bodies (NCSSBs)

Total grants-in-aid to five non-commercial State bodies (Teagasc, Bord Bia, BIM, the Marine Institute and the Sea Fisheries Protection Authority) amount to some €200 million per annum. "While the emphasis in 2012 will be non-pay expenditure cuts, funding models and overall levels of funding will be examined critically, particularly in the context of the Government’s commitment to streamline the number of State bodies."

The announcement also factors in Miscellaneous Savings of €28 million to bring the total of agriculture cuts to €105 million. Tomorrow will see the announcements on VAT which will greatly affect food producers and as they predict, shrink demand for their goods. It's rumoured that the new VAT rate on bagels, garlic bread etc (the bread that's not bread story) may not go ahead which is great news for small bakers. As always, I'll keep a close watch on announcements tomorrow and keep you all posted. Keep the chins up x

If you're one of the 700,000 Irish people buying a turkey in the next few weeks you might want to read this...

2011-12-05T12:13:00.000-08:00

Let's Talk Turkey by Suzanne Campbell

Irish Independent 1st December 2011

Many of us would like to buy an Irish turkey this Christmas and ordering one from your nearest butchers seems a great way to keep money in the local community. But a surprising quarter of the 700,000 turkeys we'll eat this Christmas are likely to be imports from Italy and France with many being sold as Irish birds by local retailers and butchers.

Under current law it's not mandatory to label imported turkey as Italian or French so we may think we're buying a locally reared turkey. Unlike most Irish-grown turkeys sold this Christmas, birds from Italy and France are farmed more cheaply but are routinely sold at around the same price as Irish turkey.

As they are shipped here they are less fresh and could be more likely to cause food-borne illness. So how can you ensure you're getting a fair deal and a Christmas turkey that's healthy, succulent and a meal to remember?

Turkeys from butchers and small retailers

Ask your butcher if the turkey is Irish. Under current labelling law, retailers are not required to show country of origin on the turkey itself but if asked they must tell you where the bird was slaughtered and indicate if it's an import.

"We encourage our members to sell as much Irish product as possible, but it's not for us to tell butchers what to do," says Dave Lang of the Association of Craft Butchers.

"There are imported Christmas turkeys for sale, but I don't think there's subterfuge going on. "Many butchers and small retailers will stock Irish birds but you should ask rather than assume. "If you see a Quality Assured mark on a turkey in an Irish retailer, you know it was grown in Ireland to high production standards," says David Owens from Bord Bia. "However, last year we saw over 160,000 imported turkeys coming into the country and consumers should be aware of that. These turkeys should be cooked immediately and not frozen."

Turkeys from supermarkets

Most Christmas turkeys sold in supermarkets are Irish birds grown by the three large turkey producers in the country. These are white turkeys which mature in about 16 weeks and are reared in large indoor housing without access to the outdoors.

Many of these supermarket turkeys will have a Bord Bia Quality Assured mark which means the farms are inspected for welfare standards, stocking density and the type of feed and medication the turkeys are given.

What's a bronze turkey?

If you want to your turkey to have had a longer life and increase the chances of a tasty tender bird, buying a free-range bronze turkey is increasingly popular. Bronze turkeys are the old-fashioned black coloured bird once common on Irish farms.

As they are slower to grow they should taste more tender than a commercial turkey. The meat is also said to have more flavour as the turkeys forage in grass and have a more varied diet. "There is no such thing as a dry bronze turkey," says Ronan Byrne who is rearing 600 free-range turkeys at his farm in Athenry.

"My birds take almost six months to grow and that's why I compare them to Aberdeen Angus beef. They're tender, juicy and have lots of flavour."

Free-range turkey

If a turkey is labelled 'free- range' it means the turkeys were allowed access to an outdoor area and the farms are inspected to comply with free-range regulations. Because of increasing demand many supermarkets, large retailers and farmers' markets now sell free-range, which may be white or bronze birds.They are more expensive than commercially farmed turkey but Mr Byrne says there's always a certain amount of customers that want quality. "Once people make the change they come back to me year after year."

Organic

Organic turkey is the most expensive of all the options as the turkeys are fed a diet of grains and grasses which have been grown without pesticides. They must also have access to grass and be free-range.

Taste-wise, organic will be very similar to a bronze free- range turkey but more expensive as organic feed drives price significantly upwards. If you choose to buy a premium product such as an organic turkey, check that the packaging or that the producer has an IOFGA (Irish Organic Farmers and Growers Association) or Soil Association stamp.

Buying locally

Buying from a local farm is often a cheap way to get a good turkey as it cuts out the middleman.Many farms now sell direct from farm gate and some deliver turkeys to your door. If you want to be sure a turkey is free-range, buy it from a farmer you know or visit the farm. Many farmers encourage customers to see their farms and to collect turkeys once they are ready.

It also makes a lovely outing for children around Christmas time. If you're short on time, many farms now sell online.

Irish Independent

You know you want him... on a plate

2011-11-29T10:24:00.000-08:00

You'll hear from me later in the week on what to look for when handing over your hard earned dosh for a Christmas turkey; there are some shocking rip-offs and ropey options out there. But for the moment, here's a list of farms selling direct and small producers of free-range and bronze turkeys this Christmas. Remember, instead of making your usual trawl through the supermarket you can buy turkeys and hams at farm gate, it makes for a lovely trip if you've got kids. And if you're short on time, many farms sell online with delivery. It's good value, cuts out the middleman and I've outlined the options below.

Bronze turkeys are the old fashioned black-coloured bird once common on Irish farms. They take longer to grow - about six months as opposed to the commercial white turkey which matures in a speedy 16 weeks or less. Bronze birds are more tender - I can vouch for this, and generally beat the conventional bird on flavour.

Prices:

The big supermarkets this year will have mass produced white turkeys at about €7 a kilo
Superquinn have an organic bronze at €15.99/kg which is a whopping mark up on the birds below - if you buy them from a farmer they should come in around €9 or €10 a kilo
Tesco, Aldi and Lidl are not yet releasing prices for Christmas turkeys

Free range bronze options:
Ronan Byrne’s farm in Athenry: €9.90/kg; a 12 pound bird will cost about €54 euro http://www.thefriendlyfarmer.blogspot.com/ He's a lovely fella and knows his poultry

David McEvoy in Louth €8.80/kg, order via http://www.fruitandvine.com/ and at Dun Laoghaire and Temple Bar markets

Co. Clare; Phillip Monks, Ballyvaughan www.monksfarm.wordpress.com ph. 086 8735565

Co. Kildare; Gerry McEvoy Sallins, Co.Kildare, about €9/kg http://www.bronzeturkeys.iewicklow/

Co. Louth; McEvoys’ farm Termonfeckin – http://www.termonfeckindelicious.ie/
Co. Fermanagh; http://www.macneanfarm.com/
Co. Offaly; Ger and Paula Lalor, Rhode, http://www.ballybryanturkeys.com/

Co. Roscommon; Brendan Allen http://www.castleminefarm.ie/

Co. Tipperary; TJ Crowe; http://www.crowefarm.ie/
Co. Wicklow; Colin Hadden in Tinahely http://ballyshonogfarm.ie/
Online - James Whelan butchers - will deliver http://www.jameswhelanbutchers.com/

Organic
Organic Bronze turkeys €75 each average weight 12-15 lbs from
Drumeen Farm, Kilkenny and Mary Regan, Wexford available at http://www.organicmeat.ie/

If you're up my direction in Wicklow, you can order local free range turkeys at Michael Keegans new farm shop on the road to Enniskerry Waterfall. He's a lovely fella, a full time farmer and it's great to support a local business if you live in this neck of the woods. He's also supplying hams from Ed Hick and all sorts of other goodies.

For video junkies there's a little video here on Ronan Byrne's website of his 600 strong flock of bronze turkeys making their unique turkey gobble sound and generally out having a great time in the sunny fields. Just don't mention Christmas... www.thefriendlyfarmer.blogspot.com

Happy eating x

Chocolate rabbits, fine food... Say hello to the awards season

2011-11-25T11:56:00.000-08:00

There's very few people able to coerce the premier of any country into auctioning a chocolate rabbit but if anyone's up for the job, it's Margaret Jefferes. Margaret is founder of Good Food Ireland - a tourism and food organisation which brings together the best of Ireland's food producers, restaurants, cafes and accomodation. In my work I come across members of Good Food Ireland all the time and it's testament to Margaret that she has gathered those at the top of their game into her organisation. The sublime Merrion Hotel, Cliff House Hotel, Chapter One and food producers like Graham Roberts of Connemara Smokehouse, Glenillen Farm and Cashel Blue cheese are all members of the group. These are people and companies who I've covered in stories because they are doing something different and authentic in food. And when I travel around the country to interview farmers and food producers I always find the Good Food Ireland folk a fantastic, energetic and fun bunch of people. The minute I get out of my car they're there with a warm welcome, an honesty and humour that always makes me really warm to them. Maybe it's because they gain strength from each other in what can be a lonely business - running a food SME in a recession. But whatever the reason, they have huge passion for what they do, and I always end up chatting for hours and more importantly, laughing, a lot.

Earlier this week they held their annual conference and awards in the Shelbourne Hotel Dublin. It was an honour to asked to speak at the conference alongside the likes of Kevin O'Sullivan editor of the Irish Times, Feargal Quinn retail legend, Fred Karlsson Founder of DoneDeal.ie, and Mary Carney winner of MasterChef Ireland. Mary spoke about "Creating Great Taste Memories" and the good and bad memories we all have of Irish food which brought me back to the terrible days of the 1980s microwave lasangne but also my Donegal grandmothers insanely good soda bread. The lunchtime spread of foods from Good Food Ireland was so fantastic it was hard to take in. I think I had about fourteen separate things on my plate at one stage, everything packed with flavour, beautifully cooked and as Irish as it comes. Some of the highlights from the conference talks on the day were from Sile Gorman, Aran McMahon and Peter Ward from Country Choice who all spoke about how difficult it is to make money out of producing or serving good food, but that what keeps them going is the love affair they have with food, and the feedback they get from their customers who come back again and again.

The awards ceremony was later in the evening and it was lovely to see some great Irish businesses like Goatsbridge Trout farm, The Chocolate Garden and Ballyvolane House collect some well deserved silverware. But for me it was a race over to Trinity College for my second appointment of the day - the Bord Bia Food Industry Awards, and yes, I finished the evening pretty well fed. The Bord Bia awards were slightly different as they are aimed at larger food businesses. Huge Irish success stories like Largo crisps won awards alongside Flavahans porridge (a staple in our home), Country Crest, Green Saffron, Jameson Whiskey and a new collaboration between Kerrygold and Cashel Blue which will see the Grubb family's handmade cheese on shelves in the mega marketplace that is the USA. It's fantastic to see this kind of innovation taking place as our big brand leaders like Kerrygold could do a lot to give smaller businesses a leg up in markets where they already have a foothold. And now more then ever, when our food exports are so important in keeping jobs in Ireland is the time to exploit this further. Here's a shaky photo of Minister for Agriculture Simon Coveney speaking at the event; bigging up the export performance of Irish food which is set to hit 9 billion euros by the close of the year. Just so you know, the Bord Bia dinner was St. Tola's Cheese, roast Irish pork and a berry crumble to finish. As usual with Bord Bia's events, it was beautifully done and a really lovely evening. For me it was also a chance to catch up on the gossip with other farming and food journalists and we had a lively night with lots of laughs. Particularly pleasing to me was seeing the "journalist writing tomorrows piece on back of napkin" approach is live and well, as a quick scan around the media table revealed. Having no napkin to hand, my own scribbled notes were made on the back of my speech from earlier in the day. We're nothing but enterprising, us lot.

Let them eat cake.

2011-11-18T06:15:00.000-08:00

I used to assume garlic bread was a type of actual bread. Apparently not.

In a surprise move by the Irish Revenue Commissioners, the price of baked goods such as bagels, croissants, garlic bread are set to rise by up to 13% in new Government measures which will make them subject to VAT for the first time. This change in status is because Revenue have now decided that bagels, croissants and the like are not sufficiently "bread-like" to be exempt from VAT.

This has come as a shock not only to consumers but to the baking industry, some of whom only found out about the changes from the Revenue Commissioner's website.

Reaction from Irish food producers today isn't positive to say the least. Alongside jokes that the Germans are now writing our budget (bagels.. ) small bakeries are busy claiming that their products are in fact far more bread-like then the average sliced pan which as it stands, will not receive any price hike in terms of the new VAT regime. To be fair, there are many different types of sliced pan and they vary hugely in quality. Last year while checking out one of the UK's biggest food retail outlets - the new ASDA/Walmart in Swindon, I purchased a loaf of bread for 26p. Two weeks later this loaf had the exact same consistency and taste as the day it was purchased. Value for money? Certainly. Will I be buying it for the kids? Don't think so.

The VAT hike on baked goods comes as yet another blow for what small food manufacturers say is continuing Government disregard for their sector. Con Trass, a food producer in Tipperary points out that the apple juice he makes on his farm is already subject to 21% VAT. Putting this kind of pressure on small food businesses can be crippling and as he points out, is also a barrier to growth "With the top rate of VAT on your foods where is the incentive for farmers to diversify?"

While we won't starve as a result of our bakery tastes priced a little higher, what it will cost is jobs in small food companies, over 400 of whom are supplying specialist goods like these products to a market which is already difficult to operate in. And for consumers, it's yet more money travelling from your wallet into the black hole of an economy on the edge of the train wreak that is the euro. But for now, the question I really want to ask Revenue is "What about the blah?"

If your food has fur, don't eat it. New survey shows 46% of us eat food that's past its sell-by date

2011-11-17T06:43:00.000-08:00

Today, survey results released by the Food Safety Authority of Ireland show that nearly half of us eat food that has passed its sell by date. No Biggie, you might say - "sell by" and "best before" dates are tools food manufacturers use to force us to throw out lots of the groceries we buy, in order to fill our trolleys with more.

But what these new figures from the FSAI and Teagasc outline is how as consumers we continually rely on our gut instinct (pardon the pun) to judge if food is safe to eat. The 46% who disregard sell by dates said in the survey that they were happy to eat food as long as it "looks and smells okay". The FSAI think the statistic is "worrying" and shows that Irish consumers are still willing to put their health at risk rather than throw something out.

There's a couple of forces at work here. Firstly, advice from all corners is that we should waste less food and shop and eat smartly. In my case this often means taking mushrooms from the back of the fridge that are probably three days past their best, and chopping them into a tagliatelle with some nice artisan pesto. Like the people surveyed, I judge for myself if these mushrooms will land me on the floor with stomach cramps or in fact, taste rather nice. As they are local, organic, and lets face it expensive mushrooms, the pressure to eat them is even greater. I even have a "I'll eat this dish but not give it to the kids" approach if I feel it presents a risk to tiny stomachs but not to mine. Again this decision making process is based not just on murky science but no science whatseover.

Also in this mix is the particularly Irish psychological pull of hating to waste any kind of foodstuff. "My brother fried up rashers that were three weeks out of date and he was fine" type story is central to upholding this belief and reinforces the notion that "use by" and "sell by" dates should only be loosely applied, at best.

The survey of 1000 consumers also reveals a lack of understanding of what "use by", "sell by" and "best before" terms actually mean. 39% of us will not eat food that has passed its best before date even if it looks and smells fine. But this then contributes to unnecessary food wastage by consumers. We should remember that best before dates are meant to provide a guideline. For example, the bacteria plentiful in cheese age and alter it on a continuous basis, changing its structure and to a point, improving its taste. Its up to us to judge when that cheese tastes at its richest, has gone past its best or presents a danger to us.

I'm regularly cavalier about "use by" dates and from these new figures its clear I'm not alone. From my work on food safety, spoilage bacteria is not the worst thing in the spectrum of threats from what we eat. Much more dangerous and prevalent worldwide are new antibiotic resistant ecolis such as E0104 which killed over fifty people in Europe this year. These unfortunately are not created by food being past its best, but carried on foods as a legacy of our food chain - most ecolis come from human or animal waste, and via an abattoir or factory onto the food we eat. They will make us ill but also carry fatal consequences such as HUS - hemolytic uremic syndrome; a really nasty sidekick of 0104 which in the German outbreak affected almost 30% of the victims who ate contaminated food, far more than in previous ecoli outbreaks.

The FSAI are right to warn consumers about use by dates and improve our understanding of them, but I feel there are bigger threats out there with much more long reaching ramifications. In Holland there have already been measures taken by both agriculture and public health authorities tackling intensive farming, antibiotics and ecoli in the food chain. It's something I hope to explore further on television as current awareness of this problem among consumers is very low, or non-existent. As one Irish academic recently told me, antibiotic resistant ecoli in food is a reality that's "boiling away in the background, we don't even know how big the problem is".

More on this topic again; it's a fast moving area and getting more relevant by the month. But for the moment, happy eating, and if it has green furry stuff on it - best throw it out.

Like beer, pubs, cheese, eating, everything? Check out this little video and a celebration of our wonderful Irish farmhouse cheeses and craft beers

2011-11-11T12:53:00.000-08:00

Many years ago as a young producer on Ear to the Ground I set up a story on Ardrahan cheese in Cork and came home with rounds of the most gorgeous soft, richly-flavoured Irish farmhouse cheese. It was all fairly new to me at the time, and in fact in I remember sitting round with a bunch of us in the production office, digging in and generally looking wide-eyed at each other saying - wow this is Really Good... How come we didn't know about this before?
That was over ten years ago and particularly in that period, Irish farmhouse cheeses have grown from a small number of producers to over fifty businesses. These range from what I call the big players - Cashel Blue, Gubbeen etc.. who have their product on cheese boards in top restaurants and who've developed export markets to the smaller, newer entries such as Mary Kelly's Moonshine soft cheeses made in Mullingar.

The last ten years or so have also seen the growth of craft beers in Ireland. Long in the stranglehold of the big international breweries, most Irish pubs or restaurants offered little choice in anything local or alternative to drink. Now we've no excuses - with gorgeous beers from Dungarvan Brewing Company, O'Haras, and Eight Degrees Brewing and fourteen other craft brewers getting into off licenses and pubs, we finally have alternatives that are great tasting products. I adore a decent beer and any chance I get, I pick up some of the new Irish offerings. Yes they are more expensive but they taste fantastic, with real bite and flavour.

Last weekend in Ireland saw a countrywide initiative to bring craft beers and farmhouse cheeses closer to consumers who may not be aware of, or buy this kind of food and drink. Bord Bia, the national food organisation here initiated the Farmhouse Cheese and Craft Beer Weekend with over 30 activities that took place in farms, breweries, restaurants, gastropubs, off-licences and markets across the country involving tastings, pairings and demonstrations.

All these beers and cheeses have individual stories behind them and every time I eat an Irish cheese such as Glebe Brethan (a gorgeous Gruyere type cheese) I think of David Tiernan out milking his cows that morning in all kinds of weather and muck and madness. Because that's the reality of farming; it's tough, often disheartening but also rewarding for people like David when you're making a product as good as his at the end of the day. The picture left is of the cheese room at Ardrahan; a small Irish business but one creating crucial employment in rural areas [I particularly love the St. Bridgets cross on the wall; a big feature of my childhood as my parents came from the wetlands around Lough Erne]
And this is what it's all about; small family businesses and the personalities, places and stories behind them. According to John McKenna, eminent food writer here and editor of Bridgestone Guides - "We are dealing with the most bespoke artisan foods in the world here. Craft beers have the ability to take you into the brewer's highest aspiration; that potent wish to make a drink that evokes their work. They are being treated as the wines of Ireland. The farmhouse cheeses convey the good things of Ireland; pure food; fine milk, and content animals, about sharing and hospitality, and the creativity of a determined individual on a small Irish farm, stamping every cheese with the signature of their personality. It is marvellous to see them being enjoyed and appreciated together"

Check out the video below which will give you a really good picture of what's going on in Irish cheese and beer, and for my many foreign readers, its a pretty good account of what the inside of an Irish pub looks like. Though I suspect, many of you guys know that already hahaaa. Happy eating and drinking x
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F1QVWkFQKjo

Fat tax adds 6% to price of cream; supermarket charges 17% more, just for the hell of it. The Denmark fat tax experience

2011-11-08T08:29:00.000-08:00

Yes sometimes I moan about supermarkets, but I never thought they could have an active role in mucking up public health policy.

I recently did a report on RTE radio about Denmark's Fat Tax. Instead of the expected trend in consumers purchasing high calorie foods, what I found was that retailers there are using the tax to fatten their bottom line. A price survey of eight supermarkets carried out by weekly Danish newspaper Søndagsavisen with co-operation from the Tax Ministry, revealed that prices on many fatty foods were significantly higher than warranted by the tax’s introduction.

For example, while Skat – the Danish Tax and Customs Administration had calculated that the price of sour cream would increase by 6.6 percent due to the fat tax, the spot check revealed that at supermarket Aldi the price of sour cream was raised by a whopping 17.3 percent.
Aldi was the worst offender in the study, with the supermarket raising prices on 9 of the 10 inspected products by more than what could be accounted for by the new tax. Lidl was also an offender - they had increased the price of sour cream by 15.1 percent more than warranted by the tax. Both of these firms operate in Ireland and in fact are growing their share of the grocery market here.

The Danish Consumer Council’s reaction was “Supermarkets can determine their own prices, so it is not prohibited, but it doesn’t look good.” Yes, it sure doesn't look good. Politicians there have now said that there needs to be a debate on “whether there are ways to protect the consumer.”

In all my analysis of fat taxes and obesity measures around the world I was probably naive to overlook the huge issue of how these taxes are delivered - via the supermarkets. As there is yet no regulation on supermarkets in Ireland, going down a sugar tax or fat tax route could put us in exactly the same postition as the Danes - being fleeced. There are also supermarkets in Denmark who are not charging the new tax and trying to gain competitive advantage. So basically, the public health measures expected from the tax are at the whim of the companies who deliver them.

Later this winter we should have legislation here on a proposed new supermarket ombudsman and the possibility of at last protecting both consumers and food producers. After giving a witness statement at an Oireachtas Committee on this back in 2009 it's getting critical that something finally be done. Successive governments here have shirked their responsibilities on the issue. The Danish example just goes to prove that if you have no legal framework to work with the supermarkets on pricing then you may as well be throwing public health measures down the pan.

If you want to hear my discussion with Pat Kenny on the Danish fat tax dilemma it's on the following link; scroll down to November 1st and you'll see my name and the Fat Tax item.

http://www.rte.ie/radio1/podcast/podcast_patkenny.xml

What's Ireland Eating... that's a good question

2011-11-02T13:26:00.000-07:00

Last night our documentary which aired last May was repeated on RTE again. It came out of the book Philip and I wrote about food, and discussions we still have about global food systems, food safety, supermarkets, farming and the quality and price of what goes into our gobs. If you missed it the documentary will be on the RTE player and free to view for the next month or so at the link below;
http://tinyurl.com/6kdww6z

The documentary was made following a television proposal I wrote of Basketcase; What's happening to Irish Food, which was the book Philip Boucher-Hayes and myself co-authored back in 2009 (Philip is an RTE journalist and also my husband). On the left is a picture of us working happily together for the publicity of the book. Just remember I said the word Publicity, although in actual fact we work pretty well together... we'd want to - after one book, one documentary and countless other projects including two children it's simply the way it has to be. Although Philip was rubbish at finishing his section of the book on time - procrastinating brilliantly by putting up Christmas decorations that took two months to complete. At one point we were going to write in the dedication "We hope you enjoy this book, and if you find some of it quite not up to scratch you should see our Christmas decorations - they're fabulous".

We are currently preparing "What's Ireland Eating 2", and hope to start filming in 2012, so I'll keep you posted on the programme and give some hints towards what we're covering, all I can say for the moment is.... chicken. Happy eating folks

Denmark's Fat Tax - one month old and already gone badly wrong

2011-10-31T08:30:00.000-07:00

After a fabulous Friday spent at Savour Kilkenny I'm firmly back in the real world after discovering a food news shocker today. I should have known that after a lovely interlude of chatting with author Colman Andrews about locavores, eating Goatsbridge trout and Knockdrinna cheese with fantastic wine pairings in Mount Juliet, things would come down to earth with a bump via my old nemesis - the supermarkets.

Tomorrow morning I'm reporting on the Kenny Show on Fat Tax and how Denmark is reacting to its first month under the new expensive food regime. Aside from the expected consumer complaints about more expensive processed food, dairy and meat products, the real shocker is that the supermarkets there have taken complete advantage of the new law and are charging as much as 15% more on products such as butter and cream, on top of the 6% or so mark up from the fat tax itself.

This is profiteering on an outrageous scale and again there's no measures or legislation to stop them. Not only are the Danish chains involved in this desception but also Aldi and Lidl which operate here in Ireland. Sometimes I think I'm far too cynical about supermarkets but this new piece of skullduggery in action blew me away. And what would happen here if a fat tax was introduced? Exactly the same thing, particularly as we've no supermarket ombudsman or protection from this sort of practice.

