MONITOR:A Cork event aims to re-introduce the Irish diner to the Irish farmer, writes HUGO ARNOLD
CORK WEEK IS something generally associated with sailing – a biennial regatta held regularly since 1978. Next week, there is a new version, however: a week-long celebration by a number of restaurants in the city and surrounding area which use local produce. Study any menu around the country and a question often difficult to answer is – where do all the ingredients come from?
Good Food Ireland, the organisation behind the Cork Week initiative, hopes to rebuild the link between farmers and consumers. The idea is to focus on restaurants and cafes where, for example, the goats’ cheese comes from goats raised in Ireland and the beetroot is pulled from Irish soil, along with the potatoes – and, preferably, not too long before they appear on the table.
This may all seem obvious, but restaurants, like every other business at the moment, are struggling to keep costs down, and buying Irish is not always economical. But the businesses involved in this initiative are first and foremost about being Irish, certain in the belief that quality is to be found locally.
Order a “producer plate” in any of the participating establishments in the coming week, along with a glass of wine, and you will be charged €15. Making it one plate of food is an inspired and graphic way to get us, the end user, to be a little more focused, too. Divide that €15 up and think not just about the plate and glass, but the table you are sitting at – the chair, heating, light and the service. Your €15 has to cover all of that before you even think about the food, or the kitchen and resources required to cook and serve it.
At the Farmgate Café in the English Market (there is a sister establishment in Midleton of the same name), you can enjoy a plate of Millstreet venison casserole with smoked bacon. It takes months of feeding and caring to get that piece of meat from farm to fork. That Millstreet is only down the road helps, but you begin to see that, out of the €15 you are putting on the table, the Irish farmer isn’t getting an awful lot of it.
The truth is, nobody is, not even the owner of Farmgate Café. It requires huge skill and effort, a real passion and commitment, daily dedication and ruthless focus on consistency, to deliver this kind of cooking at these kind of prices, using Irish ingredients.
There is a quiet sea change going on between small producers and some restaurants around the country, and part of Cork Week is to try to disseminate information. Swapping notes, spreading the word, finding out who is doing what, how and why, is all part of any industry, but curiously, not among restaurateurs.
There are some keen to promote the image of Ireland as the “Food Island”, to encourage food tourism, as if it can somehow be conjured up from the earth. Great swathes of the country serve up dull, tasteless, bland, internationally-sourced rubbish. Which is why an initiative such as Cork Week is so important. It shows what can – and is – being done in small, isolated pockets. We need more, please. harnold@irishtimes.com
See goodfoodireland.ie for participating establishments
