A new book of interesting recipes tells the stories of 15 heroes of the Co Cork artisan food world, writes Marie Claire Digby
There's lots to like about The Creators: Individuals of Irish Food, a new book celebrating the work of the dedicated people involved in Co Cork's burgeoning food industry. It doesn't confine its attentions to the better-known names who have made the county their home. Instead, a wide variety of unsung heroes of the artisan food world, including a mussel farmer, a seed saver and beef producer, organic veg growers, a day-boat fisherman, and a chocolatier, join some of the county's more recognisable cheesemakers and fish smokers on the pages of a delightful journey around Cork's bountiful pastures.
Author Dianne Curtin is a classically trained chef and food stylist who has been living in west Cork since 2002. Her recipes, which accompany the 15 profiles in three sections - "From Land and Field", "From the Waters", and "Special Delicacies" - meet the challenge of being interesting enough to make her readers want to cook them, without overshadowing the produce. But the photographs, intimate and atmospheric shots taken by her husband, Philip Curtin, make this handsomely produced book far more than just a regional food guide.
The individual stories are powerful, too, and there's a particular resonance to the profile of fish smoker Sally Barnes, whose business, Woodcock Smokery in Castletownshend, came under serious threat of closure due to the ban on drift-net fishing for wild salmon. Barnes refuses to smoke farmed fish, and things looked bleak at the start of the year, but, with a large dollop of the steely determination shared by all of the small producers profiled in this book, Barnes tracked down wild salmon from Scotland that met her exacting standards. "But I only managed to get hold of half what I had hoped to," she says.
Barnes is joined in "From the Waters" by Frank Hederman of Belvelly Smokehouse in Cobh, whose hot smoked eel is rated by TV chef Rick Stein as "one of the world's great delicacies, like caviar and oysters", as well as mussel farmer Colin Whooley, whose catch comes from the crystal clear waters of Roaring Water Bay, and by fisherman Cornie Bohane, whose reminiscences on the hardship of life at sea might make you think a little more reverently of the fish on your plate.
There's a modern-day Little House on the Prairie mixed with a dash of "creative cool" feel to the industrious Ferguson family of Gubbeen - farmer Tom, cheesemaker Giana, their son Fingal, who makes charcuterie products, and daughters Clovisse, who grows herbs, and Rosie, "who keeps everyone organised". These champions of the farmers' market movement are joined in "Special Delicacies" by Anthony Creswell of Ummera Smoked Products in Timoleague, whose smoked chicken is becoming as sought-after as his salmon; Bill Hogan and Sean Ferry, whose Gabriel and Desmond cheeses survived only after a protracted legal case; the Steele family, who make Milleens on the Beara Peninsula, and are credited as Ireland's first artisan cheese producers; Swiss-trained chocolatier Eve St Leger; and the master baker Declan Ryan of Arbutus Breads, whose retirement project (he was owner and head chef at the Michelin-starred Arbutus Lodge until 1999) has become an award-winning business.
"From Land and Field" tells the stories of vegetable growers Caroline and Eddie Robinson, who traded Kenya for Bandon; John Howard of Sunnyside Fruit Farm in Rathcormac, who goes to extraordinary lengths to limit chemical intervention; Eugene and Helena Hickey, who talk poignantly of the silence that envelops their Ballydehob duck and geese farm once the Christmas geese have been dispatched; Willie and Avril Allshire, whose Caherbeg pork tastes like pork used to; and Madeline McKeever, the beef farmer and seed saver whose campaign to secure legal recognition for market trading rights in Skibbereen has benefited small towns all over the country. They're a passionate bunch. You'll enjoy catching glimpses of how they live and work, and perhaps using their produce, fashioned with love and care, to create your own little miracle.
The Creators: Individuals of Irish Food, by Dianne Curtin, is published in hardback by Atrium, an imprint of Cork University Press, €29.95