What's the point of having any kind of public health policy if supermarkets use it as a tool to rip off consumers? I'll be going through it in detail after 10am on RTE radio one tomorrow and will put an audio link up here on the blog later.

Irish food, embarrassment of riches or plain embarrassment?

2011-10-22T13:11:00.000-07:00

This is Donal Skehan, isn't he lovely? More on that later. This Friday I'll be locking horns in a debate with some premier Irish and international food writers at Savour Kilkenny. The topic is "Irish cuisine - embarrassment of riches or plain embarrassment?" Funnily enough I could debate either side of this but on Friday I'm on the "embarrassment" bench. Can't wait; I've got some great hideous Irish food examples lined up; the pub sandwich in the bag, rubbery, watery chicken in a wrap, the ubiquitous beef or salmon dinner - so awful they named a racehorse after it. Whatever side you might ally yourself with it's sure to be an entertaining debate. And hey opposition, don't think for a second you've a chance in hell of beating us.

Savour Kilkenny has a brilliant line up of food events - demos by Donal Skehan and Catherine Fulvio (above and right), food trails, wine workshops, children's cookery, blindfold sensory dining and a foodcamp on the Friday. Going to festivals is one of the nicest parts about writing about food and farming for a living. It's where I meet people who farm and produce food, other food journalists and all kinds of people who just like cooking and eating. Whether you write as I do for print or television it's still a solitary job. So going on the road; hanging out in windy fields with farmers and laughing with people at food festivals is where you see it all come together.
It's also where you see changes happening in the way food is presented and discussed. Five years ago in Ireland food festivals were all about food on the plate. Now they focus increasingly on where the food is coming from. What's the point offering a dish with tiger prawns intensively farmed in Vietnam, frozen and flown here god knows how long after they were harvested, as Irish Food? Unfortunately we still see this kind of thing in many good restaurants around the country. More and more chefs are realising the value of local ingredients, cooking accordingly and food festivals are thank god, following suit.

I spent five years producing Ear to the Ground - filming in stifling hot chicken houses, cold milking parlours and on wild wet mountainsides amid hundreds of black faced sheep. Learning how food is produced and handled at its early stages is essential to understanding what we have here in Ireland in terms of our food potential. Having visited factory farms in Holland, Belgium and documented GMO farming nightmares in Thailand and Vietnam, it's often sadly the case that don't know how lucky we are here, and how good and "clean" our foodstuffs are.

If you are near to Kilkenny this Friday drop into the foodcamp at the festival - it's a series of workshops where food professionals (chefs, producers) mix with foodies (journalists, bloggers, consumers) and agencies learn and share with each other. There's a day of speakers and discussions planned from 09:30 through to 15:30 running in 4 simultaneous rooms.

The day finishes with the Food Fight debate at 3:30 chaired by John McKenna of The Bridgestone Food Guide, the debate poses the question:
“Traditional Irish Cuisine – an embarrassment of riches or just an embarrassment?”
On the embarrassment side are:

Colman Andrews – Journalist, founder of Saveur magazine and food writer
Suzanne Campbell – Journalist, author and broadcaster
Regina Sexton – Author "The Little History of Irish Food"

On the opposite bench are:
Birgitte Curtin of the Burren Smokehouse
Kevin Sheridan, food campaigner, Sheridan's cheesemongers
Catherine Cleary – Journalist and food writer, The Irish Times

I'll keep you posted on how we get on and how soundly we trash the opposition. Happy eating x http://savourkilkenny.com/

Fat tax: outrageous infringement of our right to eat, or a tool to tackle an obesity crisis

2011-10-19T13:39:00.001-07:00

Ah the fat tax. We're all doomed. My weekend packet of McDonnell's crisps could be 20 cent more. My couple-of-times-a-year fish and chips might set me back an extra two euro. But more importantly, what about the massive amount of cheese and whole milk I consume? The pizzas I make myself, the bakewell tarts with local eggs and apples. The chocolate, em, lots of it.

This is the problem; a fat tax doesn't just tax junk food, it potentially taxes all foods that contain saturated fats. In my own humble opinion I think my diet is pretty wholesome and fairly healthy. But is that healthy diet going to yet another part of my life that seems to cost more money daily? Or is a fat tax worth levelling at all of us, and at many types of food in order to tackle what is a clearly out of control obesity problem.

Earlier this month Denmark was the first of our neighbouring states to introduce a fat tax - making goods like butter, pizza, crisps, oil and processed foods more expensive for the consumer. Anything with more than 2.3% of saturated fat gets taxed. The idea is that if something is more expensive, we eat less of it. To be fair, this has worked in the past; alongside huge negative health messages about cigarettes, making them very expensive has not just been a huge cash earner for the Government but a deterrent to their use. Look at it this way, if a packet of fags costed two euro many people would smoke a hell of a lot more than if (as now) they cost close to a tenner.

Some onlookers say the Danish tax won't work; making foods more expensive won't change behaviour as sweet foods, chocolate or the odd MacDonald's is a treat and people will still consume them whatever the small price rise. The real sufferers of obesity in Ireland tend to lie in lower income groups, so is penalising them fair, or will it force them to change their food habits?

All we can do is watch and see how the Danish fat tax works on people's eating behaviour. It seems that the obesity task force in Ireland is looking firstly at taxing sugary drinks - a fat tax is not yet on the table. Below is a piece I wrote this week for the Irish Times outlining the Dane's plans. Read and weep, rejoice or whatever you feel, I'd love to hear your comments x

The Irish Times Tuesday, October 18th

Suzanne Campbell

THE FAT TAX: HOW IT WORKS IN DENMARK
Methods of taxing the rising tide of obesity are being debated around Europe following the initiative of Hungary who began penalising high calorie food and drinks on September 1st, with Denmark introducing a “fat tax” earlier this month.
The Danish tax operates as a surcharge on foods such as butter, oil and pizza which contain more than 2.3 per cent saturated fat. For consumers, these foods now carry a levy, calculated at €2.15 per kilogram of saturated fat, meaning that the cost of a pound of butter has increased by about 20 cent.
With an obesity rate of 9 per cent, Denmark is far below the European average of 15 per cent, while 23 per cent of Irish people are considered to be obese. Denmark and Finland have already levied taxes on sugary drinks, while Hungary brought in a wide ranging “fat tax” on foods, soft drinks and alcohol in a bid to tackle its 18.8 per cent obesity rate.
British prime minister David Cameron suggested earlier this month that the UK could follow Denmark’s lead, and from January 1st France is to introduce a tax on sugary drinks which will add 2 cent to every 33cl can.

While taxing sugar-sweetened drinks is being discussed by the Special Action Group on Obesity in this country, Minister for Health James Reilly says there are no plans for a “fat tax” on high fat, salt and sugary foods “at this juncture”. But, in response to a recent parliamentary question, Reilly said that he plans to ask the country’s fast-food operators to include calorie details on their menus.

For many Irish food manufacturers, a “fat tax” is an unwelcome vista. “Under the Danish measures, Irish cheese and milk would be taxed as they contain more than 2.3 per cent saturated fats,” says Catherine Logan, nutrition manager at the National Dairy Council.
“But we have to remember that people eat whole foods rather than just single nutrients.”
Could there be a workable solution that doesn’t penalise nutritionally valuable foods such as dairy produce? “There are alternative ways of taxing and with something like cheese you could come to an agreement where it is defined differently,” says Dr Martin Carraher, professor of food and health policy at City University, London.

His suggested measure for Ireland is to tax “processing” and, in doing so, favour foods that are produced locally. “You can do this as long as you don’t provide a barrier to trade.”
His suggestions would be welcomed by many Irish food producers, but without a change of direction from the Minister for Health, the prospect of an Irish “fat tax” in the near future is still an unlikely one.

Get your game face on

2011-10-13T14:28:00.000-07:00

This is Damien Hannigan the deer stalker. Like many of you, I thought deer stalking had something to do with hats, but that probably says more about my fondness for the work of Treacy, Jones et al than my understanding of the role deer stalkers play in the food chain.

Deer stalking simply means following a deer through the landscape for a couple of hours before shooting it. While many might wince at the idea of Bambi facing a high calibre rifle, this is the reality of where wild venison comes from. As deer herds in Ireland expand and need selective culling I feel it's a valid way of catching a superb wild food and is practised by licensed hunters such as Damien in a humane way.
Deer stalking is all about craft, and as Damien says when you're about to pull that trigger you have to ask yourself - is this the correct animal to shoot? Is it male or female? Is it in the correct season for its species ensuring it is not in calf or feeding a calf? Is it an animal that is infirm or injured and so should be taken out for welfare reasons? All these considerations come into play before a shot is taken. If the animal is right, the deer in Damien's cross-hairs becomes venison on a plate, and a more lovelier, richer, winter food you'll have difficulty finding.

As it's currently the season for venison I thought writing about deer; both hunting them and eating them is timely so I interviewed Damien about deer stalking for a piece in The Irish Times; you can read about his intriguing sport below. His picture of where venison comes from is relevant to anyone who enjoys game and traditional Irish foods. And if you're new to venison I would urge anyone going to a restaurant these winter months to look for it on the menu and enjoy it.

Last weekend at Restaurant FortyOne in Residence Club I had the most wonderul venison cooked by chef Graham Neville. Listed on the menu as "Loin of Wicklow venison, tubers, sprouts and wild heather sauce" it was tender, deeply flavoursome and beautifully seasoned and cooked. After meeting Graham that night and enjoying the entertaining company of Jean Baptiste the restaurant's expert and lovely sommelier, I was delighted to see the team win Georgina Campbell's Restaurant of the Year award the following day. It's a well deserved win and as I'm always banging on about local, seasonal food, this place is doing it well and the food really is mouthwateringly good. Restaurant FortyOne is in a private club but open to non-members. You won't find it the cheapest of menus at this level at the moment but among the many chefs playing the "authentic" and "local" card, Graham is doing a brilliant job. It is lovely lovely food.

True Characters

The Irish Times, October 1st, 2011,

Suzanne Campbell

Damien Hannigan , deer stalker, from east Cork
The night before I go on a deer stalk . . . I begin by checking the weather, then I prepare my equipment. When stalking deer you need quiet clothing that doesn’t make noise; so I wear moleskin trousers and a jacket that doesn’t rustle. People think you need camouflage but actually colour isn’t important as deer are colour blind. What’s more important is movement; any little movement will attract their attention.
You might be out for five or six hours and not shoot any deer but being up on a mountain at dawn is special in itself. This month is the beginning of the season in Ireland for shooting male deer, and last week I was stalking deer in Kerry and looking down off the mountain into Kenmare Bay, the sea eagles were flying and there was wildlife everywhere; foxes, badgers, red deer and sika deer.
“ Glassing” or surveying the landscape with binoculars . . . is usually the best way to spot them. Then you follow the animal, moving slowly and keeping away from high ground. In the last couple of hundred yards you literally get down on your hands and knees, moving the gun ahead of you as you crawl along. Then you position yourself to get a clean shot. You aim for the heart and lung area and hopefully the deer will drop.
Good binoculars are important . . . You could spend around €1,000 on them alone, but I have mine 10 years, so they’re worth looking after.
When you cull the animal you have to bleed them immediately . . . Then you gut and gralloch them, which means taking out the entrails. Bringing the deer down the mountain is the hardest part, they can be over 60kg in weight.
Culling keeps the population at a healthy number . . . but since the recession came there’s a lot of poaching going on; people shooting deer at night using lamps. They sell it to game dealers and get cash in hand. It’s unbelievably dangerous as they don’t know what’s on the other side of the ditch; it could be cows, horses or someone’s house. It’s a matter of time before something goes wrong.
I handle about a thousand queries a year from the public about deer . . . as I’m secretary of the Wild Deer Association of Ireland. It can be anything from film companies wondering what species of deer should be in a film, to people wanting to use antlers as material for buttons.
It’s extremely rare that people react badly to culling deer . . . in 12 years I’ve only had one hate mail; generally the response from the public is a positive one.
My grandfather and father were hunting people . . . and I got into it through them. People who stalk deer are no different to anyone; they are builders, farmers, teachers, guards. Someone joked to me recently that we must be all Rambo types, but the reality is it isn’t a macho thing at all. I think we’re mainly people who love the outdoors.
I don’t get paid for doing what I do . . . but I spend more time doing stuff related to deer than most other things. I try to stalk twice a week, and then I’m often out visiting landowners, or doing training and safety courses for hunters; it’s non-stop, thats what my wife would tell you.
Over the 23 years I’ve been stalking deer . . . I’m constantly learning. It requires patience but also makes you think on your feet as you’ve to judge the land, the animal and the shot you have to take. When you’re close enough to take a shot you have to judge if this deer should be culled. Stalkers have a lot of respect for deer.
I don’t sell the deer I shoot . . . I eat most of it myself and give it to family and friends. On Tuesday evening I had venison lasagne for tea. It tasted great but then I’m probably biased.

For more info check out www.wilddeerireland.com and www.residence.ie

The pig kids

2011-09-24T08:26:00.000-07:00

Ah, pigs and teenagers. Two words that probably occur in the same sentence more often than we'd like to admit. The state of my teenage bedroom drove my parents into a apoplectic frenzy. But I'm much tidier now, I swear.
These two lads - Patrick and Hugh McInerney are some of the most enterprising teenagers you're ever going to meet. From their house in Kilkenny they run a business breeding and selling rare breed pork. I talked to them at length earlier this week about their mini-enterprise and was amazed at how professional and forward thinking they are. If I had half the vision and business cop-on of these two boys I'd be a very happy camper indeed.
It's amazing that all over Ireland and despite the recession, little businesses are cropping up and whirring away. In the food sector, small businesses are actually doing very well with a Bord Bia survey showing that food entrepreneurs have a healthy outlook on how not just the rest of 2011 will treat them but how well their business will do in future years. The McInerney boys' story is a great one. At heart they are lovely charming lads with a love of animals and great heads on their shoulders as my father would say. Check out my full interview with them in the Irish Times today...

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/magazine/2011/0924/1224304437138.html

We've less money, so why are we still eating organic food?

2011-09-19T13:39:00.000-07:00

Here's some lovely pears that were brought to me today by a friend from Kerry. Grown in her parent's garden they are as organic and free from pesticide as they come. This is the kind of food you find "along the way", just like blackberries in the hedgerows, or a few spuds from your neighbours garden. But it wasn't always the case that we valued this kind of food.

Alongside expensive marble kitchens and Michelin starred restaurants, in recent years, buying organic food in Ireland was symbolic of wealthier times. But was buying organic just an example of conspicuous consumption or are consumers still committed to paying more for what is perceived as healthier food? With the recession, sales of organic produce have declined in Ireland, but not so badly as we might have expected.

In fact between 2009 and 2010 organic sales in Ireland fell by about 5%. This happened after huge growth in the sector - from 2007 to 2008 sales in Ireland increased by 82%, reaching a value of over 100 million euro compared to €57 million in 2006. So we had this huge boom and then not a crash as you might have expected, but a slow down. And if you look at 2010 in detail, six months into the year the rate of decline eased and in the second half of the year several categories (breakfast cereals, yoghurts, savoury snacks and vegetables) actually grew in value and volume of sales.

In terms of how many of us are buying organic food. Bord Bia’s research reveals that 45% of Irish grocery shoppers purchased an organic product in the last month, 7% up on last year.

92% of Irish adults purchased organic products over the past year and the Irish organic sector is currently valued at €103 million. Sales are also good in Europe and on the rise for our export markets, charging ahead in Italy with a rise of 12% this year and also in Russia.

So even in these tough times, we’re still buying more organic food than in the UK for example. In the UK sales in 2010 fell by 12% so the sector took a big hit. The fact that organic food in Ireland wasn't hit as hard as in there (despite our worse financial circumstances) may be because we are more connected to the notion of farming and growing food. This is what I like to think anyway, hopefully it's the case.

Last Friday I talked on this subject on RTE radio's Pat Kenny Show. It was organic week and around the Irish countryside farm walks, barbeques and foraging days were being held to celebrate the growing of organic food in Ireland. It's great to see that in spite of our financial meltdown consumers still see the value of buying organic, where it's possible. Not all of my food shop by any means is organic. I make a choice first to buy local meat and veg, and if I buy imported veg where there is no Irish equivalent I try to buy organic as they have less pesticide (or hopefully) no pesticide residue.

In terms of dried foods like pasta or tinned kidney beans it's often easy to choose an organic item for just a few cents more. In these cases I choose the organic option, again believing that the less pesticide residue I can keep out of my body and my kids, the better. Recent research revealed that Roundup, one of the world's leading pesticide brands was found to be present in rain, so I think I'm making the right choice. Our environment is full of toxins from industry, farming and materials such as plastic which we use constantly in our daily life. I'm a pragmatist and a realist about food and farming, but if I have the choice to keep a little of it at bay by eating organic food, then I take that opportunity, even if it costs me more.

If you are interested in organics have a listen to the full interview. The item can be listened to below, the podcast is the third item down. Happy eating!

http://www.rte.ie/radio1/todaywithpatkenny/2011-09-16.html

Waterford's soft white bread known as the "blaa" is applying for EU protection, but why aren't more Irish foods doing the same thing?

2011-09-10T02:41:00.000-07:00

Going the way of the blaa

The Irish Times - Saturday, September 10, 2011
SUZANNE CAMPBELL

EU protection is being sought for Waterford’s blaa bread roll, in line with that for champagne. Shouldn’t other Irish foods also apply?

WATERFORD’S distinctive floury bread roll, the blaa, could soon rank with such delicacies as Parma ham and feta cheese if it is granted protected status for its regional characteristics. If the blaa achieves the EU’s standard of protected geographical indication (PGI) it stands to gain from being a unique product, like champagne, which is protected from imitation.
Yet while many Irish foodstuffs are produced using local ingredients or methods, few of our artisan foods have gained or even been submitted for PGI status. Research indicates that the PGI designation brings with it considerable economic and environmental benefits. An EU report found that French cheeses with PGI sold, on average, for three times the price of other cheeses. It also found lower unemployment in areas that produced these foods.
Consumers appear to be switched on to the value of PGI foods, too. According to the research they perceive food with PGI as more trustworthy.
So why aren’t more Irish food producers applying for this designation? Britain has about 50 foods, including the Cornish pasty and Cumberland sausage, protected by PGIs.
One of the difficulties is that the application process for PGI takes at least 18 months. “The words ‘time’ and ‘detail’ come to mind when you apply for this scheme,” says Dermot Walsh, one of four bakers who came together to apply for protected status for the blaa. “We had help from Bord Bia, the Taste Council and the enterprise board, but it’s a long journey. It took the Cornish pasty nine years to get protected as a regional food.”
Also, getting a food’s geographical origins and properties protected is more feasible for groups of food producers than it is for stand-alone brands.
Sergio Furno of Cashel Blue says, “As we are the only people producing Cashel Blue cheese, if we applied for and won a PGI, then anyone in the region around Cashel could start making a ‘Cashel Blue’. So, by not applying, we remain in control of the brand.”

HOW IT WORKS
Protected geographical status (PGS) is a legal framework within the EU that allows countries to protect the names of regional foods. Protected designation of origin (PDO), protected geographical indication (PGI) and traditional speciality guaranteed are designations within this framework.
Four Irish products have already gained PGI status: Timoleague brown pudding, Clare Island salmon, Imokilly Regato cheese and Connemara hill lamb.
A PGI product must come from one region, have a specific characteristic of that region and be processed or prepared there. To gain PDO status, a product must be wholly produced in a specific region.
Because the flour for the blaa comes from overseas, Waterford can apply for PGI status only.

Eating, talking, learning and possibly crying

2011-09-09T12:55:00.000-07:00

Yes I'm getting around this week, in fact, it's quite ridiculous. Just like boyfriends and busses all arriving at the same time, it's pretty much the same with food events. Even for me, five in one week is quite exceptional. After cooking for 85 people last Sunday, (including kids and dogs), the week just past saw a plethora of food events; a fabulous madness of eating, debating, learning and being wowed by what's going on in Irish food.

In reverse I'll start with the GIY Gathering which starts tomorrow in Waterford. The city has had a great food festival on throughout this week, and this Saturday and Sunday, the Grow it Yourself movement is having a huge shindig - a conference, workshop and street feast all in one.

The GIY movement has been a huge success in Ireland with all credit due to Michael Kelly who left city life, literally, to start a rural smallholding in Waterford. He got stuck in, planted seeds, grew food and as with all of us, learned a few lessons along the way. After realising that growing your own veg and keeping hens and pigs were activities being shared right across the country, Michael set up the first Grow it Yourself group in Waterford so that local people could get together, share tips, stories and probably cry a bit over what the snails were doing to their crop. Since that first group set up in 2008, Michael has established GIY communities across Ireland, with new member groups cropping up continually, providing a social and learning resource for people starting their own vegetable gardens and who want to connect with others.

The movement has been a spectacular success and tomorrow I'm delighted to be asked to speak at their conference in Waterford on the topic of "Can GIY save the world?" My talk will be about the success of urban gardens all over the world, the return to growing your own food and how to live a life less reliant on supermarkets and to be ultimately more food secure. For more info check out http://www.giyireland.com/

For a run through of the weeks other food entertainments I'll have a few further posts up in the next few days. What's most remarkable about all the activity going on in Irish food at the moment is that it seems to be really touching people, and not just foodies. I feel in a sense that many people are reconnecting to the amazing agriculture and food producers we have in this country and finding ways in which to interact with it more. But if you still believe it's impossible to live without a weekly shop and vast amounts of imported foods, come along to my talk tomorrow, and I'll prove you wrong.

Outstanding in the Field - less Condé Nast, more the real deal

2011-09-01T05:26:00.000-07:00

Who doesn't love a picnic, especially when it looks as gorgeous and as simple as this: one field, one long table, with all the food on that table supplied by local farmers and food producers.

I first came across the "Outstanding in the Field" long table dinners a couple of years ago via Condé Nast. Typically Vogue, or whatever publication I spotted it in, was wooed for the same reasons as everybody else - beautiful images, beautiful food and a brilliant but simple idea, executed with elegance and chutzpah. It made great editorial, and great images sell magazines. But behind the gorgeous visuals and were a bunch of genuine hardworking people: Outstanding in the Field were the real deal.

Started in America in 1999, Outstanding in the Field began as a series of long table dinners on farms in California. The key was to bring local food to the table in places where local food wasn't available in shops and supermarkets.

This is still something very relevant not only in the US but in Ireland. Plenty of us live within two to twenty miles of a farm, but haven't the first idea of how to actually buy the food grown there - saving the miles of travel, food spoilage, and the need for a middleman in the shape of the big retailers who control most of what we eat.

So the idea of the long table dinners was to bring together both consumers and producers of food. Very simple, and it's both surprising and sad that such a thing is a rarity in the way we all eat and procure food. This is something I try to do myself but the routes to market for farmers aren't always simple and connecting your produce with people who want to buy it is often difficult. Last week I bought half a lamb from my neighbours farm in Newcastle County Wicklow. It will be cooked this weekend for a lunch in our house that will feed around 60 adults - quite a task that I am, em, meant to start preparing for today.

We all have to start somewhere, and the Outstanding in the Field dinners have grown from a small group of enthusiasts into a huge food advocacy movement. Since their beginnings in California they've hosted long table dinners on farms and rural locations all over the world. They've had events in barns, in libraries, museums and on beaches. The theme of each dinner is to honour the people who bring nourishment to the table; and everyone sits down to eat together.

For the first time, the group are coming to Ireland and hosting a long table dinner at Ballymaloe in Cork on the 5th of September. Their message is particularly relevant at the moment as the US is currently the locus of so much bad news on food and farming - the "Ag Gag" bill banning journalists from recording inside factory farms and the huge dominance of the meatpackers (it's said now that Cargill isn't part of the food chain, they Are the food chain). In the US, campaigning for alternatives to "Big Food" have given birth to movements like Outstanding in the Field, and hopefully what happens in the US can have an influence on food advocacy here.

Check out more on the event and the organisation at the link below. As far as I know there are still tickets available. I'll be there, and am going to enjoy every minute of it. And for those of you who fancy a piece of Wicklow lamb, check out www.sweetbankfarm.ie
http://outstandinginthefield.com/events/2011-tour/

For more on the dinner and Ballymaloe Cookery School - http://www.cookingisfun.ie/

Enough procrastination, time for me to get into that kitchen..

Scandanavians are cool. They eat musk ox, forage on beaches and turn local food into two Michelin stars

2011-08-16T16:04:00.000-07:00

For anyone who likes food, the saving-your-pennies dream trip has to be to Noma in Copenhagen, voted best restaurant in the world earlier this year. Chef and founder is Rene Redzepi (pictured left) who not just turns out exceptional food on the plate, but advocates supporting local produce and the farmers who produce it, building his reputation particularly on using foraged ingredients.

