FIONA McCANNOn a lifetime of eating
FOOD: MY DAILY comfort, my life’s pleasure, my port in a storm, the icing on the cake, my cake, my north, my south, my every cardinal point, my drug of choice, my constant companion, my cure.
Could it be plainer? Because, though I’ve little against the gargle or however else you might find your own elations, I myself get my highs from the daily delights of food, in all of its glorious forms. And I am amazed that more people don’t admit the same. Am I alone in my appetite for shoving consumables in my ever-ready gob?
Apparently so. I recently watched a film in which dozens of Irish people were asked about what it was that made them happy. Oh, friends, family, love, my children smiling, blah de blah, they all wittered. And not one of the lying swine said food – which omission near made me swallow my deliciously buttery croissant spread with homemade strawberry jam whole. What are these poor souls eating, I wondered, that they are being thus denied the manifold pleasures of food? If I was thus approached about my happiness factors, I could go on and on about the alchemy occurring when a soft, creamy brie meets the sharp of tart cranberry jam, or the simple joys of your common-or-garden Caprese salad. And let’s not forget plain old buttered toast (swoon), or the concoction my husband is eager to sell me on involving peanut butter and jam pressed into an old-style sandwich. And only then would I get around to the loved ones.
It is my nature, and it was, I am told, always thus. Even as a child, I exhibited an appetite entirely disproportionate to my size. Eating was my childhood superpower, and though one of the smallest in my class, my eating age was far, far ahead of my peers. I could put some serious food away without ever seeming to grow an inch, like some kind of magician midget defying the cynics by making outsized portions disappear with a mere smack of my tiny lips.
Adult portions were my Holy Grail, and I was always eager to prove that I could punch above my weight. As a seven-year-old wearing the pants of a five-year-old, I longed for the servings of a 17-year-old. The arrival of yet another child’s portion at the occasional family outing would bring tears to my eyes. Once, around the eight-year mark, a kind chef agreed to try me out with his famously unfinishable adult-portioned chicken Kiev. The poor man assumed it was another sad case of eyes bigger than belly. When I polished off that half a chicken, all in the dining room rose to their feet to applaud.
I grew up, then, with a burning love for food in a nation that never really made it a priority. Thankfully, I had a mother whose culinary imagination stretched far beyond the confines of this island, her menu uncharacteristically international. At a time when most of my friends dined daily on potatoes boiled, meats nondescript, vegetables anonymous, we had paella, Hungarian goulash, spaghetti Bolognese.
Yet, though my mother may well have been ahead of her time, she could only impart what the reaches of her imagination and my father’s more conservative tastes would countenance: the truth is, I didn’t know what pesto was until the ripe old age of 20, when on a J1 visa in the US, I took a jolly up to visit my uncle in Cleveland. On my first night in town, he served up a novel, greenish pasta dish for my delectation, and watched his hokey niece fall into rapture at this wondrous new taste sensation. Such was my fervour, he held back on the planned offer of a Reese’s peanut butter cup for dessert, for fear I’d start speaking in tongues.
Travelling and food go hand in hand for me. In Italy, my recollections of the uffizior the duomoare hazy at best, but boy, that truffle gnocchi will stay with me forever. In Japan, one temple ran blurrily into the next, but each sushi bite and tempura treat stands out in all its glory. It was only on my travels abroad when asked about my own national cuisine that I would start to flounder. Irish food: er, Guinness? Fish and chips? Brown bread and watery stew? Whatever the interesting reasons may be, I remember still my embarrassment at my country's lowly position in the rank of world cuisines. When asked, I would politely explain that we were not a culture much fixed on food – the drinkin' having taken over the atin' as a national pastime long ago.
Ah, but that was then – and this is a foodier now, and it feels as if this country is finally coming into its culinary own. Gone are the days of mediocre meat and two vapid veg, overcooked salmon and chewy profiteroles, replaced as they are by Murphy’s Ice Cream, Ballymaloe Relish, Gruel’s roast in a roll, Gallic Kitchen sausage rolls, Cashel Blue cheese, artisan bread, Llewellyn apples, garden rocket and sundry other delights making hay from our home produce at long last.
And presiding over all, the king of Irish cuisine has long been Kerrygold, a reminder that, even when we did so much else so badly, we could impress French fishermen named Andre with our dairy delights.
I was recalling Andre and his ilk when I visited the tiny gem that is the Cork Butter Museum last week, where I watched a short film about how a bunch of canny farmers with a cracking product banded together to make sure the world found out. It’s a good story with a happy ending, and one worth trying to replicate across the board as awareness of our own culinary riches grows. Plus, it’s all about butter which, in case I haven’t mentioned, goes really well on toast.