At the Edge of Ireland (17 page)

“Well, it's pretty accurate. We played around with so many different types—heating the curds to different temperatures, trying a blue or an Emmenthaler style, but eventually we let the milk guide us, and suddenly one day we got this really well-balanced cheese using a salt wash and aging for at least a month. We realized that if we tried to do more than two types, we'd likely make a real hash of it. Too many different spores floating about…Come on into the cold room and you'll see how it looks today.”

We followed him across the unevenly paved farmyard into what looked like a big white metal box—a giant refrigerator. And there were the cheeses—scores of them—the larger kilo-size rounds being packed into pizza-style cardboard boxes and others—the half-pound rounds—neatly wrapped in transparent cellophane and colorfully labeled.

We, of course, sampled the product, and it was indeed superb—creamily tangy with a flavor that lasted and ended on an enticingly sweet note, almost like a sip of fresh-crushed apple juice.

As we sampled and smiled, I remembered something I'd noted in the
Saveur
article that might explain why it's taken so long for the art of cheese making and fine dining as a whole to be revived, recognized, and rewarded here in Ireland: “The whole idea of eating for pleasure was not accepted until very recently…It seemed almost sinful to approach the table with sensual gratification in mind.” (And it took a long time for memories of a constant diet of potatoes and then almost nothing at all during the terrible famines of the mid-1800s to fade.)

I reminded Norman of that phrase in the article—“a delicious work in progress.”

“That's so right. There are great changes, but they're all very recent. We were just about the first of the new farm-based cheese makers in Ireland,” he told us as we stood salivating over the samples. “There are now over fifty, and although you'll think I'm showing off, many resulted from courses that Veronica taught—y'know—the best names—Gubbeen from Schull, Cashel Blue, and plenty of others. Before that, all you could find in most local shops were those ghastly little foil-wrapped triangles of half-synthetic processed glop. Which is surprising, because way back in the seventh century, when Ireland boasted some of the most renowned centers of culture and learning in Europe, it was the monks at our monasteries here who taught the art of cheese making to the Europeans! And particularly the French, d'ya believe!”

“The French?” I almost choked on my cheese sample. “How have you managed to live so long if you preach such heresy? I'm amazed they haven't come over and guillotined you and stuck your bearded head on your own gatepost!”

Norman laughed. “Yeah. It's been a bit of a touchy point with a few of our French friends, but I'm a fairly good professor and I've done my homework and it's a well-substantiated fact. Unfortunately, after the seventh century, though, the Vikings raided our monasteries—destroyed an amazingly sophisticated culture here—and the poor old Frenchies were on their own after that. And,” he added with a giggle, “I suppose they've done pretty well all in all, considering…”

We left bearing a fine supply of cheeses for guests from the USA and England who had threatened to inundate us during the coming weeks. Norman followed us to the car and invited us back.

“Deal!” said Anne. “Even though I know you only want us back to buy more of your cheeses…”

“Of course,” said Norman, “y'think I enjoy just raconteurin' here all day long with complete strangers?”

“Yes!” I said, and his beard shook with laughter. “I think you do. And I think you're pretty proud to be a part of all this gastronomic renaissance around here too.”

 

T
HE
S
AVEUR
ARTICLE IN
particular had made me realize how, in this little corner of Ireland from here to Cork along the coast, you've got a significant kind of culture-saving trend going on today. There seem to be a remarkable number of people down this way making cheeses, building smokehouses, aging meats, creating sausages and salamis, curing salmon, milling flours, raising heirloom animals and vegetables, and generally restoring artisanal excellence in the southwest.