Noma is now justifiably world famous; apparently the day it was voted number one the restaurant received 10,000 bookings overnight, making the chance of getting a table there fairly slim. And you can understand why Noma is considered pretty unique; founder René Redzepi makes the point that his restaurant is not about olive oil, foie gras, sun-dried tomatoes and black olives. Why should it be - it's hundreds of miles from the Mediterranean. On the contrary, he uses foods from Denmark and the Nordic regions to create their famous dishes: Icelandic skyr curd, halibut, Greenland musk ox and berries.

Redzepi also uses "old" ingredients such as grains and pulses in new ways - something I recently encountered in Cliff House (the Michelin starred hotel in Waterford) which served hake on a barley risotto. After all, who said risotto has to be made with rice? Barley is a traditional Irish food, used in stews and brewing but more recently to be found in animal food. Bringing back what we've discarded as unfashionable and serving it up in a new way as chef Martijn Kajuiter is doing at Cliff House is the way forward for Irish food.

Over in Copenhagen, Noma's prices are considerably more expensive than at Cliff House - Noma's twelve course lunch tasting menu is 187 euro. Not the cheapest I would admit but this kind of food is a very rare treat. What's more important is the ethos behind it which perfectly matches where we should be going with food. Why should Irish restaurants serve tiger prawns, curries or even mozzarella - all are notable foodstuffs from other regions of the world and if they're not grown here, why should we be shipping them thousands of miles to arrive frozen and stale onto our plates. This is also a custom which ignores the great foods we have on our doorstep - lobster, langoustine (Dublin Bay Prawns) award winning Irish cheeses of every kind and all types of meat from venison to quail.
What Rene Redzepi is doing at Noma is where all Irish chefs should be going.

In a recent interview Rene described his involvement in the MAD foodcamp coming up in Copenhagen at the end of August - Mad is the Danish word for food. The camp is a symposium about food, foraging and enjoying yourself - Redzepi calls it the "Glastonbury of Food". Earlier this year Donal from Harry's restaurant in Inishowen, Donegal put together a similar event, bringing food enthusiasts and food producers together. So now I not only nurse an incredible lust to visit Noma, but also have to cope with missing out on what is sure to be one of the world's greatest food events. Next year, next year, next year is all I can say. And after my planned trip to the Olympics in London next summer where the biggest MacDonald's in the world is said to be installed, I think I'll be badly in need of some decent grub.
Mr. Redzepi, I may be coming your way. And Donal from Harry's, bring on Inishfood #2

Stick to what you do best, believe in yourself and the passion will shine through. Finally, I visit the legend that is Ballymaloe

2011-07-18T15:43:00.000-07:00

Breakfast at Ballymaloe House is the kind of breakfast you dream of. Gooseberries and pears from the garden nestle alongside natural yoghurt. The yellowest of eggs from hens on the farm fight for room alongside sausages, bacon, and puddings from pigs slaughtered and cured by a local butcher. A fragrant bunch of sweetpeas watches over the fresher than fresh orange juice and selection of home-made breads and scones.

As a seasoned examiner of hotel breakfasts who harasses waiters with "where does the raspberry jam come from?", breakfast at Ballymaloe was up there with some of my Great Food Experiences. In fact it's best if you eat breakfast here not to go to another hotel within a short space of time, or in fact ever. Simply because few meals are going to match this standard, and that's even before I get started on the Blackwater salmon and Ballycotton lobster at dinner.

It was last week that Philip and I found ourselves in Ballymaloe; we visited the hotel, cookery school and farm for a speaking engagement on our book Basketcase; What's Happening to Ireland's Food? and the follow-up documentary What's Ireland Eating? which aired a few months ago on RTE. Doing these talks is seldom hard work as the reaction and energy from people interested in food and which direction Irish food is going is so wonderful to be around. If anything, every time we speak at a food event together or separately, I learn so much from the people in the audience and take away many personal stories from farmers, food producers and enthusiasts. These chats have led to relationships with people from all over the country (in fact all over the world) and have informed a big part of my journalism. Indeed, they should all watch out, or they're in danger of appearing in the follow up to What's Ireland Eating? which looks to be on the cards.

But more important than the opportunity to eat the wonderful food at Ballymaloe, was the chance to spend time with Darina and the Allen family. It's so rare to meet someone who is truly so passionate about food, farming and the environment, or someone who is so steeped in the tradition of good food but also au fait with the realities of the global food highway we operate in. So many hotels and food businesses "greenwash" what they are doing; they market themselves as authentically Irish, organic, sustainable etc. But what's written all over Ballymaloe and Darina herself is that this farm is the genuine article. In fact, after filming with Ear to the Ground on farms from Belgium to Vietnam, I can safely say there are very few places like Ballymaloe, it is a remarkable farm and a beacon for Irish produce, organics and for the sheer quality and correctness in the way it produces food.

We all know Darina from her books and television series, but what you don't get to see on television is the way she moves through her garden, puzzling over how many days it will be before the blackcurrants are just right to eat. In almost the same breath she remarks on supermarket legislation and what upcoming changes might mean for Irish producers.

Darina's and Tim's breath of knowledge on farming, gardening and production of every type of foodstuff from cheddar cheese to cob nuts is remarkable, and the gardens they have built surrounding the cookery school at Ballymaloe are incredibly beautiful. Pictured above is Darina showing Philip around one of the formal gardens; box hedging encloses vegetables, herbs, lavenders and ornamental planting. Food is in evidence everywhere; chickens peck amongst the trees, garlic bunches hang from the mental struts of the greenhouses and everything from cabbages to cherry tomatoes are grown on the farm. From the milk of two Jersey cows they are currently making cheese. In fact, if there was ever a model for self sufficiency this is it.

After a tour of the farm we watched Rachel Allen giving a demonstration at the cookery school. The Ballymaloe courses are world famous, and it's possibly the only cookery school in the world located on an organic farm. As someone passionate about food and farming, I had always wanted to visit the cookery school and farm, but somehow I felt I would be let down by the experience. I felt it might be "chinzy"; inauthentic, that the Ballymaloe experience could be marketing over matter; a Cath Kidson version of River Cottage. As farming and artisan food is currently so vogueish, it's often hard to tell what's real and who is pulling the wool over your eyes.

But Ballymaloe is real. You know if you spend as long as we did talking about deep litter systems for cattle and compost making that this is a farm which knows what it is about. It is also a food message which is not a cutesy one, but a real one. Everything is done properly. It has an old fashioned workmanlike feel about it. Correctness and workmanlike approach might sound like something from a past age but it really pays off in terms of working with the environment and with livestock - it's a quality that was beaten into me from riding and working with horses. It's also something I learned from my parents farms, and something I always look out for when I visit farms, food or tourism businesses. Over-ornamentation or faux "Irishness" does not make up for bad farm management, poor quality food or mass produced ingredients. And thankfully customers aren't stupid. In my experience food businesses that fail to do things properly, fail themselves.

No corners are cut at Ballymaloe; it's the real deal. At its kernal is a message of quality; growing local ingredients through generations of experience producing food in East Cork. If there's any message or ethos I took away from Ballymaloe it's to stick to what you are doing, believe in it, and passion will shine through. So much of our lives and consumerism itself is built on precisely the opposite. What's lovely about Ballymaloe and so pertinent to all of us is that we produce great food in this country. Finally we are taking more notice and Ireland the Food Island is punching above its weight. Like Ballymaloe, food doesn't have to be complicated to succeed. It just has to be true to itself, and real.

Summer vegetables, at last...

2011-07-01T14:13:00.000-07:00

It's summer time and there are berries to be picked. Our crop of raspberries is fantastic, as are the blackcurrants but the majority of our vegetables grew miserably. I lie, they didn't grow at all. Complete disaster teaches you good lessons - most of the seeds failed to germinate because the temperature where we live (on the bed of a valley) was too cold for them. Then some late frosts killed any survivors. So a month after starting three different varieties of tomato, basil, coriander, broccoli, lettuces, and other crops not a single one had germinated. Not a smidgen.

So it was back to basics, and learning about the newer, colder conditions of where we now live. So I planted round two of my seeds, abandoned most of the tomatoes and we now have a small crop of vegetables. When you grow even a tiny amount of your own food you realise how insecure the whole business is, and how placing all of the responsibility of providing us with food in the hands of big business may not the best idea in the world.

At the moment I'm looking at America a lot and the crazy stuff going on in their food sector. After revelations this week that Tyson, one of the biggest food brands in the US was caught bribing vets in their Mexican meat plants to pass unfit meat as edible, we also had the new footage of animal welfare abuse at a pig plant. On top of that food safety and farming budgets are being cut in the US and as one writer said recently in the New York Times, public health and food safety are now seen as "liberal issues". What? Liberal? So now you're left wing if you want to eat a burger and expect to be alive an hour later? America's food environment can be truly hairy stuff and it's something I'm currently researching for a piece. At the moment the piece is looking very long, believe me.

I'm also working on a new project on Irish food which is very exciting, I can divulge more on that at a later date. At the moment it's in its infancy so alongside looking after the new baby I'm digging away on that. One thing that's lovely at the moment is that the weather has turned a bit more summery and I am spending more time in the garden. As you can see from the photo above some of our second crop of lettuce are coming on well and the radishes have also grown strongly. The peas are looking good and the hardier herbs such as thyme, rosemary and parsley survived the move from our former house. Somebody bribed them, obviously.

It's also lovely to see the summertime finally kick in (lets face it it'll be gone in a week or so) and our neighbouring farmers getting a chance to cut silage for Winter fodder. Again, I've learned from them that "our side" of the valley is colder than the other side - they get two cuts of silage over there whereas in the fields surrounding our place one cut is all you'd get. This is because with less light and a slightly cooler temperature the grass grows more slowly. Again, even in the space of a hundred yards, the conditions that produce food change. And this is why we should appreciate the stuff more and think about the work that goes into it. Last night as we finished the baby's last feed at 1am my neighbouring farmer was still towing bales of silage out of the field pictured below. Producing food is a hard job, and as I learn every summer, if I had to grow everything I eat myself I'd be very poorly fed indeed.

Making organics part of our food future

2011-06-20T14:29:00.000-07:00

At the National Organic Conference in Limerick last week I grabbed this photo of Peter Ward with a large basket of potatoes wrapped lovingly in brown paper to hold in the steamy goodness. Peter provided lunch on the day(more pictures below) and what was particularly lovely was both the melt-in-your-mouth quality of the free range pork from Crowe's Farm in Tipperary but also the use of flowers to dress the meat and salads. It was a beautifully simple effect and one which summed up much of the philosophy of the conference itself.

I met a lot of great people on the day and learned
so much from the wonderful speakers, who brought expertise from both Ireland and abroad to the event. I particularly liked Henry Tucker's insights into the way consumers think and how food companies can exploit it. Basically when it comes to us consumers, it's all about ME. He pointed out how food producers sometimes neglect to aim their product at some need or desire the consumer has in their immediate sphere rather than appealing to the philosophical or ideological ideas behind organic or local food. We all want to eat food that has an "x factor"; and one of the ways producers can keep this to the forefront of what they are doing is to make sure the food they make tastes great. Really great.

Another speaker from the UK, Adrian Dolby explained the workings of the 7000 acre organic holding he manages in the Cotswolds. The farm keeps 2500 ewes outside all year on a diet of little more than grass. No supplementary feed, no worming doses, just pretty much them and mother nature out on the mountain; even for lambing, and the farm is a highly successful commercial enterprise. In fact the decision to change the farm to organic status was a commercial one rather than a "green" decision.

One of the highlights of the day for me was learning about how a group of ordinary families in Skerries County Dublin came together and approached a farmer to grow produce for them. It's a fantastic scheme, one which provides organic veg for consumers in Skerries which couldn't be more local (the farm overlooks the town) and provides a fair return to the farmer. The scheme is working well for everyone involved and could be replicated in areas all over Ireland; cutting out the middlemen, excessive packaging, transport and waste. Other workshop sessions on the day featured expert presentations and discussion on topics ranging from supports available to those considering organic farming to export markets for Ireland's produce.

One of the strong feelings emanating from the conference was the need to reach the consumer with a clearer message about what organic food stands for and the possible need for an over-arching group to represent organics in Ireland. There's no doubt consumers are sometimes put off by price but this message is not a simple one as organic food isn't always more expensive. They are also sometimes confused by its benefits.

Whatever the often conflicting research has said about polyphenols and the health properties of organic vegetables, I've always thought the point of organic food is that it comes without the pesticide and herbicide residues left behind by conventional farming. It is also much kinder to the environment and managing the fragile biodiversity of Ireland is essential for all of our food futures. The sales of organic food in Ireland are currently holding their own despite the recession, and the conference was another reminder of the passion, energy and innovation in the sector. A big thanks to Bord Bia, the Department of Agriculture and Limerick Institute of Technology for organising such a fantastic event.

I feel that organics in Ireland are now in the second generation; we now have big players like Glenisk selling organic food successfully in a tough economic environment to a discerning consumer. The green message is often not enough; the product has to compete with so many others that it has to be simply great in itself. But producers understand this and ideology has become reality; organic food is here to stay. It won't feed all of us all of the time, but it has a centrally important place in Irish food production and one that consumers are supporting with their buying habits. The conference presentations should soon be available to read at the bordbia website (www.bordbia.ie) and as always I will keep you posted on news and industry trends for local and organic food. Happy eating x

Am I still drinking tea? Yes. My response to the Rainforest Alliance and all the lovely and not so lovely comments on the piece

2011-06-16T15:31:00.000-07:00

As I can't seem to comment on my post below (The real price of a cup of tea) because of some weird website glitch, I'll respond here to the Rainforest Alliance and others who've got in touch regarding my tea piece, published last week in the Irish Times.

I appreciate readers comments on the article, the responses I received on Twitter and the statement from the Rainforest Alliance regarding the working conditions for women at Lyon's Tea's Kericho site. However the women interviewed for our piece by journalist Jody Clarke gave a very different account of their experience of working at Lyon's Tea's Kericho plantation. There is always a difficulty when parties connected to an issue have such different versions of how things work. On one side there is the Dutch NGO SOMO, the Kenya Human Rights Commission (KHRC) and the women we interviewed while on the other side Unilever and Rainforest Alliance who say there is no issue with sexual harassment at the site.

I think it's fair to say that sexual harassment of women workers is not uncommon in Kenya and the KHRC attests to this. That it would be absent altogether at a site as big as Kericho where there are 16,000 workers, many NGOs and people on the ground in Kenya might find difficult to believe. Unilever say they have put a confidential telephone number in place and want women to document any cases of abuse but in my mind this rings a bell (sorry for the pun) to the anonymous phone reporting numbers offered by the British authorities in Northern Ireland during the troubles. It was a great initiative but when you talked to people on the street were they going to use it? No.

Ollie I welcome your comment and yes Fair Trade is a different scheme to the one operated by Rainforest Alliance, there are many "ethical schemes" in food production and obviously they operate to slightly different standards. The overall point I was making is that in developing countries where human rights and working conditions are often so terrible, it may be difficult to completely stamp out unfair work practises, abuse of workers or environmental degradation. In these countries these are often so ingrained in workplaces that to overturn such practises completely or within a short period of time may be unrealistic.

So what are we to do? Ethical schemes may not be perfect but food produced under them is still probably produced under slightly better conditions then where simply market forces prevail. The choice is ours; it's not an easy one. Hopefully if we educate ourselves about food and not stick our heads in the sand, we can learn a little more about it and make better choices, even though sometimes what we learn may make us uncomfortable.

TASTE OF DUBLIN

On a lighter note, Philip and I spoke at Taste of Dublin last weekend in the Chef's Table tent in an interview with food writer Katy McGuinness. Here's a picture of us having a glass of wine in Iveagh Gardens afterwards which is a truly beautiful urban garden and one which Dubliners don't make the most of. Taste of Dublin takes place in the gardens and its a great event for foodies or for those who just want to hang out with a glass in their hand in beautiful surroundings.

In our interview we talked about real food, what we buy to cook and eat at home and how to avoid eating stuff that is bad for your health, badly produced or bad from the perspective of the people or environment that produced it. So we yakked on about this sort of thing and hopefully entertained people for a bit. It's good to meet people and talk about food issues face to face and also to be quizzed about issues you write or broadcast about. It makes you consider more what consumers really think about food and in that respect it was a really interesting event. My next post will be on the National Organic Conference which I've just returned from chairing in Limerick, but now its time for bed and en route, guess what? A nice cup of tea x

The real price of a cup of tea

2011-06-12T14:31:00.000-07:00

Yesterday's Irish Times published a story I'd been working on with journalist Jody Clarke for a couple of months. I'd discovered that Lyons tea (the biggest selling tea in Ireland), has a plantation in Kenya where women allege that in order to secure lighter work duties or better housing conditions for their families they are forced to have sex with supervisors.

I researched the story, interviewed the principals and then journalist Jody Clarke who is based in Kenya then came on board. He travelled to the estate and interviewed women who had worked there. They told him about how the supervisors demand sex, bribes and harass the older women. Lyons Tea who are owned by the giant Unilever food group say there is no problem with sexual harassment at the estate and that they disagree with a report compiled by Dutch organisation SOMO which alleges that women on the estate suffer poor working conditions and "rampant" sexual harassment.

Working conditions for women at Kenya's tea plantations are generally poor, but the real problem with this case is that the Lyons Tea Kericho estate is Rainforest Alliance certified. Rainforest Alliance say that they say their audits of working conditions on the estate have found no problems. Generally as consumers when we buy a Fair Trade product we assume that workers are being looked after and are not suffering the kind of problems which the Kenyan women allege. What I found writing this piece is that what we might consider to be an ethically produced product may not be the case in reality. If you're interested in this issue you can read the full piece at the link below.

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/weekend/2011/0611/1224298716294.html

Basketcase is back

2011-06-09T15:22:00.000-07:00

Basketcase is back. Yes, this is a picture of Rachel Allen in some kind of cupboard. More on that later.

Firstly thanks for all the nice comments and good wishes on our new arrival - our little baby is finally home. Life now revolves around four hour feeds and a pair of very small blue eyes which would melt your heart, and all is well in the Campbell/Boucher-Hayes household.

While I'll be taking things easy over the summer and doing lots of bringing not one but two small creatures to visit the lambs next door, there's some food events coming up which I'll flag and keep you up to date on. And as I can't ignore what's going on in the countryside outside my window; the farming year to follow and delicious food to cook and eat.

In my short absence a small food hiccup seems to have taken place in Germany. As the crisis there develops it's clear that the emergence of Ecolis with lethal, fatal consequences looks to be something that we're going to see more of in our food environment. As of today, the outlook for the 664 sufferers is a pretty poor one. Many of the victims who ate contaminated food will face life long health problems from the HUS (Hemolytic uremic syndrome) which the ecoli brings with it. This means the possibility of kidney dialysis and renal failure, and an usually high probability of a fatal outcome. It's a horrific disaster with concrete details of where the contamination came from still unclear. But more on that again.

The next few days will be a busy period for me; Philip and I are speaking at Taste of Dublin in Iveagh Gardens this weekend. The Chef's Table tent at the event features interviews with chefs and foodie people - Philip and myself are appearing on Saturday at 6pm; we'll be talking What's Ireland Eating?, how they get the figs into the fig rolls and other such mysteries about the stuff that goes into our mouths. The Chef's Table tent schedule (which is actually a kind of yurt - looking forward to yak hair rugs etc) is at http://www.tasteofdublin.ie/ and follow the link with the Rachel Allen photo above. Rachel plus chefs such as Kevin Thornton, Gino D'Acampo, Conrad Gallagher, Nevin Maguire, Antony Worral Thompson, Catherine Fulvio and Derry Clarke will also be doing question and answer sessions in the tent; really looking forward to that.

Then on Tuesday next I'm down in Limerick to chair Bord Bia's National Organic Conference. For food producers, organic farmers or those interested in organics this is a pretty essential event; the line-up of speakers is an impressive array from the UK, France, food marketing, food trends and artisan food arenas. There's actually so much taking place on the day and great workshops in the afternoon that I'll have to sprint very fast round the conference centre at LIT to catch all the acts that I'm interested in - I'll need my music festival game face on. More info on the conference is at http://www.bordbia.ie/

I've also an upcoming investigative piece in the Irish Times which is due for publication this weekend. This piece was written a while back and has taken some time to research and bring to this stage. Investigative stories like this are always a lot of hard work but I think a lot of Irish consumers may take a deep breath when they read the piece. It involved myself and an Irish journalist based in Kenya delving into allegations of sexual harassment made by women who work for one of Ireland's most successful branded products.

This was and still is a tricky story; it took a while to get to the bottom of and the allegations may put some people off their breakfast. That's all I'm going to say. Ciao for the moment and happy eating x (bet you're all worried now)

So long, farewell, hospital food here I come

2011-05-15T06:51:00.000-07:00

Thanks to all the readers of this blog; those who've been with it since the start and those who've newly discovered it; seeing the traffic to Basketcase from all over the world and the comments is a huge boost to anyone who blogs and I can't thank you enough for your interest.

I'm about to take a short break from my journalism and blogging as I've a baby due this week. But there'll still be plenty of food news, food safety scandals and other matters for me to write on as the summer unfolds. After all, I started the blog while looking after my first newborn so hopefully the reality of looking after two small vigorous creatures won't completely melt my brain. (I think I'll be looking back at this sentence and weeping in about two weeks time).

Over the past week Philip and myself have been overwhelmed with the reaction to "What's Ireland Eating" which aired on television here last Sunday. The documentary came out of our book Basketcase; What's Happening to Ireland's Food? which we published two years ago. Philip cannot walk through our local village, shopping malls, petrol stations, car parks etc at the moment without being stopped by viewers who all have something to say about what was in the documentary and compliments to share with us. Farmers I've been talking to this week for an upcoming story for the Irish Times are full of praise and heartfelt surprise that at last someone is taking an interest in their livelihoods.

If you want to watch the show it's available online here - http://www.rte.ie/player/#v=1097870

If you can't watch it on the player check out a synopsis of the programme at Aoife Carrigy's excellent blog http://holymackerel.ie/ (the cheque's in the post Aoife).

The feedback has also reflected the power of social media. On twitter the day of the broadcast we used the hashtag #whatsirelandeating and it was the top trending topic in Ireland that day. People tweeted details of their diet that Sunday - everything from Skittle sandwiches to Irish St.Tola's cheese on toast - we retweeted many of them and momentum built fast, as the programme was being broadcast, nearly a million Irish people tuned into it and 574,000 watched the entire show which is a huge figure for a documentary in Ireland.

Again we were overwhelmed by the online comments and reaction and it has developed an online stream of debate on food since. We never imagined the amount of positive feedback we would get or the huge numbers of people really engaged with the issue of food, where it comes from, what's in it, and keeping food production in Ireland as part of our future.

As I'll be checking out of social life for a small bit, later this month I'll miss the second For Food's Sake event in Dublin, which is a cracking night for any of you food folk out there looking for what is at present, rare combination of food, chat and a lot of new ideas to come away with. Here's details of the event and it's a short goodbye from me. Take care all of you, talk to you soon and happy eating. I'll be tweeting a little; detailing the stand out dishes of the maternity hospital that deserve mention, (I'm desperately trying to rein in my enthusiasm) and any big food news that comes to attention. www.twitter.com/campbellsuz x

FOR FOOD’S SAKE – AN EVENING OF FOOD TALK AND TASTINGS The Sugar Club, 8 Lower Leeson Street, Dublin 2

Thursday 26 MayDoors 7pm sharp (discussion kicks off 7.30pm)Adm €5 on the door.

The Irish food industry is something we should all be proud of and deserves a platform for discussion. For Food’s Sake is a new bi-monthly evening of food discussion and tastings. Each themed night of discussion will be chaired by journalist and food blogger Aoife Carrigy (of HolyMackerel.ie, and former deputy editor of FOOD&WINE Magazine), joined by a panel of four guest speakers from across the broad spectrum of the industry. There will be tastings from several Irish artisan producers who will tell you a bit about why they do what they do. There will be a chance to win some great foodie prizes, and an inspirational talk from an Irish chef just back from a coveted stage at Noma in Copenhagen, recognised as the top restaurant in the world.

Manager of The Sugar Club and food writer Oisin Davis will host a Karaoke Cook-Off between DJs Conor G and David De Valera, who will pit their toastie sandwich-making skills against one another. And of course there will be a full bar to help get the conversation going. After the success of March’s inaugural night’s discussion (which focussed on the opportunities and challenges facing Irish food producers) we now turn our attention to the restaurant industry.

We will ask the following panelists: ‘Are Irish restaurants up the swanny?’ Joe Macken, restaurateur (JoBurger & Crackbird)Enda McEvoy, chef (Gregan’s Castle & Cook Wild Project)Paul Cadden, restaurateur (Saba restaurant & former President of RAI)Caroline Byrne, food writer (Bridgestone Guide Dublin editor) We’ll also be asking, if Irish restaurants are up the swanny, how did they get there? Did they paddle themselves up there on the back of the Celtic Tiger during the so-called ‘Rip off Ireland’ days? Why do we pay so much more for a meal in Ireland than the equivalent in Spain, and where is our money going?

Keep an eye on their Facebook page and their blog at forfoodssakeireland.blogspot.com to keep updated. Press release with more details below.

Finally, our food documentary "What's Ireland Eating" is about to go on the telly box

2011-05-06T13:17:00.000-07:00

I left television in 2005 to write full time, but strange forces have kept pulling me back in, in particular the making of this documentary which airs on Sunday night on RTE one. Titled 'What's Ireland Eating?' it was developed from the book Philip and I wrote on food two years ago - the book gave birth to this blog and also to the documentary, so in a way it's going full circle to see it finally on the television.

Initially the book (Basketcase - What's happened to Ireland's Food) was so broad in focus that no one hour doc would encompass all the strands in it. So RTE and Stopwatch Television the producers, veered towards a consumer-focused piece of television which is probably more appropriate for the audience. It also relates to all of us in terms of how we behave around food - what decisions we make in the supermarket, how what we eat affects our health and our childrens health, and how in turn how these decisions affect rural Ireland and farming. How we shop will also have a huge bearing on the type of food model we have here in the future. Right now it's a remarkably good one, that sometimes, sadly we don't appreciate enough.

Here's a picture of Philip Boucher-Hayes my husband (standing beside some very strange fruit in a supermarket) who presents the documentary. He spent long days on the road travelling up and down the country meeting farmers, consumers and those passionate about what the effect of what we eat has on the wider economy and environment. Working with your spouse sounds like a nightmare but funnily enough we managed to get through both this project and the book without a major disaster. Our only real falling out on the book was when Philip had still not finished off his sections of the book and instead diverted himself with putting up insane amounts of Christmas decorations, despite a deadline looming. Our house looked like a Bavarian forest with branches of fir trees and tendrils of ivy draped from every possible hanging place. At one point I was going to write in the dedication of the book "You might not think much of this book but you should see our Christmas decorations, they're fantastic".

We finally finished the copy and sent in the disk just as I began labour pains on our first baby. This time it's kind of the same thing - the documentary was finished last Thursday - and I'm due baby number two in a weeks time. Fantastic timing again. My role on the production was Food and Farming Consultant - a grand title which in my fantasy world suggested a consultants wages but strangely it doesn't work like that. I'm also in the documentary for a little segment which we shot in the garden and looks a bit like a Timotei ad, this is no compliment to me, simply the wonderful summer light blasting either side of my head.

A big thanks are owed to the wonderful production team of Tom Johnston, Mary Murphy and Aisling Milton who put all the hard work in and to Colm Whelan who shot it and did a really lovely job. As a former director/producer who spent many years filming the countryside when I produced Ear to the Ground, I really can't emphasise how gorgeous he has made this production look, Colm you've surpassed yourself.

One of the really original things about the documentary is the specially commissioned research into the groceries bought by 3000 households, they re-scanned their goods once they got home and from that information we formed a picture of our shopping habits. Some of the stats were really surprising - we are the biggest consumers of breakfast cereals in the world and 43% of our diet in Ireland is processed foods. In the documentary Philip also visits a school and has a look through childrens' lunchboxes, the contents of some of which are hard to believe.

I hope anyone who tunes in will find something that connects to them in it and at the very least be entertained for an hour or so. For twitter users the hashtag is #whatsirelandeating and it's on RTE one television 9.30pm this Sunday May 8th. Enjoy and happy eating x

Below is a link to the RTE page on the documentary -
http://www.rte.ie/tv/programmes/heart_land_whats_eating_ireland.html

It's May Bank holiday weekend - foodie heaven

2011-04-28T14:00:00.000-07:00

It's May Bank Holiday weekend and the beginning of the summer food festival season in Ireland. Check out some of the following info and links to food festivals and events around the country - they're a hugely important element to rural tourism, offer a way to sample and buy artisan food directly from the people who make it and more importantly, what can be better than a spot of eating and drinking in the sunshine in Ireland? May the weather Gods be kind to us...

Roscommon Lamb Festival from the 27th April to May 2nd was started in 2008 organised by a committee of local farmers, restaurant owners and community groups. The vision for the festival was to “highlight the quality of locally-produced food and to attract additional tourists to Roscommon thus boosting the local economy and benefitting primary producers and suppliers”.

Based on the fact that Roscommon has the highest lamb output in the country, the festival celebrates lamb in a diverse range of food and farming events over the course of the weekend. There are lamb barbeques, farm walks, farmers markets and even a world record knitting attempt, so if you've a pair of needles and a ball of wool, you know where to go this weekend.
http://www.roscommonlambfestival.com/

This weekend Connemara hosts a celebration of Killary Mussels taking place from the 29th April - 1st May 2011 on the glorious Renvyle Peninsula in North Connemara; this really is a gorgeous part of the country. It's the sixth year of the festival and promises that more mussels will be eaten here this weekend than in any other part of the country. The celebrations include music, craic, mussel cooking competitions, walks, talks, theatre and children's activities. There will also be a country market, local art exhibition and mussel cooking competitions http://www.connemaramusselfestival.com/

Sheridans Cheese Mongers are holding their second food event at their Virginia Road Station headquarters in County Meath. Some of Ireland’s finest artisan producers will be showing their best. Irish farmhouse cheese producers include Milleens, Cashel Blue, Coolea, Cooleeney, Bellingham Blue, Corleggy, Glebe Brethan and more. As well as other artisan producers such as Burren smokehouse, Gubbeen salamis, Burke’s ice- cream, Janet’s Country Fare, Mella’s Fudge.
www.sheridanscheesemongers.com

Other foodie events this weekend -

Limerick Georgian Summer Market, 30th April – 01 May 2011 www.limerickgeorgianmarket.com

Goleen Craft & Food Fair, 01 May 2011, Community Centre, Goleen, Co. Cork www.craftinireland.com/events/details/goleen-craft-food-fair

And from Good Food Ireland - several events and courses to whet your appetite this weekend -

On Saturday April 30th - "Sinful but Saintly Cooking demo" with Susan Jane Murray
Susan joins Good Food Ireland members Donnybrook Fair for a “Sinful but Saintly” demo at which she will let us in on her secrets for making scrumptious desserts that are sugar-free, wheat-free and dairy-free.

To book a place at Susan Jane's 'Sinful but Saintly' cookery demo on April 30, call Donnybrook Fair on (01) 668-3556, or see www.susanjanemurray.com

Cookery Courses
Belle Isle Cookery School, Fermanagh -
Saturday 30th April Cakes & Bakes. One day course
Saturday 4th May Fish & Seafood. One day course
http://www.goodfoodireland.ie/Member207/Belle-Isle-Cookery-School-Fermanagh.html

Dublin Cookery School -
2 May - 27 May Cooking for Life. One month course.
7 May Cooking course with guest chef Atul Kochhar. One day course
http://www.goodfoodireland.ie/Member212/Dublin-Cookery-School-Dublin.html

I just wish I could go to them all! Have a great weekend and happy eating x

Irish cooks and food enthusiasts, USA is calling...

2011-04-25T16:12:00.000-07:00

If you fancy yourself as a half decent cook and feel that you've a recipe connected to the county you're living in, then this is an opportunity you can't miss.

Rachel Gaffney, a Corkwoman now living in Texas is on the hunt for recipes from the 32 counties of Ireland to be part of a US project to be directed by Emmy Award-winning producer Bob Altman, former Supervising Producer of ‘Martha Stewart Living’.

Rachel, who is passionate about Irish food, wants to showcase what this country has to offer in the form of a video cookbook based on Irish recipes. They can be in any shape or form - main courses, starters etc.

When thinking about the recipes that you might submit, she advices emphasising the story behind the recipe and why, from your perspective, it belongs in this collection - one which will live in the digital-recipe seeker’s “bookmarks” for years to come. Rachel is looking for a paragraph or so along with the recipe, explaining to home-cooks around the world, how they can share your love of Irish food with their family and friends by serving your dish.

If your dish is selected, the team would also like to present your photo, a short biography and a link to your blog or website. So while the aim is to present the best of traditional Irish food, they are most interested "interpretation and embellishment" and the idea of a recipe having been passed down to you through family or tradition. It is okay to mention a particular branded ingredient if you feel that it is integral to the taste of the dish – as long as the product is made in Ireland.

The recipes will be filmed in extreme close-up without an on-camera presenter, so that the ingredients and the ‘how-to’ process will be the star. They will be styled by a feature film/television food stylist and lit, photographed and edited by an Emmy Award winning production team.“Runner-up” entries may be presented in text and photo format also with a link back to your blog. So for all Irish food writers, bloggers and cookery enthusiasts this is a wonderful opportunity.

Email your recipe to:Rachel@Rachelgaffneys.com

You can follow Rachel on Twitter @Rachelgaffney and on Facebook.

http://www.rachelgaffney.blogspot.com/

RACHEL GAFFNEY'S REAL IRELAND5515 TAMARON COURTDALLAS,TX,75287TEL: (469) 6446054EMAIL:

http://uk.mc295.mail.yahoo.com/mc/compose?to=Rachel@Rachelgaffneys.comWEB: www.Rachelgaffneys.comBLOG: www.Rachelgaffney.blogspot.com

Like prostitution, food substitution is one of the oldest trades in the book. "We're being codded" Part II

2011-04-18T15:17:00.000-07:00

Food substitution or food swindling in order to make money is one of the oldest tricks in the book. While may think what we eat today is dominated by food additives and unnatural manufacturing, our range of foods has to be better than a century ago when particularly urban people were at the complete mercy of food sellers.

Freidrich Engels even wrote about it - pointing out that as working men got their wages on a Saturday in industrial Britain they had to buy their family food on Saturday evening. This was the beginning of what we know today as evening grocery shopping. And as much of it was conducted in candlelight, this was where a lot of the chicanery took place. As the good food was sold off from the morning onwards, the ordinary working person was left with the poor produce that remained by the evening or produce that was discounted precisely because it was foul. Rotten meat was covered with a layer of healthy fat, aged butter was covered with a coating of fresh butter, oranges were boiled to make them weighty and shiny and in the case of fish, their gills were painted red to make them look fresh.

Sadly there are still plenty of people out there willing to pull the wool over our eyes. In 2009 the Food Safety Authority brought two Irish companies to court for the mislabelling of fish. They won their case against one of the companies who was passing off farmed salmon as wild salmon; an altogether rarer and far more expensive product. One of these companies is a very well known fish retailer and wholesaler who got off on a technicality but was nonetheless happy to pass off farmed salmon as wild salmon and collect the huge difference in price for quite some time.

So like prostitution, food substitution - as one of the oldest trades in the book is still very much alive and well. But who's going to take on the villians of the piece? Following this most recent survey on fish mislabelling and recognising the scale of the problem, the FSAI are introducing annual checks for fish and food businesses that fail to keep appropriate traceability records or who are found to be intentionally misleading consumers. They also say they will take repeat offenders to court but for the moment most of them will get off with a verbal warning. Unfortunately that is how the legislation stands. Seems a bit lily-livered to me.

One of the sad facts behind the mislabelling story is that most of the fish that is being passed off as cod is imported. Not only that but much of the white fish we eat is imported. White fish, behind farmed salmon, is the second most popular seafood in this country and the similarities between filleted white fish make substituting species easy to do. Most people don’t know the difference.

In terms of our own lovely local seafood catch, 80% of Irish fish is exported to Europe where there is a ready market in France and Spain for high quality, fresh whole fish. Unfortunately we Irish consumers don't seem to be switched on to how good the product is on our own doorstep and instead eat cheap imports that come from Iceland, the Faroe Islands, and Scandanavia which have been ususally frozen for several days. This imported fish is cheaper, and comes in huge volumes so this makes it more attractive for supermarkets in particular. It also comes filleted, ready for sale and Irish fish just can’t compete.

So, what do we do about cod?

In the FSAI report, fake Cod is the fish that keeps cropping up again and again. In fact nearly three quarters of the "smoked cod" on offer to Irish consumers that the agency tested wasn't cod at all but Pollack, Coley, Saithe or God knows what else. But there's two interesting things that emanate from this - one is that even though stocks are shrinking, Irish shoppers still want to eat cod, whether it's bought in a supermarket or a chipper. So the mislabelling of cod perpetuates the myth that there is plenty of cod about. This means that Irish consumers are failing to adjust our shopping habits and our wallets, to food that is endangered or comes with a high environmental cost.

So what can consumers do to eat more Irish fish and avoid eating something that is falsely labelled? Firstly if they buy their fish locally it’s the easiest possible option. In Dublin you can still buy fish direct off boats coming into Howth, harbour, (pictured) Dun Laoghaire and Dalkey and there are fish dealers in this area who will get you what you want straight from the boat. Local fish mongers, though scarce, are a great option and if it comes to supermarkets, buying Marine Stewardship Council certified fish gives you a certainty that it’s sustainable and has a country of origin label.

A new scheme soon to be brought in by Supervalue will see Irish fish being retailed on their shelves which is traceable straight back to the boat it came in on which is really great.

Ironically, one positive thing coming from this fish mislabelling affair is that it reveals we are patently happy to eat lots of other fish besides cod, and in fact we didn’t seem to notice the difference. But if most of us are happy to eat cheaper fish, the savings from doing so should be made by us, not by someone trying to pull the wool over our eyes.

If you're interested in fish stocks and their sustainability check out Ocean 2012 which is a coalition of groups lobbying for change and sustainable practices in the EU's Common Fisheries Policy. They're at http://www.ocean2012.eu/ and the Irish representation is on twitter at @OCEAN2012IE - they will soon have news coming up on Irish events for European Fish Week June 4th - 12th.

Would you like fries with that? We're being codded, again.

2011-04-18T08:27:00.000-07:00

A year on from when I first wrote about the fish labelling scandal going on in Ireland it seems nothing has changed. In the second survey into what exactly we are buying when we purchase "cod", the Food Safety Authority of Ireland has revealed that nearly one in five fish are not what it says on the label. So what are the implications for consumers and does this point to murky goings on in the fish trade?

This most recent survey was carried out in retail outlets, fish shops, hotels, pubs, restaurants and takeaways all over Ireland. The FSAI found that 19% of products it sampled were labelled incorrectly. The largest sector selling us fake cod was takeaways, with 32% of takeaways found to have mislabelled fish produce on sale.

Do takeaways rely on people being either (a) drunk and on their way home from the pub when they buy their "cod" and chips, or (b) their product being so doused in salt and vinegar that your box of fish and chips could be in fact battered Nike trainer with deep fried turnip peelings?

The point is that this isn't so much a food safety issue but common or garden food swindling, based on making money from innocent consumers. Cod is generally an expensive fish and in this case it’s being replaced with other varieties, and food businesses are increasing their own profit margins by selling fake produce.

This survey was undertaken last autumn when cod stocks are traditionally low and found that fish such as pollack, coley or smelt were being sold as cod. At that time cod was about 11 euros a kilo; pollack about 6 or 7 euro a kilo so you stand to make a lot of money if you can replace one with the other.

Okay, so a bit of coley posing as cod won't kill us. However, in terms of food safety, food substitution in the past has had fatal consequences. In North America two people died from eating puffer fish that had been labelled and sold as monkfish; a pretty terrifying outcome. As consumers, we need to have confidence in what it says on the label. Particularly in the EU, we are under the impression that strict policies on labelling and traceability are in place. Instead, what this study reveals is a level of disfunction in the labelling of seafood in Europe.

What’s shocking about this is not the first time that mislabelling of fish has found to be an issue in Ireland. About 12 months ago when I first wrote on the subject UCD did a study on fish and found much the same problem. A quarter of the fish they examined was mislabelled. In one major supermarket chain, seven out of their 16 "cod" products weren't cod. The research calculated that by selling cheaper alternatives, this retailer could be getting inflated profits of between €400,000 to €550,000 per year on Irish cod sales.

So who is doing the duping – is it the supermarkets, the fish and chip shops or is it the fish dealers who are selling them the fish? The FSAI can’t name and shame the outlets or merchants involved in this sting so to speak. They found that some of the mislabelling may be due to a certain amount of ignorance, but a few names popped up in the retail and wholesale side where several instances occurred, especially in the battered and smoked fish. They’re being investigated as this would suggest that it was more than accidental.

Unfortunately the penalities are low even if charges are brought and while you can name and shame an outlet for food safety breaches, mislabelling food comes under “misleading the consumer” which hasn’t huge penalities – most will get a verbal warning, then if they persist be taken to court.

Not very heartening for the consumer is it? Will it take a serious health incident arising from food mislabelling to change the law? Why can't we find out who the worst operators are and therefore make our own choice as consumers to stop being codded at the fish counter? If you want to hear more on this topic I'll soon upload my interview on RTE radio with Pat Kenny teasing through the issue. And no, there won't be any bad jokes, I promise.

In part two of this post, I'll be examining the sometimes hideous, sometimes hysterically funny history of food substitution and I'll have some tips for how to buy Irish fish, that's the genuine article. We've so much great fish in Ireland it's ridiculous that we're buying not only fake product but fake product that's mostly coming from outside the EU. But that's a whole other story... part two coming soon.

New garden, new start

2011-04-05T10:10:00.000-07:00

In between lots of food writing and talking last week I managed to get out to the garden and plant some spring veg - a refreshing change to the chicken wars which were continuing apace. Late last year we moved to a new house with a large garden, in fact it's not really a garden but a job centre. The minute we arrived, my husband and I walked around it stupefied with fear - having moved here precisely because we wanted a small piece of land of our own, once we were in possession of it things just began to look plain scary.

The list of jobs to be done; lawns to be mown, hedges to be cut, trees to be felled, felled trees to be chopped is pretty overwhelming. And while it had been beautifully maintained by the previous owners, the place doesn't feel like the garden we want it be and big plans are afoot to change how much of it is orientated.

Being animal lovers, more living, destructive additions are set to arrive in the next few months but in the meantime we are just trying to maintain the garden; chop down a few small trees to get a nicer view of the valley we live in, cut hedges and start on the lawns. While a lot of the planting is very suburban and 1970s in flavour, there are some lovely places in the garden, including the potting shed (pictured above) which is a lovely place to work, with old-fashioned panes of glass covered in clematis to one side and a lovely pink camellia climbing all over the front wall and door.

If you follow this blog from last year you will be familiar with the travails of planting too many tomatoes so this year I stuck to just Ferlines - -a nice large ridged tomato like the ones in French outdoor markets, which have been successful for us in the past, and a few of a mini variety.

I also put in lots of rocket, dill, basil, radishes and three types of lettuce. We will plant more in a fortnight's time so that you get a successive crop rather than everything coming at the same time -yet more lessons learned from previous efforts.

For someone who spends a lot of their day looking at a laptop, it's lovely to be outside again and pottering around in the dirt. Gardening in a new place and planting from seeds is always slow at the start but once your veg begins to come up it is such a pleasure to walk around the garden in the evening, see how everything is getting on and have a glass of wine and chat as the sun sets. I have one terrace I'm trying to remodel as a place to eat in the evenings which has beautiful views. At the moment it's a grey concrete hell but I've high hopes for its transformation into a cool but lush space for eating and entertaining. I've done this before - the first garden I had was truly awful - a tiny concreted yard the size of a stamp but after years of work it became something really lovely, with hanging vines, lanterns, dark wooden floors and verdant planting. So in a way this garden is going to benefit from the experiences that have gone before, or fingers crossed, let's hope it will.

It's funny, I am more patient about gardens then most other things in my life. I'm prepared to put in enormous hard work, constantly forgive them, plan and reinvest when things go wrong and ultimately learn from my mistakes. If I could bring these qualities into everything I do, I'd be some kind of cross between Michael O'Leary and the Dalai Lama. I'll keep the blog up to date with regular reports and photos and include the food I grow into my cooking this summer. For everyone out there fond of gardens, or perhaps who doesn't know where to start - buy a few seeds, a bag of compost, a small tray and stick them in the ground. See what happens. Get stuck in now folks, dirt rocks. x

Irish chicken, the end of the road?

2011-03-31T06:12:00.000-07:00

Last week it was lambs.. now it's chicken. On Tuesday the Irish Times published the investigative piece I wrote on Irish chicken which has certainly excited some debate about what we're eating - debate being the polite word. I suppose strong reaction to any piece of journalism is what you want, and it's good to see that people are engaged with the issue and in some cases, simply frightened about what they're eating. I've had email comments sent on to me from the Times and a few strange phonecalls since the piece came out. One chap who called me this morning had a good old rant but I'm sure it's nothing a bucket of chicken at KFC can't sort out. After all, food and countryside issues often excite slightly over the top reactions. After directing an episode of Ear to the Ground (Ireland's farming programme) on fox hunting some years ago, I was delighted to find I was banned from the entire area of East Galway by the pro hunting lobby while at the same time an animal rights protestor chained himself to the gates of Leinster House. Have a look at the piece and see for yourself. http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/features/2011/0329/1224293291679.html I'm off to write my presentation for a food event "For Food's Sake" tonight at The Sugar Club in Dublin. Really looking forward to it - myself, a representative from Bord Bia and the IFA will be presenting ideas and then responding to audience discussion on the future of food and farming. And there'll be artisan foods to sample afterwards... better leave some room in the tummy, though there's not a lot of room in there with an eight month old baby taking up most of the space... Tally ho x

How to survive a bullying on twitter - I blame the lambs

2011-03-26T14:43:00.000-07:00

In my innocence I thought that most people knew that meat came from an animal. That it is born from a mummy animal, grows up, eats grass and is killed before it arrives on our plate as food. I guess not.

Last week I tweeted that seeing the newborn lambs in the fields around my house made me think of Spring lamb, which in turn sent me into the greenhouse to start watering my mint plants. Now this may be the behaviour of a rampant animal hater but hey, I simply like eating lamb.

Anyway, a while later someone responded to my tweet saying that I was a "sick and pathetic" individual. This sent me into paroxysms of excitement as obviously I had committed some truly awful deed in the league of Hannibal Lector. When I realised it was related to the lamb comment I (a) spent a long time laughing and (b) watched the twitter responses to the lamb issue get completely out of control and result in a lot of people taking deep offence.

The fact of the matter is that if we choose to eat meat we cannot ignore the facts of how that meat is raised and killed. And if we are grown up about it, we have to realise that burying your head in the sand doesn't change how animals are farmed and slaughtered. Farming is how food is produced and in terms of my daily life I live pretty close to the realities of it. Our house is sandwiched between two sheep farms which are currently midway in lambing a thousand lambs. Yes, a thousand. Some will be killed at twelve weeks old and sold as "spring lamb" - very young tender meat. Others will be killed at any stage up to about one year old, the rest will become replacement ewes (mothers themselves) and some quality males become breeding rams.

This is what happens to lambs. The way I reconcile eating lamb with the gorgeous little creatures gambolling around in the fields is that Irish sheep and lambs live as natural life as possible - outdoors, eating grass and in social herds. It is very different to the feedlot system often seen abroad where livestock live indoors, eat concentrate feed derived from maize and soya, with the biggest of these operations being essentially "factory farms".

Last year I bought a whole lamb killed at about 5 months old from Sweetbank Farm in Wicklow. (Some of it is pictured above) Their lamb is organic, grass fed and for me buying from farm gate from a farmer I know makes me feel what I'm eating is as ethically produced as possible. If I feel that certain meat is not produced with care towards animal welfare then I don't buy it, it's as simple as that.

I think we have to be real about food, know where it comes from and make a choice. It's interesting that if most consumers knew how their meat, especially imported chicken meat was produced they would probably not eat it. And as for twitter, you can follow my disgraceful views on food at @campbellsuz. I will atone, I promise.

www.sweetbankfarm.com

Talking, eating and swapping tales - For Foods Sake

2011-03-22T14:02:00.000-07:00

In 2008 when myself and Philip started writing "Basketcase - What's happening to Ireland's Food" there were few places and gatherings that discussed the down and dirty aspects of what we eat. Agriculture was an unfashionable concept in Ireland; fields were for building houses in, not growing food. There was little crossover between the restaurant sector, farmers, artisan producers, mainstream agriculture, food manufacturing, food economists and of course, us, the consuming public.

Happily, three years later, we're in a very different place. People engage more with what's going into their shopping baskets and into their mouths, and it's not about food snobbery; but about wanting to know about where food is coming from, what it's doing to our health and the health of our economy. This change is mirrored in a new gathering designed for food enthusiasts who want to know more about food in Ireland; where it comes from; how it's farmed, how it's retailed, how it's served in restaurants and where the future lies for Irish food producers.

In a way it's ironic that it took the collapse of property developing in Ireland to reveal that one of the most solidly performing sectors of the economy was and still is, agriculture and food - currently earning us 8 billion euro in exports a year. In more chastened times we are returning to what we do very well - producing food - and examining it in much more detail. Forums like For Foods Sake have come out of this curiosity to know more, and put our money where our mouth is.

What were former separate channels of the sector have now become much more enmeshed. Restaurateurs source artisan produce, commercial pig producers talk about the dangers of having a future Ireland without pig farming due to international speculation on cereal prices. Some farmers are moving to organic or rare breed meat while new research shows that shoppers are buying more Irish products and know the value of what buying Irish means to the local economy. They are also more engaged with growing their own food, cooking from scratch and food knowledge, all of which is great news for Irish food producers and transmitting their message to consumers.

Many of these issues will be teased out at For Food’s Sake which is designed to be a bi-monthly evening of food discussion and tastings that will explore Irish food and its future possibilities. The first event will be held in Dublin's Sugar Club on Thursday 31 March. Aoife Carrigy, food journalist, blogger and and former deputy editor of Food & Wine Magazine, will be chairing the discussion. She is one of the brains behind the forum and is passionate about Irish food. All credit to her for bringing a great idea into reality and putting hard work and imagination into the project.

On the first evening of For Food's Sake I join a panel of speakers which includes the lovely Graham Roberts of Connemara Smokehouse; Irish Farmers’ Association’s Pat Smith, and Una Fitzgibbon who is Director of Marketing Services at Bord Bia. Here's the sort of issues under discussion on the first night -

What can we do to support sustainable growth of the Irish food industry, through consumer choices as well as policy decisions

Who are we producing Irish food for – for export or for home consumption – and what does this mean for how we produce it?

How heavily does Irish agriculture rely on subsidies, why and what happens if those subsidies disappear?

Can organic food production provide a realistic alternative model for Irish agriculture or is it by nature a niche market?

Does our indigenous fishing industry have a sustainable future, and do we care enough to demand that it does?

Happily, there will be food tastings on the night courtesy of several Irish artisan producers who will tell you about the wonderful products they make and let everybody check them out for themselves, and there will be a full bar so lots of chat and banter expected.

So put the date in your diary and as Aoife says - For Food’s Sake, come join us, and Eat! Drink! and Be Merry! We’ve a lot to be cheerful about. And much to discuss. Let’s get started. For more information, see facebook.com/ForFoodsSakeIreland and HolyMackerel.ie or contact Aoife Carrigy on 087 6100 826 or Aisling Rogerson on 087 961 4755, or email us on ForFoodsSakeIreland@gmail.com

Follow-up events will take place on the last Thursdays of May, July and every two months after that. Each evening will feature different artisan producer tastings, different topics and a different panel.

FOR FOOD’S SAKE – AN EVENING OF FOOD TALK AND TASTINGS
The Sugar Club, 8 Lower Leeson Street, D 2
Thursday 31 March
Doors 7.30pm
Adm €5 on the door

St. Patricks Day - Eat it

2011-03-16T16:55:00.000-07:00

Happy Saint Patrick's Day Everyone! If there was ever an excuse to celebrate Irish food this is it; after all, we've reached a mature stage where we no longer colour beer green or squeeze ourselves into Leprechaun costumes. Or have we?

All around Ireland and further afield it's lovely to see lots of foodie events happening in conjunction with the one and only festival of Irishness. Great to see chefs like Catherine Fulvio (a Wicklow local like myself) travelling with the Irish delegation to Washington to promote Irish food. Chef Donal Skehan is joining Bord Bia at their events in Paris and in over in Texas, County Cork born foodie Rachel Gaffney is doing tv and radio spots throughout the period to celebrate Irish food and involve the huge Irish diaspora in the States in learning about traditional Irish foods and recipes.

All over the world, little bits of Ireland will be popping into people's mouths throughout St. Patrick's Day. I just hope they're decent examples of the wonderful products we produce here and not orange coloured cupcakes with acid green icing.

The first St. Patrick's Day food I experienced abroad was in Kitty O'Sheas pub in Paris when I was a student there. A friends parents who were visiting kindly took us there for lunch and pints of Guinness - rescuing us from a dietary dependence on pain au chocolat and cheap wine - our favourite was a rancid concoction bought for 6 francs in the bakery that turned your mouth instantly black. God love us, I think we thought the look was somewhere between Simone de Beauvoir and vampires.

It was during this momentous "hey we're eating real food" occasion at Kitty O'Sheas that I first tasted crubeens, or pigs trotters. My parents, who were solid farming folk had brought them home once or twice but I had always managed to run out the back door, fast. So ironically it was in Paris that I first ate one of the stalwarts of the Irish menu.

And so it is with national days of any kind; we can use them as a way to try something new and extend our dietary range which for everybody can get caught in a rut. It was at a recent Christmas market in Galway full of German traders that I had proper German Frankfurter (made and cooked authentically) for the first time in many years. It reminded me to include them in my shop now and again, and only for the fact that I've a freezer full of gorgeous free range pork still on the go I would be eating them more often.

As for us Irish at home - this short piece in the Examiner puts the case pretty simply (via Good Food Ireland) for using the occasion of St. Patrick's Day to remind us to buy Irish food. After all, our food exports are worth 8 billion euro a year, it is the one part of the economy that is really thriving and if all of us throw a few more Irish food items into our trolley every week it makes a real difference.

http://www.irishexaminer.com/business/consumers-urged-to-buy-local-food-to-preserve-jobs-and-livelihoods-148203.html#ixzz1GfBDU82J

Inishfood - good food, enthusiasm and one hell of a celebration

2011-03-10T14:50:00.000-08:00

What started off as online chat about a few food bloggers heading up to Harry's Restaurant in Inishowen has turned into a Glastonbury of food; a mash-up of partying, eating, food skills and hanging out in one of the most beautiful parts of the country.

What began as essentially a get-together of a few food enthusiasts grew force as twitter and facebook suggestions came in about what could be added on to a night of dining in Donegal. 'Inishfood' became reality - a two night event with additional dining experiences, venues, accomodation, and workshops with food producers - a mini food festival.

As enthusiastic foodies, bloggers, and those in search of a bit of craic put plans into action, it grew even more legs. Information about the event began to feature in mainstream media. At this stage it seems half the country who are in anyway interested in food, write about food, produce food or in fact, eat it, are all heading up to Donegal this weekend. All credit to Donal Doherty from Harry's Restaurant in Inishowen, and food bloggers Caroline Hennessey from http://www.bibliocook.com/ and Kristin from the http://dinnerdujour.org/ for putting it all together, it really is testament to what enthusiasm, passion for food and simple collaboration can achieve.

What's particularly lovely about it is that unlike most festivals of any kind, it is not run by an entertainment company or money-making enterprise but a group of like-minded people who wanted to do something positive and celebrate what's great about rural Ireland and local food at a lacklustre point of the year.

Here's a run down of the programme -

Friday, 11 March; get-together at Linsfort Castle B&B

Darren Bradley is making pizzas in his wood-fired pizza oven (check out the photo sequence of the oven being built on Darren’s blog) and Donal Doherty will be providing food as well.

Seaneen and Collin from L. Mulligan. Grocer will also be conducting a beer tasting.

Rambling House storytelling and music will then take place

Saturday, 12 March is a busy, hands-on day - the fee for this day is €40, which will cover lunch and the Taste of Inishowen dinner (drinks will be extra). Donal will be donating €10 from this fee to iCARE, the local autism charity; any extra donations would be welcome.

9.45 Coffee Angel and Bailie’s Hand Roasted Coffee will demonstrate how to correctly brew coffee at home. Feel free to bring something to share with coffee.

10.30 Intro and welcome by Donal Doherty of Harry’s Bar & Restaurant and Caroline Hennessy and Kristin Jensen from the IFBA

10.45 – 12.00 Masterclass with butchers Ed Hick, TJ Crowe and Jack McCarthy making fresh black pudding – bring an apron! (hands-on participants for this will be limited)

12 – 12.45 Imen McDonnell will be demonstrating modern farmhouse butter making

12.45 – 1.15 A light lunch

1.15 – 1.45 David Tiernan will talk about how he started making his amazing Glebe Brethan cheese and will provide samples

1.45 – 3.00 Ed Hick, TJ Crowe and JackMcCarthy will show us how to cure pork (the Quality Mark pork has been kindly sponsored by Bord Bia!). Participants for this will be limited to 16 and you’ll need to bring a 2 litre container with a lid that you won’t need to use for 5 weeks while your pork cures in it!

3.00 – 4.00 Inishfood think tank and chat – an informal discussion on what we can do for Irish food to promote it and send a common message.

4.00 – 4.45 A visit to Harry’s new walled garden project and a talk with GIY Ireland about The Pledge. Gareth Austin, BBC Radio Horticulturist, will also be on hand with practical DIY help as part of GIY Week

5.00 – 7.00 Break for everyone to freshen up for dinner

7.00 A Taste of Inishowen feast at Harry’s, all made from local produce

9:00 Raffle of hampers and gift bags full of amazing Irish food as well as other prizes, with 100% of the proceeds going to the Barnardos charity. In addition, Georgina Campbell has generously donated a copy of her book, Ireland for Food Lovers, for everyone in attendance at Inishfood!

On Sunday, 13 March; a coastal walk at Malin Head, a boat ride around the Garvan Isles and a fresh seafood lunch.
An alternative is Donal Doherty's 1-hour shore walk on Lough Swilly, weather permitting, to take in the beautiful countryside around Inishowen.

If you like the sound of the above events but can't participate, book the date into your diaries for next year (do you hear that Donal, Caroline, Kristin?) or an even better idea is to enter the Inishfood charity raffle to win a plethora of great food prizes

There is a selection of prizes specifically for the non-attendees who donate via THIS LINK on the Barnardos website (please note that you must donate via this link only for your donation to be counted towards the raffle). Tickets are €5 each.

This online option is for the people who can’t make it to the event itself and delivery is limited to residents of Ireland (including Northern Ireland). Closer to the event, we’ll announce the prizes that will be raffled off in the three raffles, but they’ll be chosen from the list below.

It's a great scheme as the donors get to put their produce out in front of some of Ireland’s top foodies and food bloggers, Barnardos will get a donation towards their valuable work and some very lucky people will go home with some amazing prizes.

If you’re a food producer, cookbook publisher, restaurant or café or other food business and would like to donate something to be included in the raffle at what’s been described by the Bridgestone Guides as ‘THE foodie event of the year’, then email the organisers at

irishfoodbloggers@gmail.com for more details. You can follow events on twitter at #inishfood and all I can say is... Inishfood folks - please make it an annual event! Below is a list of the wonderful raffle prizes -

Bailies Handroasted Coffee – award-winning coffee
Burren Smokehouse – Irish Smoked Organic Salmon
Café Novo at the Westbury Hotel, Dublin – voucher for dinner for 2, including a bottle of wine of your choice
Carluccio’s - a signed copy of one of Antonio Carluccio’s cookbooks and chocolate truffles
Chocolate Here - a few bars of Gillian’s artisan chocolate
Country Choice – Peter Ward is parting with a magnum of Chateau Fontarache from his personal stash as well as a bottle of their own extra virgin olive oil
Dungarvan Brewing Company – craft beer
Dunhill Castle Sparkling Spirit – hand-blended fusion of Irish spirit (13% vol) and unfermented apples
Eilis Boyle – an apron from her forthcoming home wear range
Georgina Campbell - copies of her book, Ireland for Food Lovers
Glebe Brethan – award-winning cheese and David Tiernan’s renowned raw milk
Glenilen Farm – 2 hampers of their products (and congrats to them on winning Best Food & Drink award at the Small Firms Association National Small Business Awards 2011!)
Goastbridge Premium Irish Trout – smoked trout
Greenside Up Veg – a garden consultation or voucher for a workshop
Headland New Media – a week’s stay in Breasty Bay Cottage, the last home in Ireland
Inchhouse Black Pudding - traditional black pudding
J&G Seafoods – £50 voucher
James Whelan Butchers – a copy of An Irish Butcher Shop cookbook by Pat Whelan and a voucher for their shop
Kevin and France McGuinness – a bottle of Moët champagne
L. Mulligan. Grocer. – a €50 voucher
La Cucina – a three-course dinner for two, including a bottle of wine
Le Presbytère – dinner and one night’s free stay for 2 people at their B&B in Languedoc
Lynda McFarland (Athlone Nutrition Clinic) – nutrition wall charts
Mitchell & Son Wine Merchants – a bottle of Green Spot whiskey, cited in “100 Whiskies to Try Before You Die” by Ian Buxton
Mourne Seafood Bar – voucher for their new cookery school due to open this summer
Nutritious Nibbles – gourmet gluten-free cookies
Patchwork Veg – herb boxes
Pure Sushi – a voucher for a sushi platter
Red Nose Wine – a magnum of Anges Domaine des Red Archange 2007, an Irish-owned, Irish-made organic wine in Provence
Slated Ireland – handcrafted slate tableware
Tastefully Yours – gourmet artisan chutneys, relishes and pickles
The Bombay Pantry - 2 vouchers
The Bridgestone Guides – copies of their 100 Best books and Pizza Defined
The Cloister Restaurant and the Queens Hotel- dinner for two plus a cocktail & canape reception and one night’s accommodation in the Queens Hotel in Ennis
The Garden Kitchen Rowallane - their last jar (!) of chutney and jars of marmalade as well as a place at their baking workshop on 9 April
The Green Apron Artisan Preserve Company – artisan preserves
The Little Coffee House – a free gig where they will attend a party/event of the winner’s choosing and serve their selection of teas, coffees and hot chocolates for up to 200 guests
The Tannery – copies of their cookbook
TJ Crowe – organic ham, organic rashers and free-range sausages
Uluru Bistro – copies of the Cook for Ulster Yes Chef cookbook
Viewmount House - a tasting dinner for 2 people plus 1 night’s B&B accommodation
Williams’ Honey – jars of their two-time World Honey Cup winning honey, produced in Cahir, Co. Tipperary

Two day food tour prize from Good Food Ireland

2011-03-08T14:10:00.000-08:00

This competition is so mouth wateringly good I couldn't resist posting it on the blog. Good Food Ireland is an organisation I've a lot of time for. It's the only all-island food and hospitality group that brings together restaurants, shops, hotels and food producers from all over the country that are committed to using local food. I've met many of their producers and they do exactly what's on the tin - make "real" food; authentic and Irish, mostly in rural locations from small, often family run businesses.

It's the antithesis of mass produced produce; the cheeses, hams, marmalades, organic lamb and range of goods made by these farmers and producers is exactly what keeps Ireland's food heritage alive. I try to include some of their food in my shop when I can as it is a link directly back to the farms and a way of supporting small Irish businesses. Plus it tastes great. A lot of their produce can be bought online at http://www.goodfoodireland.ie/ and you can also book hotels, restaurants and food tours there.

Food tourism is exactly the kind of thing I'm always banging on about - there's no reason why we should be doing more of in Ireland as we have the producers, eateries and venues already in place. It brings money into the rural economy where in turn it has a much greater multiplier effect than money spent on big brand tourism or indeed supermarkets. So great to hear about the food tour from Germany organised by Good Food Ireland taking in their hotels and food members ranging from Dublin to Cork. As a mini version of this, they are launching a competition - offering two people the chance to win a fabulous culinary weekend. Have a look -

Day 1:
· Arrive in Dublin and check into the fabulous 5-star Merrion Hotel located only a short walk from Graton Street and the main shopping district.
· Enjoy an overnight stay for two in a Superior King room overlooking The Merrion’s private Gardens..
· Begin your gourmet experience with lunch at the fantastic Nonna Valentina, owned by established restaurateur Eileen Dunne in The Italian Quarter on the banks of the River Liffey
· After lunch, owner Eileen Dunne will then take you on a walking tour to the famous Dunne & Crescenzi bakery in the financial sector (IFSC). Here you will be informed of how Irish food is incorporated into their Italian menus.
· Once this tour is over, take some time to explore all the historic wonders and cosmopolitan shopping Dublin has to offer.
· That evening, back in The Merrion Hotel you will indulge in a set three course dinner in the award-winning Cellar Restaurant with a specially chosen courtesy bottle of wine.

Day 2:
· Start your day with a tantalising Artisan Irish breakfast in the luxurious breakfast room at The Merrion Hotel.
· That afternoon you will travel out to the Dublin Cookery School in Blackrock. Housed in a stunning, state-of-the-art facility, you will enjoy a one day (hands-on) Contemporary Bistro-Style Cooking course (10am – 4pm). Dublin Cookery School is Dublin's top venue for cookery courses in the city and with the most experienced and professional team in the city, you know that you will be in good hands.
· After your lesson you will then sit down and enjoy this bistro feast with your fellow students and budding chefs in a friendly and relaxed atmosphere – the perfect end to a food lovers weekend.
· Head back into Dublin City and enjoy some retail therapy before heading home.

Check out the competitions website -
http://www.ireland.com/competitions/competition/win-a-good-food-ireland-culinary-weekend/597094

The answer to the competition question is on their facebook page -

http://www.facebook.com/goodfoodireland#!/pages/Good-Food-Ireland/119632236735

Behind the scenes at a five star - the g in Galway

2011-03-07T12:48:00.000-08:00

It's funny that despite how messed up Ireland is at the moment, our food culture is punching way above its weight in a worldwide context. Among farmers, artisan producers, restaurants and hoteliers there is a strong awareness that not only is Irish food worth 8 billion in exports yearly but it is the one area bucking the recessionary trend.

I keep thinking that with the continuing drive of passionate chefs, producers and the food agencies, there is no reason why we can't make Ireland a food destination like Piedmont in Italy, where people visit here for not just hospitality and landscape but for food.

Last week I attended a food event in the g Hotel in Galway which illustrated this connection perfectly. The g is a five star hotel, but ten years ago in Ireland, five star hotels created bland menus that "ticked all boxes", with Italian food, trophy steaks, Caesar salads and mid-Atlantic staples that resembled a watery mix between Sheraton, Radisson and Celine Dion playing in the lobby. Sometimes a throwaway Irish dish to might make it onto the menu but far more important was the approach of trying to please too many people with descriptions and presentation of food while little thought was paid to where it came from.

Last week's event in the g proved that happily, things have come a long way. Their "g is for Gourmet" dinner mirrored their overall policy in sourcing as much food as possible from local producers - the lamb was from local farms, scallops and prawns from Gannets in Galway, salmon and beautiful smoked tuna from Graham and Saoirse Roberts' Connemara Smokehouse and cheese from Keane's Bluebell Falls herd of goats.

Executive chef Stefan Matz who heads up both the g and Ashford Castle made the point that it's no longer enough to talk about local food - "you have to practise what you preach and go and put it on the menu".

From the producers standpoint it's a win win situation - they see their food on top menus in Ireland which in turn sell it to an overseas audience. It is also wonderful to see a product like Bluebell Falls cheese transformed into three separate desserts; with three very different complex tastes - very technical cooking was in evidence but with a basic local foodstuff - it was a real eyeopener in what you can do with good simple quality produce.

The following day the g Hotel opened up their kitchens for a workshop with their chefs. Head chef Regis Heriaux took us through the cooking of a leg of lamb - opening up the leg to look at the four different types of meat within and what cooking suited them best. He pointed out how muscle closest to an animal's joint works the hardest and needs slow cooking, other parts of the leg had a lighter treatment. All were served up with turned local potatoes - he even showed us the correct technique for turning; leaving seven clearly visible sides on the vegetable.

I was fascinated by his tips from his years spent in top kitchens - "Buy good knives and use a diamond sharpener - I have the same knives for 24 years as a result, and don't let anyone else use them".

- "Touch produce that you want to eat, that's why supermarket's package everything - they don't want you to shop with your hands or sense of smell but with your eyes, which is not a way to learn which foods are fresh", and

- "Don't buy meat that is pinky red, it should be a darker purple red to show proper hanging time and give flavour".

Regis was entertaining, a great communicator and I expect to see him on television any day soon - any chef that says don't hold back on the butter is always pretty popular with an audience n'est pas? Being from Brittany he pointed out that olive oil is not synonymous with French cooking but with cooking of the South of France, in his neck of the woods it's pretty much butter all the way.

Shane Smith the pastry chef then took us through a basic Chocolate Ganache and a brownie base on which you can build any type of sweet item you fancy, he also threw some flames about and made a honeycomb from caramelised sugar, honey and liquid glucose, illustrating how it expands into a beast of a dish once the bread soda is added - literally spreading in size like "The Blob".

This was fascinating to watch as he made what looks very complicated, accessible in several easy parts. We were all given recipe sheets and explanations of the dishes and I would really recommend that if they offer more cookery courses at the g, foodie fans should definitely check them out.

It struck me that both the level of expertise, the recipes and experience they were communicating is a notch above what we're now accustomed to from wall to wall cookery programmes. I consider myself a half decent cook but rarely learn anything new so this was definitely a notch above the normal standard. I came away wanting to learn more and put what I'd just seen into practise.

I also left the g with a strong sense that Irish five stars are seeing what potential there is using local food as a USP. Customers aren't stupid, especially at this level they want an authentic experience not a bad Caprese salad with ingredients from six hundred miles away. They want food to tell a story and be regional, to have real people at the heart of it. Just like the producers who attended the event and provided the basics of what was on your plate, they want to sense a passion behind the dish, and to feel that it is "real food".

A big thanks to everyone at the g, I must credit their staff - they had great knowledge of the food and drink, the producers and the local area which is something lacking in many Irish hotels and restaurants. I cannot count the times I have asked "is the chicken/fish local?" and been told "I don't know." Customers want transparency, information, and enthusiasm. The staff in Galway had this in bounds and it felt like everyone was on the same page food-wise and in the way they wanted to present their hotel, their food and their region. Exactly as it should be.

I still eat from my garden, I swear....

2011-02-28T02:45:00.000-08:00

This soup came from our garden. Em, from two leeks the size of pencils to be precise. Both have been looking guiltily at me in their rain-soaked winter soil so I threw them into a soup with some (intake of breath) - shop bought leeks and potato.

Being a food and gardening fan I can't help feeling guilty when I load up in the local vegetable shop, and even moreso in the supermarket. But not being superhuman I have yet to find the time to grow all my own veg, milk goats every morning and chase a few hens around the sitting room. What veg I do grow is paltry but a very pleasing crop, and unless you have lots of time to do keep a smallholding running at full tilt, the demon activity - food shopping is still a big part of most of our lives.

The way I rationalise it is to try and shop locally but I still end up visiting a supermarket once a month. And no, all the veg I buy is not locally farmed. I'm afraid I still like fresh tomatoes in the winter alongside chillies, peppers, aubergines etc, none of which grow in Ireland at this time of year. What I look for is vegetables coming from as near as possible, and buying it from a local person which is easy enough - we've a big veg shop five minutes drive away. He also stocks eggs from a farmer up the road, and Wicklow produce when in season.

It's at least better to spend money in his local business than in the multiples, especially as the food documentary I'm working on is bringing me deeper and deeper into the goings on behind the shiny happy smiles of some of our best known supermarkets. The more I know the more I try to avoid them.

In terms of how they treat Irish suppliers Superquinn and Supervalue seem to come out tops and they have a high level of commitment to stocking Irish beef, pork and chicken. So do Aldi surprisingly enough. These businesses also seem to understand that some, but not all consumers want to buy food from Ireland, so it's money in their pocket as well. There will always be cheap as chips food but there will also be premium customers who want good quality Irish food. It's just sad that more supermarkets don't go this direction.

So spreading my shop between local suppliers and the supermarkets is a reasonable enough compromise as far as I'm concerned, and unless I grow my own dishwasher tablets any day now, I don't see myself being totally free of a monthly supermarket visit. So throwing a few of my own veg into a dish alongside shop-bought produce is a way of straddling both camps. In terms of the soup, it has to be one of the easiest and cheapest to make. For four people you'll need -

Three large leeks

Two potatoes

Two litres of veg stock (can be stock cubes)

Knob of butter

Salt, pepper

Pinch of cumin to deepen the flavour

For extra taste you can add small lardons of cooked bacon. You can also pour in as much cream as you want, and grated Gubbeen cheese ups it to another level if you want a luxury version.

Simply clean and chop the leeks in inch long sections, soften in a large pan with the butter. Add the peeled and chopped potato, seasoning and stock and simmer for half an hour or so. Whizz it with a hand blender for a rustic texture (with lumps) or to a smooth cream. Basically, you can' t go wrong. Happy eating x

How to buy 200 euro worth of pork and not eat it all yourself

2011-02-20T14:55:00.000-08:00

While these two girls - Pinky and Perky enjoy rooting in the Kildare mud, their beautifully flavoured offspring are in our freezer, awaiting distribution to various buyers and to the most important destination of all - the oven in my kitchen.

Yesterday I paid a visit to them down on the farm. For the record they are neither pinky or perky being close to 40 stone each in weight. Yes, forty. They are the size of small sofa and produce about 12 piglets per litter.

The sows belong to John de Robeck, a conventional farmer who got into free range Gloucester Old Spots several years ago. From these two females of his original stock, John's brood produced huge numbers of offspring. At one time he had as many as 180 pigs but found that even with these economies of scale, free range pork is a tough business to sustain.

Alongside commercial pig producers, the cost of feed has put real pressure on Irish pig farmers, even those like John who operate on a smaller scale. Keeping free range pigs is also particularly labour intensive and finding customers willing to pay a higher price for "artisan" pork is never easy. So John scaled down and now produces only a couple of litters a year, selling them direct from his farm.

For those who buy John's pork the disadvantages of a high cost system are outweighed by the mega flavour of the product. Once you've sampled his bacon it's very hard to eat anything else. It has a deep succulent quality; you can almost taste the woods and orchards where the pigs forage and most importantly, it's devoid of water and nitrates as it's "dry cured". So when you cook this bacon, you're not left with a nasty pan full of water.

So while you might pay 10 - 20% more for an artisan pork product, it doesn't contain water to bulk it out. So pound for pound, let alone flavour, it's a pretty good deal.

John weans the piglets much later than a commercial pig producer would and kills them at nine months. Commercial pork is killed at about six months old. Allowing the animals a bit more growing time is crucial to why free range pigs taste better - under six months of age or so pigs have little fat on their body, and fat is what flavours most meats - it permeates through the grain of the muscle when cooked, softening it and giving it a wonderfully rich flavour.

Bord Bia Quality Assured pork from big producers is still pretty good pork, and if you want to buy a cheaper product that is Irish, and properly farmed this is the direction to go. The standards demanded under this system are high and it guarantees what's on your plate is Irish produced and processed at every step from the sow to fork. But if you've a passion for a good tasting product or keeping old animal breeds as part of the food chain, there should be a place for both types of systems. Even buying free range pork occasionally is a way of keeping the small guys producing an alternative.

John also has a beautiful collection of store cattle housed at the moment; mostly continental crosses - Charolais, Simmental and some Belgian Blues. I'm obviously a strange fish as I love looking at good cattle for that unique combination of top quality confirmation, pretty looks and visualising how great they'll taste on my plate. And if you're feeling guilty about scrutinising the largeness of their hind end, just ruffle their polls and they'll look at you all gooey-eyed and content.

It's lovely to spend a day with a someone doing different systems on the one farm - conventional beef farming plus free-range pork. Like most Irish farmers John wants to produce top quality food, and despite the huge man hours and patience that go into keeping free range pigs and selling the produce yourself, he has too much of a passion for what he does to give them up. He's also a bit of a softy when it comes to animal welfare; liking his pigs to be out and living as natural a piggy life as possible.

I came back from a happy day in Kildare laden with 200 euro worth of pork; sausages, rashers, loin, ribs and hams booked for a number of enthusiastic buyers who raved about his last batch. If you want to try John's produce you can contact him on jderobeck@eircom.net. The rashers alone are out of this world. If I don't stop eating them I'm heading straight for a cricket score cholesterol count. Sod it, what about those sausages...

Ditch the prosciutto and go smoked... Irish

2011-02-16T13:27:00.000-08:00

I'm always looking for fast suppers. In fact fast food in general - the type that doesn't come with a piece-of-crap plastic toy your dog or toddler swallows before a fun night out in A&E.

One easy way to guarantee a fast meal is to use preserved foods. This is because smoked, cured or tinned food can be left for months while you ignore the "eat me" guilty looks that the withering lettuce and pudgy aubergine throw at you from the bottom shelf.

While preserved foods might sound like something scary and veering in the direction of mummification, think of what the Italians serve as antipasto - prosciutto, salami, marinated artichoke hearts, roasted peppers in olive oil and the mouthwatering speciality of my local Italian wine bar, some Speck cheese or some parmigiano reggiano.

This is the luxury end of the scale but remember - tins of beans are also a preserved food, as are lentils, kidney beans, tomatoes, cans of sardines and tuna. All are cheap choices that can be chucked into pasta with a dash of olive oil and a few torn basil leaves or whatever herbs you have to hand.

But if we think a little outside the Parma-ham box, preserved foods from closer to home deserve a lot more attention than they get - one of them being smoked fish. There are several really good brands now available in the supermarkets so you can eat local food without having to trawl too far for it. Sadly, it tends to be a product that's really esteemed by our export markets but gets a quieter reception on the home front. Part of this may be that herring, mackerel etc used to have the perception of being "poor man's food" as it was eaten on a Friday as a meat alternative and generally, things that came from the sea were not as valued as things that had four legs.

The thing is, smoked mackerel or smoked trout make an outrageously quick meal - open the packet, put together a green salad and serve with some olives and crusty bread. It's also great served with a ratatouille (pictured at the top) as the sharpness of the tomato makes a nice accompaniment to the smokey smooth fish.

Smoked trout and mackerel are also a lot cheaper than salmon. My favourite thing to do with it is whizz it with some creme fraiche, lemon juice and dill - this results in a fantastic pate that gets loads of "where did you get this from?" interrogations. For about three euro you can pick up smoked mackerel and trout in the supermarket from the likes of William Carr and sons. These are the bigger manufacturers but on a smaller scale there are increasingly more Irish artisan producers doing smoked foods and getting a lot of international attention for their products -

Ummera- is owned and run by Anthony Creswell and their smoked chicken and duck has won a rake of awards. It's a delicious alternative to smoked fish and has a lot less salt than cured meats. Their smoked chicken is truly out of this world. www.ummera.com

Goatsbridge's Mag and Ger Kirwan not only run a trout farm supplying live trout around the country but produce a range of smoked trout products which are really delicious and have received great attention both in Ireland and internationally. http://www.goatsbridgetrout.ie

Belvelly – Located near Cobh, this tiny smokehouse is run by Frank Hederman and his wife Caroline (who co-wrote the “Good Food in Cork” guide along with Ireland´s culinary grande dame Myrtle Allen). They cure salmon, mackerel, and mussels with organic English salt and hang-smoke it using beech wood. http://www.frankhederman.com/

Connemara Smokehouse does a range of smoked salmon, tuna and mackerel. Interestingly their tuna is very sustainable, being line-caught in Irish waters thanks to an initiative to develop a sustainable and environmentally friendly way of catching wild tuna. www.smokehouse.ie/

There's also Rogan's real smoked fish, Burren smokehouse, Old Millbank smokehouse, McConnell's gourmet smoked foods and guess what, a handful of other Irish food businesses doing the smoked thing very well. I'm hoping that smoked fish, chicken and duck can find wider popularity with Irish consumers. And while we are now very familiar with the joys of Italian meat and cured hams, it would be nice to see some Irish smoked products taking their place. If I really get the time I fancy smoking some fish myself, after all, we do have a stream in the garden, and there's got to be some fish in it. Okay, you're all laughing now.

I heart you

2011-02-14T06:06:00.001-08:00

Thanks so much to all of you - Basketcase has been nominated in the Best Food and Drink Blog category for the Irish Blog Awards. I'm really delighted and grateful to everyone who gave it their vote and who takes the time to read or contribute to the blog - all your comments are greatly appreciated - good, bad or insane. On this valentines day, I heart all of you.

I'm also thrilled to see the amount of people reading and engaging in the issues raised on Basketcase; it's a sign that the origin of food is important to many people, and the realisation that cheap factory farmed rubbish hurts Irish food producers, and ourselves the consumers at the end of the day.

Cooking is great but not if what is on the plate came from a food or farming process that you wouldn't want people to know about. I've been inside a 10,000 unit pig enterprise in Holland and it ain't pretty, and I really mean that. Keeping Irish farming in the hands of farming families and keeping food producing away from monolith multinationals is an important way to secure a decent food culture in Ireland, and a shorter, healthier food chain. Thanks again to everyone, and keep telling me what you think of the blog and what you'd like to see more, or less of.

By the way, I didn't make the hearts in the above photo, I'd love to have, but desserts are my weakest element. What I really need to to do sometime is a pastry course; I recently interviewed Louise Lennox - the pastry chef from RTE's "The Restaurant" for an upcoming food feature and she has won me over with her passion for sweet things and chocolate creations. She says she even uses chocolate as a facemask, "and if you get bored, you can just lick it off" - exactly the kind of cooking I like.

In the meantime on this Valentines Day I am going retro and serving fillets from my local butchers O'Donovans - (pictured here - the butchers not the fillets), with Neven Maguire's Diane Sauce. I have a nice Montepulciano d'Abruzzo to match; it's a good full bodied fruity red, perfect for steak and an inexpensive change from Guigal Cotes du Rhone which is drunk far too often in this house.

Here's the recipe for Neven's sauce, happy Valentines Day to all, and more importantly, happy eating x

Ingredients - serves 4
1 tablespoon olive oil,
4 x 8oz/225g each sirloin steaks,
1 teaspoon butter,
1 small onion, peeled and diced,
5oz/150g button mushrooms, sliced,
¼ pint/150ml white wine,
110ml brandy,
2 tablespoons worster sauce,
¼ pint/150ml beef stock,
¼ pint/150ml double cream,
1 tablespoon chopped parsley
squeeze of lemon juice Method

Melt the butter in a hot frying pan. Add the shallot and mushrooms and cook for 2 minutes. Add brandy, it will flame up for about 5-10 seconds then subside when the flame burns off. Add white wine and reduce by half.

Stir in stock, worster sauce and cream. Reduce to a sauce consistency, which will coat the back of a spoon. Sprinkle in parsley and lemon juice. Season to taste. Set aside and keep warm until ready to serve.

I went all the way to Manhattan and all I got was a lousy stomach bug. Bad Food part deux

2011-02-11T13:22:00.000-08:00

Good to see my post on food safety in Irish restaurants generating heat on twitter thanks to @keithbohanna and a bit of back and forth on whether restaurant owners are beaten down by food regs, or whether we're all a bunch of sissies who get ill at the sight of a raw steak. I agree that over-regulation drives small producers and restaurants mad, but putting customers at risk is another matter and if you are served with a closure notice, it must have been felt that bad practice was taking place.

While most restaurants in Ireland put food safety high on the agenda it's still sadly the case that we've all been poisoned by some food outlet at some stage, and this is coming from someone who survived a long period in India eating street food without any catastrophes. I think my stomach out-bugs any newcomers. Can't be a good sign but anyway...

Taking the topic further afield, it seems the most swanky city in the world still has big problems with food safety, New York's Department of Health's recent list of restaurants-breaking-the-rules featured two Michelin starred eateries - Gilt and A Voce on Madison Avenue. Another well-known downtown restaurant The Meatball Shop was given a fairly high score of infringements including “food not protected from potential source of contamination” and inadequate personal cleanliness. Lovely.

So just because you put your high heels on (yes gentlemen), spend two months on a waiting list and pay a fortune, it doesn't gaurantee what you're eating is perfectly safe. I think in general Irish chefs and restaurant owners open restaurants because they have a passion for food and would never fall into a standards vortex. Most of them feel that the food safety regs here are too severe, but if they are really involved in their businesses and regularly police the standard of food leaving their kitchens they have nothing to worry about. It's the cowboy operators that put customers at risk, and some tales told to me recently would seem to bear this out.

I thought the recession might weed some of them out but it seems recession kills off good joints as well as bad ones. The only thing we can do is vote with our feet; eat where food is prepared with care and has an authenticity behind it. If possible, eat food produced in Ireland. And no, chicken caesar salads in Temple Bar are not Irish food. I think consumers are becoming more educated on what is genuine food and what is a cheap rip-off, but not everyone can spot this. In the meantime the FSAI are going to keep rapping knuckles, hopefully as time goes on, there will be less of them to rap.

Are these restaurant owners deluded?

2011-02-07T04:25:00.000-08:00

I've written here before about breaches in food safety in Irish restaurants and it seems January was a pretty popular month for it - three eateries were shut down last month because of the risks they were taking with food, and ultimately customer's health. It seems like madness to me that in a time when businesses are trying to generate new customers, you would take shortcuts with food to the extent that the Food Safety Authority end up closing you down.

Are these people thinking straight at all? Is it a case of - "Okay, that ham is a week past its sell by date but sure if we sling it on top of a pizza and no one will notice". Em, I think they will; customers aren't stupid and neither or the health authorities. And what we don't know, is how many people who ate food from these places ended up ill before they were closed down.

There are 49,000 food businesses in Ireland. While the times may be tight this is not an excuse to be cutting corners to this extent. Dr. Alan Reilly from the FSAI pointed out that "These errors include dirty premises and unhygienic practices, all leading to a variety of potential food safety hazards, be it contamination of foodstuffs; cross-contamination from raw to cooked foods and improper storage of food. It affects not only the premises involved, but the industry as a whole".

He's right - it does affect the industry as a whole - it knocks our faith in what we are eating and makes us wonder if there is bad stuff going on behind the kitchen doors of our favourite restaurant. All we can hope for is that this lastest round of closures and enforcement orders might give the bad practitioners a wake up call. For those of you looking to breathe a sigh of relief, the food outlets closed down were -

• Wok In take-away, 9 Captains Hill, Leixlip, Kildare

• The Burger Hut Foodstall, Knockcroghery, Roscommon

• Rezmerita Plus Ltd supermarket trading as Polonez,(Delicatessen and Butcher area only), Athlone Shopping Centre, Athlone, Westmeath

Not only that, but last month the FSAI served Improvement Orders on the following businesses whose food safety practises were not up to scratch, hopefully they will take note and pay a bit more attention to what customers are eating:

• Roma Take Away, 4 Lower Kennelsfort Road, Palmerstown, Dublin 20 and
• Bassetts at Woodstock restaurant, Woodstock, Inistioge, Kilkenny

While we know the vast majority of Irish restuarants have a great record in food safety and hygiene it's worth remembering that there are outlets out there who don't place this as a priority. So for the moment I will continue to keep and eye on the bad ones, while continuting to applaud the good guys. Happy eating folks x

Building an Artisan food sector in Ireland - hey folks, it's already there

2011-02-03T12:43:00.000-08:00

I returned windswept and shaken from a conference in Tullamore last night. It wasn't the content of the day that had me in shock but rather getting stuck on Brian Cowen's throw-s***-loads-of- money-at-Tullamore-to-keep-my-seat series of ringroads built without a single sign back to the motorway that tested my nerves. Let alone that the weather did its level best to add to the confusion.

Happily, earlier in the day I was speaking on the subject of building jobs in rural Ireland from the artisan food sector - a subject close to my heart, and my stomach. According to Bord Bia's figures released last week the artisan food sector is in good nick - the 400 small food companies they work with provide 3000 people with employment and with a turnover of 400 million annually it's grown at a rate of 7% per year since 2007.

But all isn't rosy in the garden, and as someone who talks to food producers throughout the year and tells their stories, things are a little harder on the ground. Getting paid is a major issue for small food producers, with suppliers of cheese and the like waiting long periods to get paid from outlets which buy their stock; particularly restaurants. Not only does this create cash flow problems but it fosters fear that their buyer is about to go under which isn't the nicest feeling in the world.

If you're a small food company, getting money from banks to expand or provide more employment is almost impossible at the moment, and dealing with very restrictive food regulations is also driving people mad. I know that Eurotoques the chefs group has made representations to the powers that be to make things easier for smaller producers; putting Irish food businesses through the hoop on regulations that aren't followed in other EU companies seems particularly unfair.

We all want to eat safe food, but if we see butchers in France with more casual set-ups than what's required in comparison to here still producing good safe food, then the legislation can surely to be adapted to be more flexible.

The decline in consumer spend is the biggest problem communicated to me by producers. Whether they have a stall at a farmers market or produce large quantities of a premium product to the multiples, their customers are spending less money and business can be tight at times. However, I spoke with one food seller yesterday who pointed out that if people come into your shop and spend less, you just need more customers to come in the door to make up the same numbers at the end of the month.

So expanding customer base is key, while keeping the customers you already have. I feel that even in these less than rosy times, people who buy artisan food even occasionally find it difficult to go back to eating total rubbish. I think once you're converted you stay that way, and if you spend less now on food (like most of us do), then so be it. It's simply the case at the moment that if more consumers are tempted go down the local/artisan food route, and spend money on it even now and again, then producers can stay in business.

My presentation (which you may not gather from the above) was actually very positive about the Irish small food business sector and this was backed up by case studies by Joy Moore from Oldtown Hill Bakehouse and Bernadine Mulhall from Coolnaowle Country House and Organic Farm from who gave a potted history of how their businesses had started and where they stood now. Both were really interesting examples of successful hard working entrepreneurs who had a passion for what they do.

Bernadine's situation in particular stood out as herself and her husband had left conventional mixed farming to start an organic system. After spraying their wheat crop with pesticides every year her husband was ill afterwards for several days. So they turned organic and his health recovered. This doesn't say much for what we're putting on our fields, though I think we knew this already.

Overall the conference was a great day, and thanks to National Rural Network who invited me to speak. It was lovely to catch up with buddies from my old days on Ear to the Ground and with Ollie Moore, Catherine Mack, Duncan Stewart and other writers who share a common agenda in keeping good food in production in Ireland. While it's clear that it's our large scale dairy and beef sectors that are the real contributors to the 8 billion euro worth of food we export each year, artisan food still has a very important place at the table. It functions as a way to keep people farming, making food and living in the Irish countryside, which far outways the attractions of producing factory food at low prices.

While there's a world wide market for cheap food, we will kill farming in Ireland if we adopt the US model of producing at the lowest possible price point. Somewhere in the mix Ireland can occupy the middle ground and in fact, the upper ground as well.

Thanks again to all the great speakers who contributed to my knowledge on renewable energies, dairy expansion and the other subjects which aroused a lot of discussion on the day. A further big thanks to David Meredith and Kevin Heanue from Teagasc for letting me grill them on supermarkets; getting to the bottom of their huge margins and understanding what exactly they are up to.... but we'll hold that news till later.

Into the West; where's the good food?

2011-01-25T12:47:00.000-08:00

On a foray into the West last week I was determined to prove that there was more to eat than the "rubber cheese sandwich" type offering that a friend recently convinced me was all that Connemara had to offer.

No no no! I said, Connemara is coming down with gorgeous local eateries, fresh seafood and hidden gems! A couple of days later I was wondering had I spoken too soon. That's not to say there isn't good food available in this part of the world - just not enough of it, and I'm talking specifically about Connemara - we know that Galway City has plenty of good restaurants but as you head Northwards into the real beauty-shot country which is a huge tourist magnet for international visitors, the landscape gets rough and beautiful while the food just gets, well, rough.

And this is the contrast that really struck me on my three day trip. If you have a region that is a huge draw for tourist euros, why aren't there more restaurants and cafes capitalising on this and offering local food of good quality?

Two places that I ate in really impressed here, the first was Ashford Castle which I had expected to be fairly average five star food, by which ususally means; anonymous, foie gras on the menu, expensive wine list and really geared towards Americans. However, I was very pleasantly surprised - most of their menu was sourced locally, including vegetables (which is hard enough to pull off in this part of the world and in winter), every detail of their menus from crusty breads to afternoon biscuits were made in their kitchens and the entire cheese board was an Irish selection. And the waiters and staff had good knowledge of food on the plate, local food and what they were selling. An unexpected top marks here, and even at this level it represented real value for money.

Another eaterie that scored highly in Connemara is O'Dowds seafood bar in Roundstone - the beautiful harbour village pictured above. O'Dowds is no secret and last week they deservedly won a Le Bib Gourmet award from the hard-core bunch at Michelin, which means they are recommended as a local food and "value for money" outlet. And that doesn't surprise, the boats are pulled up literally yards from O'Dowds unloading the crab that appears on their menu. Their food is fresh, delicious and tastes of the West which is something that the West should be selling as strongly as its scenery. After all, it's on the edge, literally, of the freshest, sharpest seafood factory in the world, but somehow the wealth of the Atlantic or the mountain lamb of Connemara just isn't widely available when you try to find a place to eat it.

In advance of my visit I looked to Good Food Ireland and its map of Irish restaurants - they have four members in Galway county - Ard Bia at Nimmos in Galway city and Bar No. 8 at Dock Road in Galway. Outside the city they list White Gables Restaurant in Moycullen and the Connemara Coast Hotel. I know that Good Food Ireland members have to be really committed to Irish food to be members of the group but I was still surprised there were not more food outlets generally heading this way in an area which is all about authenticity and a "real" Irish experience.

Instead, there are villages all across this part of the West where the rubber cheese sandwich rules or garage hot counter food (God save us) is all that's available. And I'm not saying that five star is the way to go... small cafes with a good food ethos can be just as succesful. And food can be a destination draw in itself; Moran's on the Weir outside Galway brings people to that area, just to eat, proving that food itself can be a tourist draw, not an add on.

I've been told that Olivers sea food bar in Cleggan is one for a decent food in Connemara list, as is the Avoca in Letterfrack. I know the Avoca's are hugely successful, in fact I live in the shadow of the Powerscourt Avoca and find myself there far too often for comfort - but their food is a solid winner, fresh, with an Irish twist and it ticks every box on the list, especially for tourists. It's just a pity that it might take the Avoca in Letterfrack to show other smaller operators how to do the same thing in a smaller way, I would love to see more independent good food operators in this part of the West. If you have more to add to the list, please send them my way x

The MacDonalds Fruit and Maple Oatmeal that contains, er, zero maple.

2011-01-17T05:50:00.000-08:00

While I loved the recent comment that San Francisco had banned toys from MacDonald's Happy Meals, despite the toy being the most nutritious item in the meal, the news that they've fallen foul of labelling regulations in the US is threatening one of their prime products - a Oatmeal and Maple fruit breakfast.

While McDonalds pound the Irish airwaves with ads about their “premium” coffees and other such delights, over in the US the Vermont Agency of Agriculture have taken issue with the new Fruit and Maple Oatmeal item which they say does not actually contain any maple. The description violates Vermont's stringent maple law and could mean that McDonalds will have to change ingredients or labeling.

"What we understand, is there is no actual maple in the [McDonald's] product being advertised, and regulations are very specific for how the term maple is used in advertisements," said Kelly Loftus from the Vermont Agency of Agriculture.

"It is illegal to use the word maple on a product unless the sweetener is 100 percent pure maple. Artificial maple flavouring should be clearly and conspicuously labeled on the principal panel with the term 'artificial flavour'."

If we looked for an Irish equivalent, it would be the same as a product using the word “honey flavoured” on a food product when there is clearly everything under the sun except honey in it.

Not that honey itself hasn’t had its own problems with labelling trickery, the Food Safety Authority of Ireland recently investigated an “Irish” honey, that strangely enough came from bees in China. It took expensive DNA testing of the pollen in the honey to correctly locate the true country of origin. As a result, the company was found guilty of breaching labelling laws and quickly rapped on the knuckles.

The MacDonald’s oatmeal and maple syrup product is part of their relentless campaign to capture more and more of the breakfast market. Going to MacDonalds for breakfast sounds lunatic to me but it’s a huge earner for MacDonalds and surprisingly almost a quarter of the company’s revenue is generated during the early hours before its typical Big Mac and McNugget menu comes into play for lunch. In order to maintain its dominance, McDonalds pushes out a steady line of promotions and new products. The Fruit and Maple Oatmeal under issue, has actually seen big success in regional markets and is going nationally across the US this month.

In response to the labelling allegations McDonalds says they are "currently in discussions with the State of Vermont to ensure that we meet any applicable state standards." They apparently have 60 to 90 days to respond to officials. It may not seem like the biggest breach of labelling in the world but a breach is a breach, and if they are prepared to fudge the details on one item it makes everything else they do look bad.

Yes I know MacDonalds are one of the biggest customers of Irish beef but that shouldn’t let them off the hook in toeing the same line as other companies do in terms of food labelling regulations. After all, big shouldn’t mean you can pay scant attention to the law.

Expect the Maple and Oatmeal breakfast in Irish outlets any day now, though if it isn’t made from maple syrup, what exactly is in it? You have been warned.

The latest restaurant closures, not from recession but for putting customers at risk

2011-01-13T06:30:00.000-08:00

Throughout 2010 I ate in several Dublin restaurants which had remarkably dropped their quality since visiting in the previous year. And I don't mean serving a lower quality offering which is still great food - if a restaurant takes crab from the lunch menu to replace it with French onion soup, then that French onion soup should still be a great product, even if it's produced for a lower cost and you're charged a lower price.

Yes we know restaurants are currently under pressure but cutting corners in respect of food quality, food hygiene and regulation doesn't work - I won't be going back to any of them.

Not only does cutting the quality of your product loose you customers, it can also kill them. The Food Safety Authority of Ireland (FSAI) recently released their figures for 2010 - revealing a total of 73 Enforcement Orders served for breaches in food safety legislation in 2010 compared with 54 in 2009, an increase totalling 35%.

Has the recession brought about this increase? If so, restaurants operating on this basis shouldn't be in business in the first place; those who use products beyond their sell by date, skip safe practise on storing them at the correct temperatures, or supply poor foodstuffs should pay the price for breaking the rules - not the customer. The FSAI emphasised that it's unacceptable to find food businesses continuing to breach food safety laws and warned businesses to place robust food safety management systems and hygiene practices top of their agenda for the new year or face the full rigors of the law.

Last year, the FSAI served 57 Closure Orders on Irish restaurants, four Improvement Orders and 12 Prohibition Orders on food businesses throughout the country. This compares with 34 Closure Orders, seven Improvement Orders and 13 Prohibition Orders issued in 2009.
Last month - December 2010 three restaurants were closed for breaches of food safety legislation.

The December Closure Orders were served on:
• T/A Sligo Spice and Halal Point butcher shop, 14 Connolly Street, Sligo

• Pattaya Thai Restaurant, Johnstown Road, Cabinteely Village, Dublin 18

• Fish Shop (the preparation room), Main Street, Schull, Co. Cork

An Improvement Order was served on:

• Chief Changs Restaurant, Omni Park Shopping Centre, Swords Rd, Santry, Dublin 9

A Prohibition Order was served on:
• Arirang restaurant, 102 Parnell Street, Dublin 1

During the month of December, successful prosecutions were carried out by the HSE West Region on Dragon Court Chinese Restaurant and Take Away, Chapel Road, Askeaton, Limerick and by the HSE Dublin North East Region on Adezath Superstore supermarket, 298 North Circular Road, Dublin 7.

Alan Reilly who heads up the FSAI said on the 34% increase in breaches of food safety law -
“The increase is disappointing... consumers must be confident that the food they are eating is safe to eat and the FSAI will continue to take a zero tolerance policy to breaches of food safety legislation. The onus is on each individual food business to take responsibility and commit to ensuring high food safety standards."

Details of the food businesses served with these Enforcement Orders are published on the FSAI’s website. Closure Orders and Improvement Orders remain listed on the website for a period of three months from the date of when a premises is adjudged to have corrected its food safety issue, with Prohibition Orders being listed for a period of one month.

Eat safely x

Oh here's me again, in 8 weeks time

2011-01-06T13:32:00.000-08:00

Yes it's time again to beat ourselves up over what we eat and why our fridge isn't overflowing with homemade lobster roulade and wheat grass juice, alongside a bedroom bursting with size zero Celine dresses. After all, January is the silly season for food and dietary advice, and ninety percent of it is about as useful as a cold cocktail sausage.

In celebration of the slovenly season I have been very neglectful of my cooking over the Christmas break and aside from preparing a family Christmas dinner and party food for 40 people on New Years Day I took a giant break from the kitchen, with plenty of black and white movies, an overexcited toddler and the beautiful snowy conditions of our rural neighbourhood to keep me busy. And chocolate.

The Christmas period was also a break from an intense period of work researching the food documentary which starts filming next month, I've encountered so many great food producers while working on it this Autumn but unfortunately we can only fit in so many stories - this is the problem with television - you can only bring to light so much of the picture and there are many parts of Ireland's food and farming sectors that are not going to get on air as a result. Our aim is to tell the story of farming and food production in Ireland through looking at how supermarkets have changed our diets, the way food is produced, the way towns are designed and the way food is legislated. And it ain't pretty.

In terms of our own food intake, those wishing to cut themselves loose from bad food habits and a diet of ready meals this year will find plenty of advice in the first few weeks of January on how to remake oneself in the image of Angelina Jolie and that sort of thing. Personally I got tired of looking like Angelia Jolie and have now re-trained my sights on having the body of Giselle in er, a four weeks time. No problem. Unless you're under the age of ten you probably are aware that New Year resolutions rarely last, probably because we try to bite of more than we can chew, or more accurately, too little.

Most New Year's dieting advice involves taking far too big a jump in trying to change eating habits formed over a very long time. In trying to ignore most of this newspaper and magazine twaddle I came upon American writer Kim O'Donnell's advice on the New Year food and dieting advice craziness. Her approach can be summed up in three simple points -

•Eat down the fridge. This expression is borrowed it from the Depression-era and translates as - use what you already have on hand and resist the urge to stock up at the supermarket until the need truly exists. Challenge yourself to be resourceful with what you have in your kitchen for one week or longer, and learn how to reduce food waste. And don't whatever you do go to the supermarket when you're starving; in our household this results in a four tubs of Ben and Jerrys, three baguettes and a hunk of cheese.

•DIY vs. buy. Making your own food (and yes folks it does only take ten minutes to fry up some tinned tomatoes, garlic, onion and sardines and serve it up with penne pasta) costs a hell of a lot less than buying it as a prepared dish and offers control over salt and fat content. If you're not in the habit of cooking yourself, start with really simple stuff, like some scrambled eggs on toast with chopped parsley and a knob of butter. Don't go anywhere near a Heston Blumenthal et al cookery book or you'll have an aneurysm.

•Take baby steps. When it comes to making changes in our diet and health, less equals more. Pick a day to go meatless, for instance, or go for a walk, bring your lunch to work, climb the stairs instead of taking the lift, use one spoonful of sugar instead of two. Week after week, it adds up

So that's my pick of the advice. Time to go and load up on the chocolate again, after all, three weeks and six days is enough to look like Giselle, heaps of time...

The Botox apple, if I'm caught eating this I'm probably dead already

2010-12-02T14:15:00.000-08:00

While America's food giants introduced us to the Frankenfish salmon earlier this year, they've outdone themselves this time with a genetically modified apple that doesn't brown. The apple is said to have "silencing" enzymes which prevent it from looking old even if it is old. Even the most stupid of us have to realise this isn't a good idea. Would I want to eat a maggot ridden burger just because the maggots are invisible?

Critics are calling it the "Botox apple", despite the fact that botox is probably a more friendly food choice than this particular piece of fruit. According to Associated Press, Okanagan Speciality Fruits who developed the apples said that the company "licensed the non-browning technology from Australian researchers who pioneered it in potatoes."

The company's director Andrew Kimbrell told AP that this technology "appears to benefit apple growers and shippers more than consumers." Umm. Apparently the President of Okanagan Specialty Fruits, Neal Carter, even agrees "Some people won't like it just because of what it is." How bizarre is that? But he also adds that "people will see the process used to get it had very sound science."

I think most of us would rather know when the food we're eating is past it's best. As it stands, Modified Atmospheric Packaging is what's keeping most bagged salad leaves from turning brown when they are in fact well past their best. Bagged salad is one of the huge food hits of the past decade but the process of gassing salad leaves to keep them from browning isn't that far removed from the Frankenapple.

A friend of mine worked at a US plant in the 1990s packing salad into MOP plastic. He thought the trend could never catch on here as allegedly in Ireland we're deeply connected to food and understand that eating this kind of stuff is bad for us. Apparently not. Therefore welcome, the Frankenapple, soon to be seen at your local supermarket. And once the FDA approve it, the Frankensalmon. Roll up folks....

What food says about class in America - this has lessons for us all

2010-11-23T05:27:00.000-08:00

I came across this piece written by Lisa Miller for Newsweek. In the testing times that we're currently facing in Ireland the article struck a chord, a big one. Lisa writes grippingly about the contrast between America's penchant for luxury, artisan or organic foods while many people in same country haven't enough to eat. And this is not just confined to the States. Here in Ireland we already have evidence that food poverty is widespread, and in the current outlook, probably set to get worse.

While the phrases "Food Poverty" or "Food Deprivation" might ring bells as something endemic to developing countries, they're right here on our doorstep. While researching our food documentary I've come across increasingly alarming statistics on how much of Ireland suffers from Food Poverty; ranging from those who don't have enough to eat to families who eat poor foodstuffs as they can't afford fresh food.

The definition of food poverty is an “inability to access a nutritionally adequate diet and the impacts this has on health, culture and social participation”. In this country, many low-income families cannot afford to buy even basic foods, and the relative high cost of many nutritious foods, including fresh vegetables, puts them out of reach.

Research has also found that Irish low-income households spend a relatively higher share of their income on food. Despite this, they have a poor diet both in terms of food and nutritional intake. They also tend to shop at local convenience stores, where prices are higher and the variety of food is poor. Often in deprived areas transport is an issue, with poor public transport links leading to households relying on taxis.

Families on low incomes often have a lack of skills and knowledge regarding what a healthy diet is, and are also affected by factors such as food preparation, cooking skills and storage.

The “official” measure of poverty in Ireland found that 15% of the Irish population experience some type of “food deprivation”. 35% of those on low income experience food deprivation and 7% of the low-income population experience “intense” food deprivation.

On top of this, it is low income groups who through poor diet are most likely to suffer obesity and related diseases. 57% of the Irish population is either overweight (39%) or obese (18%) Both the Obesity Report (2005) and the SLAN report (2008) also found that those in the lower social classes are more likely to be overweight or obese. One in five children aged between five and 12 years old are overweight or obese, and the same is found for 12 to 17 year olds (National Teen’s Food Survey 2008).

So while I passionately advocate local food, healthy eating and championing Ireland's food and agri-business sector, I have to be aware that searching for food that chimes with your belief system is a luxury that many cannot afford. With the upcoming budget on December 7th which will inevitably place more people in Ireland under financial pressure, food will be something which simply has to cost less for many families. Research done in early 2010 shows evidence already that many of us are trying to cut our spend on food, shop around and get more for our buck.

So here's Lisa's piece, it's long, but for those of you who are big readers it's very much worth it, and for those of you with little time, just scan the first few paragraphs, she makes a lot of good points and if anything, makes me hope desperately that the food environment in the US is not where Ireland's food future is heading.

Divided We Eat
As more of us indulge our passion for local, organic delicacies, a growing number of Americans don’t have enough nutritious food to eat. How we can bridge the gap.

For breakfast, I usually have a cappuccino—espresso made in an Alessi pot and mixed with organic milk, which has been gently heated and hand-fluffed by my husband. I eat two slices of imported cheese—Dutch Parrano, the label says, “the hippest cheese in New York” (no joke)—on homemade bread with butter. I am what you might call a food snob. My nutritionist neighbor drinks a protein shake while her 5-year-old son eats quinoa porridge sweetened with applesauce and laced with kale flakes. She is what you might call a health nut. On a recent morning, my neighbor’s friend Alexandra Ferguson sipped politically correct Nicaraguan coffee in her comfy kitchen while her two young boys chose from among an assortment of organic cereals. As we sat, the six chickens Ferguson and her husband, Dave, keep for eggs in a backyard coop peered indoors from the stoop. The Fergusons are known as locavores.

Alexandra says she spends hours each day thinking about, shopping for, and preparing food. She is a disciple of Michael Pollan, whose 2006 book The Omnivore’s Dilemma made the locavore movement a national phenomenon, and believes that eating organically and locally contributes not only to the health of her family but to the existential happiness of farm animals and farmers—and, indeed, to the survival of the planet. “Michael Pollan is my new hero, next to Jimmy Carter,” she told me. In some neighborhoods, a lawyer who raises chickens in her backyard might be considered eccentric, but we live in Park Slope, Brooklyn, a community that accommodates and celebrates every kind of foodie. Whether you believe in eating for pleasure, for health, for justice, or for some idealized vision of family life, you will find neighbors who reflect your food values. In Park Slope, the contents of a child’s lunchbox can be fodder for a 20-minute conversation.

Over coffee, I cautiously raise a subject that has concerned me of late: less than five miles away, some children don’t have enough to eat; others exist almost exclusively on junk food. Alexandra concedes that her approach is probably out of reach for those people. Though they are not wealthy by Park Slope standards—Alexandra works part time and Dave is employed by the city—the Fergusons spend approximately 20 percent of their income, or $1,000 a month, on food. The average American spends 13 percent, including restaurants and takeout.
And so the conversation turns to the difficulty of sharing their interpretation of the Pollan doctrine with the uninitiated. When they visit Dave’s family in Tennessee, tensions erupt over food choices. One time, Alexandra remembers, she irked her mother-in-law by purchasing a bag of organic apples, even though her mother-in-law had already bought the nonorganic kind at the grocery store. The old apples were perfectly good, her mother-in-law said. Why waste money—and apples?

I can’t convince my brother to spend another dime on food,” adds Dave.
“This is our charity. This is my giving to the world,” says Alexandra, finally, as she packs lunchboxes—organic peanut butter and jelly on grainy bread, a yogurt, and a clementine—for her two boys. “We contribute a lot.”

According to data released last week by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, 17 percent of Americans—more than 50 million people—live in households that are “food insecure,” a term that means a family sometimes runs out of money to buy food, or it sometimes runs out of food before it can get more money. Food insecurity is especially high in households headed by a single mother. It is most severe in the South, and in big cities. In New York City, 1.4 million people are food insecure, and 257,000 of them live near me, in Brooklyn. Food insecurity is linked, of course, to other economic measures like housing and employment, so it surprised no one that the biggest surge in food insecurity since the agency established the measure in 1995 occurred between 2007 and 2008, at the start of the economic downturn. (The 2009 numbers, released last week, showed little change.) The proportion of households that qualify as “hungry”—with what the USDA calls “very low food security”—is small, about 6 percent. Reflected against the obsessive concerns of the foodies in my circle, and the glare of attention given to the plight of the poor and hungry abroad, even a fraction of starving children in America seems too high.
Mine seems on some level like a naive complaint. There have always been rich people and poor people in America and, in a capitalist economy, the well-to-do have always had the freedom to indulge themselves as they please.

In hard times, food has always marked a bright border between the haves and the have-nots. In the earliest days of the Depression, as the poor waited on bread lines, the middle and upper classes in America became devoted to fad diets. Followers of the Hollywood 18-Day Diet, writes Harvey Levenstein in his 1993 book Paradox of Plenty, “could live on fewer than six hundred calories a day by limiting each meal to half a grapefruit, melba toast, coffee without cream or sugar, and, at lunch and dinner, some raw vegetables.”

But modern America is a place of extremes, and what you eat for dinner has become the definitive marker of social status; as the distance between rich and poor continues to grow, the freshest, most nutritious foods have become luxury goods that only some can afford. Among the lowest quintile of American families, mean household income has held relatively steady between $10,000 and $13,000 for the past two decades (in inflation-adjusted dollars); among the highest, income has jumped 20 percent to $170,800 over the same period, according to census data. What this means, in practical terms, is that the richest Americans can afford to buy berries out of season at Whole Foods—the upscale grocery chain that recently reported a 58 percent increase in its quarterly profits—while the food insecure often eat what they can: highly caloric, mass-produced foods like pizza and packaged cakes that fill them up quickly. The number of Americans on food stamps has surged by 58.5 percent over the last three years

Corpulence used to signify the prosperity of a few but has now become a marker of poverty. Obesity has risen as the income gap has widened: more than a third of U.S. adults and 17 percent of children are obese, and the problem is acute among the poor. While obesity is a complex problem—genetics, environment, and activity level all play a role—a 2008 study by the USDA found that children and women on food stamps were likelier to be overweight than those who were not. According to studies led by British epidemiologist Kate Pickett, obesity rates are highest in developed countries with the greatest income disparities. America is among the most obese of nations; Japan, with its relatively low income inequality, is the thinnest.

Adam Drewnowski, an epidemiologist at the University of Washington, has spent his career showing that Americans’ food choices correlate to social class. He argues that the most nutritious diet—lots of fruits and vegetables, lean meats, fish, and grains—is beyond the reach of the poorest Americans, and it is economic elitism for nutritionists to uphold it as an ideal without broadly addressing issues of affordability. Lower-income families don’t subsist on junk food and fast food because they lack nutritional education, as some have argued. And though many poor neighborhoods are, indeed, food deserts—meaning that the people who live there don’t have access to a well-stocked supermarket—many are not. Lower-income families choose sugary, fat, and processed foods because they’re cheaper—and because they taste good. In a paper published last spring, Drewnowski showed how the prices of specific foods changed between 2004 and 2008 based on data from Seattle-area supermarkets. While food prices overall rose about 25 percent, the most nutritious foods (red peppers, raw oysters, spinach, mustard greens, romaine lettuce) rose 29 percent, while the least nutritious foods (white sugar, hard candy, jelly beans, and cola) rose just 16 percent.

“In America,” Drewnowski wrote in an e-mail, “food has become the premier marker of social distinctions, that is to say—social class. It used to be clothing and fashion, but no longer, now that ‘luxury’ has become affordable and available to all.” He points to an article in The New York Times, written by Pollan, which describes a meal element by element, including “a basket of morels and porcini gathered near Mount Shasta.” “Pollan,” writes Drewnowski, “is drawing a picture of class privilege that is as acute as anything written by Edith Wharton or Henry James.”
I finish writing the previous paragraph and go downstairs. There, in the mail, I find the Christmas catalog from the luxury retail store Barneys. HAVE A FOODIE HOLIDAY, its cover reads. Inside, models are covered—literally—with food. A woman in a red $2,000 Lanvin trench has an enormous cabbage on her head. Another, holding a green Proenza Schouler clutch, wears a boiled crab in her bouffant. Most disconcerting is the Munnu diamond pendant ($80,500) worn by a model who seems to have traded her hair for an octopus. Its tentacles dangle past her shoulders, and the girl herself wears the expression of someone who’s stayed too long at the party. Food is no longer trendy or fashionable. It is fashion.

Tiffiney Davis, a single mom, lives about four miles away from me, in subsidized housing, in a gentrifying neighborhood called Red Hook. Steps from her apartment, you can find ample evidence of foodie culture: Fairway, the supermarket where I buy my Dutch cheese, is right there, as is a chic bakery, and a newfangled lobster pound. Davis says she has sometimes worried about having enough food. She works in Manhattan, earning $13 an hour for a corporate catering company (which once had a contract with NEWSWEEK), and she receives food stamps. She spends $100 a week on food for herself and her two kids. Sometimes she stretches her budget by bringing food home from work.

Davis is sheepish about what her family eats for breakfast. Everybody rises at 6, and there’s a mad rush to get the door, so often they eat bodega food. Her daughter, Malaezia, 10, will have egg and cheese on a roll; her son, 13-year-old Tashawn, a muffin and soda. She herself used to pop into at Dunkin’ Donuts for two doughnuts and a latte, but when New York chain restaurants started posting calories on their menus, she stopped. “I try my best to lessen the chemicals and the fattening stuff,” she says, “but it’s hard.”

Time is just part of the problem, Davis explains, as she prepares Sunday dinner in her cheerful kitchen. Tonight she’s making fried chicken wings with bottled barbecue sauce; yellow rice from a box; black beans from a can; broccoli; and carrots, cooked in olive oil and honey. A home-cooked dinner doesn’t happen every night. On weeknights, everyone gets home, exhausted—and then there’s homework. Several nights a week, they get takeout: Chinese, or Domino’s, or McDonald’s. Davis doesn’t buy fruits and vegetables mostly because they’re too expensive, and in the markets where she usually shops, they’re not fresh. “I buy bananas and bring them home and 10 minutes later they’re no good…Whole Foods sells fresh, beautiful tomatoes,” she says. “Here, they’re packaged and full of chemicals anyway. So I mostly buy canned foods.”

In recent weeks the news in New York City has been full with a controversial proposal to ban food-stamp recipients from using their government money to buy soda. Local public-health officials insist they need to be more proactive about slowing obesity; a recent study found that 40 percent of the children in New York City’s kindergarten through eighth-grade classrooms were either overweight or obese. (Nationwide, 36 percent of 6- to 11-year-olds are overweight or obese.) Opponents of the proposal call it a “nanny state” measure, another instance of government interference, and worse—of the government telling poor people what to do, as if they can’t make good decisions on their own. “I think it’s really difficult,” says Pickett, the British epidemiologist. “Everybody needs to be able to feel that they have control over what they spend. And everybody should be able to treat themselves now and again. Why shouldn’t a poor child have a birthday party with cake and soda?”

But Davis enthusiastically supports the proposal. A 9-year-old boy in her building recently died of an asthma attack, right in front of his mother. He was obese, she says, but his mom kept feeding him junk. “If these people don’t care at all about calorie counts, then the government should. People would live a lot longer,” she says.

Claude Fischler, a French sociologist, believes that Americans can fight both obesity and food insecurity by being more, well, like the French. Americans take an approach to food and eating that is unlike any other people in history. For one thing, we regard food primarily as (good or bad) nutrition. When asked “What is eating well?” Americans generally answer in the language of daily allowances: they talk about calories and carbs, fats, and sugars. They don’t see eating as a social activity, and they don’t see food—as it has been seen for millennia—as a shared resource, like a loaf of bread passed around the table. When asked “What is eating well?” the French inevitably answer in terms of “conviviality”: togetherness, intimacy, and good tastes unfolding in a predictable way.

Even more idiosyncratic than our obsession with nutrition, says Fischler, is that Americans see food choice as a matter of personal freedom, an inalienable right. Americans want to eat what they want: morels or Big Macs. They want to eat where they want, in the car or alfresco. And they want to eat when they want. With the exception of Thanksgiving, when most of us dine off the same turkey menu, we are food libertarians. In surveys, Fischler has found no single time of day (or night) when Americans predictably sit together and eat. By contrast, 54 percent of the French dine at 12:30 each day. Only 9.5 percent of the French are obese.

When I was a child I was commanded to “eat your eggs. There are starving children in Africa.” And when I was old enough to think for myself, I could easily see that my own eaten or uneaten eggs would not do a single thing to help the children of Africa. This is the Brooklyn conundrum, playing out all over the country. Locally produced food is more delicious than the stuff you get in the supermarket; it’s better for the small farmers and the farm animals; and, as a movement, it’s better for the environment. It’s easy—and probably healthy, if you can afford it—to make that choice as an individual or a family, says the New York University nutritionist Marion Nestle. Bridging the divide is much harder. “Choosing local or organic is something you can actually do. It’s very difficult for people to get involved in policy.”

Locavore activists in New York and other cities are doing what they can to help the poor with access to fresh food. Incentive programs give food-stamp recipients extra credit if they buy groceries at farmers’ markets. Food co-ops and community-garden associations are doing better urban outreach. Municipalities are establishing bus routes between poor neighborhoods and those where well-stocked supermarkets exist.

Joel Berg, executive director of the New York City Coalition Against Hunger, says these programs are good, but they need to go much, much further. He believes, like Fischler, that the answer lies in seeing food more as a shared resource, like water, than as a consumer product, like shoes. “It’s a nuanced conversation, but I think ‘local’ or ‘organic’ as the shorthand for all things good is way too simplistic,” says Berg. “I think we need a broader conversation about scale, working conditions, and environmental impact. It’s a little too much of people buying easy virtue.”

Even the locavore hero Pollan agrees. “Essentially,” he says, “we have a system where wealthy farmers feed the poor crap and poor farmers feed the wealthy high-quality food.” He points to Walmart’s recent announcement of a program that will put more locally grown food on its shelves as an indication that big retailers are looking to sell fresh produce in a scalable way. These fruits and vegetables might not be organic, but the goal, says Pollan, is not to be absolutist in one’s food ideology. “I argue for being conscious,” he says, “but perfectionism is an enemy of progress.” Pollan sees a future where, in an effort to fight diabetes and obesity, health-insurance companies are advocates for small and medium-size farmers. He dreams of a broad food-policy conversation in Washington.

“The food movement,” he reminds me, “is still very young.”
Berg believes that part of the answer lies in working with Big Food. The food industry hasn’t been entirely bad: it developed the technology to bring apples to Wisconsin in the middle of winter, after all. It could surely make sustainably produced fruits and vegetables affordable and available. “We need to bring social justice to bigger agriculture as well,” Berg says.

My last stop was at Jabir Suluki’s house in Clinton Hill, about two miles from my home. Suluki has toast for breakfast, with a little cheese on top, melted in the toaster oven. He is not French—he was born and raised in Brooklyn—but he might as well be. Every day, between 5 and 7, he prepares dinner for his mother and himself—and any of his nieces and nephews who happen to drop by. He prepares food with the confidence of a person descended from a long line of home cooks—which he is.

Both Suluki and his mother are diabetic. For them, healthy, regular meals are a necessity—and so he does what he can on $75 a week. “To get good food, you really got to sacrifice a lot. It’s expensive. But I take that sacrifice, because it’s worth it.” Suluki uses his food stamps at the farmers’ market. He sorts through the rotten fruit at the local supermarket. He travels to Queens, when he can get a ride, and buys cheap meat in bulk. He is adamant that it is the responsibility of parents to feed their children good food in moderate portions, and that it’s possible to do so on a fixed income.

For dinner he and his mother ate Salisbury steak made from ground turkey, with a little ground beef thrown in and melted cheese on top “because turkey doesn’t have any taste”; roasted potatoes and green peppers; and frozen green beans, “heated quickly so they still have a crunch.” For dessert, his mother ate two pieces of supermarket coffeecake.

Suluki thinks a lot about food, and the role it plays in the life of his neighbors. He doesn’t have soda in his refrigerator, but he opposes the New York City soda proposal because, in light of the government’s food and farm subsidies—and in light of all the other kinds of unhealthy cheap foods for sale in his supermarket—he sees it as hypocrisy. “You can’t force junk on people and then criticize it at the same time.” Suluki is a community organizer, and sees the web of problems before us—hunger, obesity, health—as something for the community to solve. “We can’t just attack this problem as individuals,” he tells me. “A healthy community produces healthy people.” That’s why, on the weekends, he makes a big pot of rice and beans, and brings it down to the food pantry near his house.

[Suzanne] It's a tale well told Lisa, we've a lot to learn from this in Ireland and get more aware of how food is representative of inequality.

Here's me with some sandwiches, best avoid them, I promise

2010-11-18T07:18:00.000-08:00

Irish Independent - Smart Consumer: Do you really know how much salt is in your lunchtime sandwich?
By Suzanne CampbellThursday Nov 18 2010

Ignoring the salt cellar at the dinner table might make some of us feel that we're eating more healthily. But avoiding high blood pressure, heart disease and the consequences of eating salt is more difficult than we think as many of us eat high quantities of it without realising.
New research shows that over a teaspoon and a half of salt is eaten every day by most Irish people, causing health risks that we're completely unaware of.

The recommended intake of salt per day is no more than six grams. But the Food Safety Authority of Ireland has found that Irish adults are eating on average 10 grams of salt a day -- putting us at risk of death from heart disease and stroke.

Frequently we don't even know the salt content of many foods that we eat. Meat, fish and dairy products provide about a third of our daily salt intake, with a further 26% provided by bread and rolls.

Other foods that regularly contain high levels of salt are sauces, biscuits, confectionery and breakfast cereals.

The frustrating thing for consumers is that while we may be aware of the dangers of salt, food manufacturers don't always share the same view -- pizzas, ready-meals and the humble sandwich are some of the biggest culprits for high salt content. Sandwiches and ready-meals can contain between 25% and 50% of your daily recommended intake for salt. And using petrol stations for more than a fuel top-up may find you eating more than you bargained for.

A Topaz mixed sandwich containing cheese, chicken and stuffing has three grams of salt -- half your daily allowance. And if you go for an M&S quick dinner option, their Macaroni Cheese ready-meal has 2.4 grams of salt, more than 40% of your daily allowance. But the top score goes to M&S's 12-inch cheese and pepperoni pizza, which contains nearly six grams of salt, your total salt intake for the day.

Tesco doesn't fare much better, with their Finest range Italian salami and mozzarella sandwich containing 2.6 grams of salt, and many of their ready-meals containing half your daily allowance.
As cardiovascular disease is the leading cause of death in Ireland, the Irish Heart Foundation point out that reducing our intake of salt to six grams a day would save more lives from what is a widespread disease.

Pat Crowley, a GP in Co Kilkenny, explains how salt can work in the body with dangerous consequences. "When you have salt in your bloodstream, your cells have to increase the volume of blood to balance it, and that's the reason blood pressure rises."
Eating too much salt confuses the normal functioning of cells and affects how our systems are balanced.

"Sodium, chloride and potassium constantly work together so that the function of your cells are normal. If these levels are out of kilter or too high, you can develop an abnormality pretty quickly, leading to heart arrhythmia or more seriously, a heart attack."
Many of Dr Crowley's patients find tracking the salt in their diet quite difficult .

"Food manufacturers have always put salt in food as a preservative, so even if you're not sprinkling it on your food it can still be there in large amounts". Salt labelling doesn't help as it's sometimes labelled 'sodium content'. Sodium amounts are smaller than 'salt' as 1.6grams of sodium equal 4 grams of salt. So thinking a chilled Thai green curry is healthy because it has one gram of sodium on the packet isn't the case -- it actually has 2.5 grams of salt.

Indeed "healthy" food options such as wraps and salads can sometimes contain surprising amounts of salt. M&S's Crayfish and Mayo salad contains two grams of salt and their Hoisin Duck Wrap has nearly the same amount. Salad dressings are often hidden sources of salt, as are mayonnaises, sauces and other additions to "healthy" lunchtime options.

Food manufacturers like adding salt because it ties into what we expect food to taste like. But this can lead to health issues not just confined to cardiac-related problems.

"High sodium intake is also linked to osteoporosis and other conditions, so there's a range of dangers people are unaware of," says Dr Daniel McCartney from the Irish Nutrition and Dietectics Institute and lecturer in human nutrition at DIT. Food labelling can be improved -- not all sandwiches or prepared foods show either sodium or salt content and this is more difficult if you buy your sandwich from a deli counter. "At the moment it's not mandatory to label salt content in food," says McCartney. "Consumers should have the benefit of clear labelling because then they can at least make an informed choice."

One thing very clear from our survey is that food sold in garages not only had some of the highest salt content, but it's often purchased by men who are spending the day in a car -- making them a key risk group for cardiac problems. "Research shows that the more educated and affluent people are, the more knowledgeable they are about healthy eating.

"So unfortunately there are sectors of society unaware of the dangers of salt in their diet and the damage it's causing," says Dr McCartney. Taxing convenience foods, like they do in Denmark, may be one way to drive people away from high-salt foods but it could be difficult to implement.

Dr McCartney has an alternative approach. "Subsidising healthy foods might be a better way to deal with this and would be certainly easier to implement. People could then displace foods that they might have planned to eat with something healthier and cheaper."
- Suzanne Campbell
Irish Independent

Say cheese; iPhone app takes food pictures and counts calories

2010-11-17T06:05:00.000-08:00

When you crave a burger you crave a burger. And sometimes not knowing exactly how many calories are in it can be a good thing. But a new iPhone app is about to put an end to all that. It guesses the calories of your meal by taking a picture of it and compares it to a database of about 100,000 foods, counting up the total and delivering the bad news directly to your phone. Yikes.

The app has been developed by Japan's NTT Communications - who else. Strangely while the Japanese are pretty nifty at technology they are also passionate about food. When I lived in Tokyo this came as a big surprise, in addition to the fact that Japanese food is heaven, and not confined to sushi and noodles. Sadly, it was also when I lived in Japan in the late nineties that Japanese girls first adopted the English word "diet". Up to that point there was no Japanese equivalent. The popularity of fast food had led to the idea of weight loss and predictably soon, being super thin became a fashion just like in Europe and the West.

So it's no surprise the app came out of Japan. It seems that all you have to do is point your phone at your plate, shoot and the app compares the food image with it's database. Currently the app is heavy on ramen and Japanese food but they're working to expand the database for food eaten accross the world. Of course they are - can you imagine how popular this is going to be? Expect every 10 year old plus girl in a MacDonald's, grimly photographing her food before she eats a quarter of it and leaves.

We know what basic food choices are bad for us so I'm conflicted on whether the development of this app is a good thing or really damaging to how we eat. At the same time, where people are trying to loose weight or face serious obesity problems, perhaps knowing the calorie count of their food is no bad thing.

The app also offers potential to link to social networks while you're counting calories, and possibly get support for your dieting. On the down side, there's nothing like a few negative responses from Facebook on your eating habits to probably throw users into a stress attack of eating even more junk food, after all, eating bad food is very often emotion related. But online support groups for dieting aren't anything new and don't need an iPhone app to make them function. Many groups offer users support and ideas for exercise plans, alternative food choices and a place to have a bit of a moan or to celebrate your success.

On twitter there are Irish followers using #twiet as a hashtag group to communicate their weight loss adventures, many of these are also food lovers and foodies and anything which connects people with common interests is surely a positive thing. Check out #irishfoodies on twitter and myself at @campbellsuz for continual food news and support for Irish food producers, restaurants and eating. Yes - actual eating, lots of it, rates pretty highly in my book. I won't be getting the new app. I think I know what's in most of what I eat, and when I don't want to know, I don't want to know.

Food producers, farmers, send your stories my way!

2010-11-05T06:44:00.000-07:00

Apart from #cheesegate (more to follow) things have been quiet on the food news front this week as the television documentary that developed from our book is in the throes of pre-production. What this basically means is - lots of me banging the phones, hunting around the country for good food stories and looking for farmers, all over again.

This time last year we were publicising the book, and one really nice thing that stemmed from it was the huge amount of consumers, food producers and farmers who approached Philip and myself about questions they had related to food - why are there Israeli potatoes in Irish supermarkets? Why do some organic vegetables have pesticide residues? Why can I barely make a living as a farmer?

These questions have never gone away, and in the spring of next year a new documentary for RTE, presented by Philip and written by myself will investigate what we're eating in Ireland and how our shopping habits directly affect the value of our agri-food sector. We want to examine how what we eat can help Irish food production get us out of the economic mire that we're in.

One central aspect to this is our behaviour as consumers and examining the food that we buy -for example, how many of us are motivated to look for Irish produce on the supermarket shelves. One thing we're really looking for is farmers with good stories about difficulties they have had getting their product to market, and specifically into supermarkets.

This is an area sadly familiar to me, last year I was called as a witness to the Government's Joint Oireachtas Committee on Agriculture to speak on the unfair balance of power which the multiples hold in the Irish food market. While supermarkets are part of the solution to getting a bigger market share for Irish farmers, artisan food producers and manufacturers, they can also be part of the problem. One thing we really want to feature in the documentary is these stories - I know it's difficult for farmers to talk about the hoops that supermarkets sometimes make them jump through to sell their product. Anecdotally the evidence is there - I know that it's much harder to get people to talk about it in reality, yet this is what we're looking for.

I'll keep you posted on news about the documentary as we progress, and it would be great if food producers reading this blog could pass on the word and send people my way who have good stories to tell. For my foreign readers I hope the documentary will be of interest to you when it's broadcast. It's fantastic to have such a spread of people reading this blog from around the world and keeping up with food news here and internationally. It gives me a huge thrill to see readers from Russia to Brazil, from the US to Italy and the UK visiting the blog. It's lovely to have a readerhip of people interested in what's going on in Ireland. It's indicative of how people can be so connected by a love of food and who want to see it farmed and produced properly.

We want to tell the stories at the heart of Irish food so please, anyone that feels they have something to add, get in touch!

Quick Halloween drinks suggestion

2010-10-27T07:55:00.000-07:00

So we've had black chicken for Halloween, how about black vodka? Doesn't this look fantastic? Cool, icy and sinister, just the thing for this time of year.

Blavod is a vodka I'm just come across that's produced in the UK. It's made from distilled molasses and coloured with extracts from the Burmese black Catechu tree. Available apparently since 2004, I have yet to find an Irish supplier but you can buy it online from
http://www.drinkshop.com/.

It costs £ 14.79 which I reckon is pretty good value. It's also had some good reviews so is certified not to be pushed to the back of the drinks cabinet the following day.

The best chutney recipe ever

2010-10-26T06:18:00.001-07:00

This time last year I vowed never to grow tomatoes again. You have to water them non-stop, re-tie them regularly as they fall over, and at the end of the day all they produce is bucket loads of green unripe fruit.

Despite lots of heartbreaking appeals to the tomato God, by last November winter was really setting in and it was time for to harvest our green, definitely not red, stock of fruit. No matter how many paper bags we put them in, or how many days they sat beside over-ripe bananas, the tomatoes just weren't ripening, then we had a piece of luck.

We found this recipe for Green Tomato Chutney on Caroline Hennessy's brilliant Bibliocook blog. I could lie and say that it was me who stumbled across it but actually it was Philip. Caroline had given our book "Basketcase" a rather nice review on her blog so in turn we decided to nab her chutney recipe and give it a go.

So finally, we had a home for all those green tomatoes. Alongside Bramley apples from the garden, a net of onions, some vinegar and sugar, we had a fabulous chutney. We put jars of it in the basement, and it kept us going all year - delicious on its own on a slice of toast or as an accompaniment to a cheese board. It has a creamy softness without that vinegary tartness that some chutneys have. It tasted fantastic, and unless our friends and family are brilliant liars, the jars dispersed to all and sundry seemed to go down very well.

And so came tomato harvest time again this year. We had three varieties - marmandes, ferlines and a cherry tomato, NONE of which ripened, despite much better sunshine this summer and a lot of care. So we gave in and took the green fruit inside once again, boiled up the tomatoes and apples and set about making the chutney.

After chopping the tomatoes and apples it's dead simple; chuck it all into a few large pots, bring it up to the boil and then leave it on some low heat and wait. The fruit softens and becomes a lovely goey chutney mix. You can probably make this with ripe tomatoes as well, so it's a nice recipe for some comfort winter food that will store well and keep you going all year. After moving house and being without a cooker for over three weeks, it was great to see pots happily simmering on the hob and steam vanishing up the extractor fan, all credit to Smeg who at least seem to at last have delivered us a cooker worth waiting for.

Now all we need is a decent phoneline and some mobile coverage, unless I start doing smoke signals from the top of the hill, we may isolated for a while. Maybe sometimes that's no bad thing...

Green Tomato Chutney

Green tomatoes - 1kg
Apples - 1.5kg, peeled, cored
Ginger - about 2cms, peeled and finely chopped
Fresh chillies - 2, finely chopped
Sultanas - 225g, chopped
Onions - 500g, chopped
Salt - 2 teaspoons
Demerara sugar - 500g
Malt vinegar - 500ml
Mustard seeds, or Dalkey mustard which we used - 1 heaped tablespoon
Put all the ingredients into a large, heavy based pan. Heat gently, stirring, until the sugar is dissolved. Simmer, stirring regularly, for 2-3 hours until reduced to a thick, rich pulp. When the chutney is ready you should be able to draw a wooden spoon through it and see the base of the pan for a few moments.
Decant into warmed, sterilised jars, - just simply wash them and leave them in the oven for a while to blast them germ-free. Cover and label. Store in a cool dark place, allowing to mature for at least a month before using.
Makes approximately 10 jars.

Black chicken for Halloween, anyone?

2010-10-20T08:49:00.000-07:00

Yes it looks scary, but apparently black chicken meat is the next big thing. American chef Rick Moonen recently thrust black chicken into the spotlight after he made it into a mousse for his stint on Top Chef Masters (the US equivalent of Masterchef).

The black chicken he used is a Silkie hen - a variety of small hen which are prized for their fluffy feathers, large tassled Ugg-boot style feet and are much beloved of serious fowl fanciers who bring their beloved Silkies to shows up and down the country. I've often been told that Silkies are great layers and make lovely hens for home use, but I've never seen them on a plate before.

This particular Silkie has bones and flesh that are the shade of onyx; apparently it has a genetic combination that gives it it's unique colour, and it has a rich, gamey flavour to match.

It's a fantastic look for Halloween and I'd love to know if anyone in Ireland produces this Silkie for the pot, please let me know. Apparently the Chinese have for millenia eaten black chicken (which in China is called wu gu ji, or black-boned chicken). For them, putting the dark poultry into a stew or soup is a great remedy for curing colds, cramps, or a headache. This ties in with the Jewish tradition of using chicken soup to cure all sorts of sickness - apparently in the soup's droplets of fat lie unique qualities to boost immunity, so if someone tells you to eat chicken soup next time you're sick they may be on the right track.

So if chicken soup is a superfood, black chicken soup might even be better. Would love to get my hands on some of these black-fleshed Silkies, anyone with info, send it my way!

Have Walmart just discovered It's a Wonderful Life?

2010-10-14T10:08:00.001-07:00

Wal-Mart, the worlds biggest food retailer has just announced a programme of investment for sustainable agriculture and to increase the amount of food it buys from small farmers. This has huge implications, including for us here in Ireland. After all, ASDA are owned by Walmart and they are waiting just over the border for the right moment to pounce down here, and possibly buy out Dunnes. To say I'm shocked with this turnaround in policy is an understatement. Did Walmart suddenly discover a DVD of It's a Wonderful Life? Is their CEO about to die and feels he must leave a legacy to the world? Is it some giant PR game? Lets look at the details -

According to today's New York Times...

"The program is intended to put more locally grown food in Wal-Mart stores in the United States, invest in training and infrastructure for small and medium-sized farmers particularly in emerging markets and begin to measure the efficiently of large suppliers in growing and getting their produce to market.

Given that Wal-Mart is the world’s largest grocer, with one of the biggest food supply chains, any changes that it makes would have wide implications. Wal-Mart’s decision five years ago to set sustainability goals that, among other things, increased its reliance on renewable energy and reduced packaging waste among its supplies, sent broad ripples through product manufacturers.

Large companies like Proctor and Gamble redesigned packages that are now also carried by other retailers, while Wal-Mart’s measurements of environmental efficiency among its suppliers helped define how they needed to change.

“No other retailer has the ability to make more of a difference than Wal-Mart,” Wal-Mart’s president and chief executive Michael T. Duke, said at a meeting Thursday morning, according to prepared remarks. “Grocery is more than half of Wal-Mart’s business. Yet only four of our 39 public sustainability goals address food.”

Ok, back to me - it's still sounding too good to be true. Up until now it's been in Walmarts interest to squeeze suppliers on margin until they can barely survive and keep the price of food down. There have been mountains of PhDs written about the devastating effect they have had on everything from farming and the environment to the shape of small towns in America. I'm afraid I'm suspicious about all this but lets face it, their financial commitments are a drop in the ocean to their normal spend and the changes won't be fully met until the end of 2015.

Back to the New York Times -

In the United States, Wal-Mart will double the percentage of locally grown produce, to 9 percent, the company said. Wal-Mart defines local produce as that grown and sold in the same state. Still, the program is far less ambitious than in some other countries — in Canada, for instance, where Wal-Mart expects to buy 30 percent of produce locally by the end of 2013, and, when local produce is available, increase that to 100 percent.

In emerging markets, Wal-Mart has pledged to sell $1 billion of food from small and medium farmers (which it defines as farmers with fewer than 20 hectares or about 50 acres). It will also provide training for the farmers and their laborers on how to choose crops that are in demand as well as the proper application of water and pesticides.

Both in the United States and globally, Wal-Mart will invest more than $1 billion to improve its perishable supply chain. For example, if trucks, trains and distribution centers could help farmers in l Minnesota get crops to Wal-Mart more quickly, the result would be less spoiled food, a longer shelf life, and presumably more profit for both the farmer and for Wal-Mart. Wal-Mart said it planned to reduce food waste in emerging-market stores by 15 percent, and in other stores by 10 percent.

As it did in the environmental arena, it will begin creating an agriculture-specific index to figure out how to measure waste and efficiency among produce suppliers. It will be asking its biggest producers to answer questions about water, fertilizer and chemical use. The eventual goal is to include that information in a sustainability rating that customers would see, so they could decide whether to choose one avocado over another based on how much waste it had created. Wal-Mart would also use the information when it decides from whom to buy.

Finally, it announced specific sourcing guidelines, including that sustainably sourced palm oil be used in all its private-label products (the Wal-Mart house brands) and that any beef it sells not contribute to the deforestation of the Amazon because of cattle-ranching expansion.

“When we do this on Wal-Mart’s scale, we can deliver a global food supply that improves health and livelihoods around the world,” Leslie A. Dach, executive vice president for corporate affairs, said, according to prepared remarks.

While the over all goals include Sam’s Club, the warehouse-store wing of Wal-Mart, that division also has goals specific to it: It will increase sales of fair-trade certified produce and flowers by 15 percent, require all seafood suppliers to become certified as sustainable, and reduce food waste in clubs and distribution centers by 11 percent annually.

Environmental and agricultural specialists who had worked with Wal-Mart on the program said a few items stood out.

Beginning to measure how farms produced food, with the sustainability index, was a big step, they said.
“The impact of not just Wal-Mart but the entire food and agricultural sector starting to define what is acceptable practice in their supply chain, and then what is unacceptable practice, will move agricultural producers en masse,” said Marty Matlock, a professor of ecological engineering at the University of Arkansas. “The index represents a real number that will mean improvement on the ground: improving ecosystem health, soil health and food quality.”
“This is huge,” said Michelle Mauthe Harvey, project manager for the corporate partnerships program at Environmental Defense Fund. “Once people are asked those questions, if they haven’t been measuring, they measure more.”
“Knowing what’s embedded in the food before it ever leaves the farm is really significant, because then you can begin to embrace better practices, you can begin to identify opportunities for improvement.”
Ms. Harvey said the investment into infrastructure was also a big step forward.
“The majority of efforts have tended toward some local sourcing, and you had a fairly active effort around organics” among other grocers, Ms. Harvey said, but there was a gap between support for local farmers and how those farmers would find transportation or warehouses for their food.
“Our agricultural system over the last three to four decades, as we’ve moved to reliance on key locations like California and Florida,” she said, “we’ve made it very difficult for local farmers to actually get their food to market.”

Back to me - either way, this is mega news. What's motivating their decision is what's really of interest. Are they afraid that after the recent recall of billions of eggs in the US, swine flu and avian flu that they will eventually poison half of us with factory farmed food and leave the market with no alternative?

The cynical part of me says its all about market share. Walmart/ASDA know customers are getting more copped on about food and don't want something as cheap as chips if it might possibly kill them. So they're getting in there before it's too late. But let's watch this space, I get a large smell of greenwashing from this, Tesco have tried this game before and it doesn't work. Lets just say I'll keep a close eye on their progress and let you all know how its going. Walmart turning into environmental guardian angel? Yeah. Let's see what actually happens.

Red meat - the most intense nutrient-rich food available to human beings

2010-10-14T04:55:00.001-07:00

A new take on meat - my piece in today's Irish Independent

With celebrities from Paul McCartney to Star Wars actress Natalie Portman telling us to eat less meat, switching our shopping habits towards a vegetarian diet is one of the pieces of advice dominating the food world right now.

The rise in obesity levels combined with the unsustainable nature of beef production means that consumers are now encouraged to limit the quantity of meat they eat and turn instead to buying more vegetables, fish and meat alternatives.

But a new book by Irish butcher Pat Whelan argues that going back to the old-fashioned staples of our traditional diet; eating plenty of beef, pork and lamb is not only a healthy choice but one essential to our wellbeing. Whelan, who is the fifth generation of his family to be involved in meat production, runs a butcher shop in Clonmel, Co Tipperary and his knowledge of meat from farm to fork has earned him a Rick Stein Food Hero award.

In his book "An Irish Butcher Shop", Whelan argues that one of the reasons consumers find it easy to turn away from meat is a lack of knowledge on how to prepare it and an over reliance on inferior quality meat sold in plastic packaging in supermarkets.
He points out that beef should not be sitting in a pool of its own blood in a plastic box, and that everything about the mass production of meat and the way it's marketed to consumers is contrary to the core benefits and joys of eating it.

He argues that instead of turning away from meat, we should be appreciating its unique benefits -- red meat is the single most intense nutrient-rich food available to human beings. It's a crucial source of iron and trace elements such as zinc and copper, as well as vitamins B12 and B6.
Fat on meat is also something we shouldn't be afraid of -- it is fundamental to the taste and tenderness of the finished product.

Irish beef that is fed on pasture develops a good covering of fat which gives it great flavour. Because it's grass-fed, this makes the meat a high quality, close to organic product. Meat from grass-fed animals has up to four times more omega-3 fatty acids than meat from grain fed animals. It is also the richest known source of CLA or "conjugated linoleic acid"; an exceptional omega-6 fat which has been attributed with antioxidant and anti-cancer properties.
Most of the current opposition to beef consumption is related to cattle "feed lots" -- vast industrial-scale feeding units found typically in the US but now growing in popularity in India and China. Here animals live on a regime rich in maize and cereals which is not their natural diet.
As the appetite for beef grows across the world, we have to produce more cereals (wheat, barley and so on) to make the animal feed that cattle eat.

In many developing countries, feeding cattle (or chicken and pork in large quantities) takes other foods and water resources out of the food chain. Put simply, if everyone across the world adapted to the 'Western Diet', we'd run out of many foodstuffs, and water.

Farm animals also produce more than 10% of the world's greenhouse gas emissions but new approaches to the anti-meat argument such as Simon Fairlie's book -- Meat: A Benign Extravagance has swayed even the hardened environmentalists such as best-selling author George Monbiot back towards eating meat. Fairlie argues that it's specifically feed-lot production of cattle that reduces the world's food supply and that what we should be doing is eating meat but simply less of it.

In Ireland the situation is very different; cattle and sheep roam outdoors and eat grass which is in plentiful supply, so the beef and lamb we eat takes a minimum of inputs and is fairly sustainable.

However, most pigs and poultry in Ireland are farmed in intensive indoor units where the quality of the animals' lives is poor and again they are eating a cereal based diet.
Ireland comes closest to factory farming in these pig and chicken "units"; vast indoor sheds packed densely with animals.

The intensive production of chicken and pork over decades has also affected what we're getting on our plate -- pigs are slaughtered at about seven months old, and unfortunately quality and flavour of modern pork has been affected by the breeding of faster maturing pigs. So the consumer pays the price with an inferior-tasting product.

The bacon and rashers most of us eat have been injected with brine, and can often contain more water than meat content. So while we think mass-produced cheap rashers are good value, if they end up a third of their original size after cooking then it's a bad deal.

You might get better value from an artisan-produced pork that's more expensive raw but yields more meat when cooked. One way to keep both sides happy is to continue to eat meat but put more thought into what we buy.

Pat's book is full of recipes for everything from 'pot-roasted shoulder of lamb' to 'boozy rabbit with prunes'.

His advice is to vary what you buy from the old staples of sirloin, fillet, lamb cutlets, pork chops and rashers. Try new cuts and free-range or artisan products occasionally. The pay-off is in quality, taste and ultimately better value for money.

An Irish Butcher Shop by Pat Whelan, published by Collins Press. Suzanne Campbell's food blog is at www.basketcase theblog.blogspot.com
- Suzanne Campbell
Irish Independent