Norman smiled when I said this. “It's no wonder they call this region the ‘California of Ireland'! If you go to places like the English Market in Cork City—fabulous experience—you'll see all their wonderful wares spread out on stalls under a roof of leaded glass and shaped like an inverted ship's keel. Beautiful! Same thing at the weekly Bantry Market just down the road from Glengarriff. Lovely place—fabulous artisanal things from the local farms and cheeseries. The Cashel Blue cheeses, Jetta Gill and her Durrus cheeses, Giana and Tom Ferguson with their Gubbeen cheeses made on their farm on the Mizen Head peninsula and their son Fingal and his beautiful spicy sausages and cured meats—best bacon you have ever tasted! Then there's Sally Barnes and her Woodcock Smokery and Frank Hederman's smokery. Then you've got Maja Binder and Olivier Beaujouan, who collect and sell different seaweeds, make cheeses, and sometimes combine the two! A crazy but gorgeous idea!”

“And from what I understand,” I said, “it was all started up by pioneers like Myrtle Allen and her family, and of course you and Veronica—who seem to have helped a lot of people get started in cheese making.”

“Well, we all sort of help one another, and we still have quite a way to go. As the writers of that
Saveur
piece said, we're still ‘a delicious work in progress.'”

But every culinary initiative helps nudge Ireland toward its gastronomic wonderworld potentials. Myrtle Allen's daughter-in-law, Darina Allen, in addition to being a renowned chef, author, and TV personality, is also famous for her “foraging walks” from her Ballymaloe cookery school in Midleton, County Cork (not far from Ireland's famous Jameson whiskey distillery). She's encouraging many to revert to “the old ways” of food collection. These walks inevitably involve battles with stinging and scratching plants, peat bogs, midges, wasps, and the occasional irate bull objecting to overt trespassing on his harem-territory. But intrepid participants can return with bagfuls of wild mushrooms, elderberries and blackberries, wild crab apples, damsons, nettles, watercress, sorrel, rocket, samphire, and carrageen moss (a seaweed ideal for aromatic puddings). All these are brought home by the foragers, rejoicing and backslapping, to be transformed into jams, jellies, soups, salads, and—in the case of nettles occasionally—a fine pungent beer that makes most pub brews seem pale and pallid in comparison.

And the meals these ingredients inspired were magnificently man-size. Cooks had little time for the overly decorative miniportions of the nouvelle cuisiners (as Saul Bellow once grumpily remarked—“I see the nouvelle, but where's the cuisine?”).

 

“O
H—WE'VE BEEN DOING
all that gathering for generations,” said eighty-six-year-old Nellie O'Connolly in a dismissive tone.

I met her by chance in the Hawthorn Bar in Glengarriff on a rainy day when I'd planned to visit the Garinish Island—Beara's sumptuous Italian gardens—but didn't.

“In the bad times—and they were mostly bad times—you had to dig deep in the hedgerows and field edgings t'get the stuff y'needed. Meat was very rare—maybe a bit once a week if you were lucky. Mor'n likely, once a month. And it was always just the end bits—pigs' ears, snouts, tails…oh! And those lovely
crúibíní
. Always the
crúibíní
—the trotters. Hind ones were best—they had more fat and meat. Nice and salted too, to bring out the flavor. Then y'simmered them up in a big pot with some herbs and spices—allspice was very popular—and when they started to fall apart you could begin nibbling and sucking on 'em—Oh, so so good they were! Or you could do 'em the ‘Frenchie' way by splittin' 'em after cookin', fryin' 'em up covered in bread crumbs, and served 'em with a mustard, brown sugar, and vinegar sauce. Oh—and a whiskey or two. Always a nice warm whiskey to wash all the lovely stuff down. Oh, Lord! All Hail Mother of Jesus! I can taste 'em like it was yest'd'y. Y'can keep all y' fancy joints and chops. Give me a plate of hot
crúibíní
an' that's all I need for the day…or forever!”

“You're making me very hungry,” I said.

Nellie laughed. Her gypsylike, sun-scorched, very wrinkled face broke into a wide smile. Her eyes were witchy with icicle glitters—but not unfriendly. I had no idea who she was or where she lived. I suppose I should have dug a little deeper, but I felt it didn't really matter. When you're talking food—food is really all that counts. And she did that with a captivating enthusiasm, rubbing her wrinkled hands together furiously as she spoke.

“The thing that fascinates me is how much a whole country survived mainly on
praties
—potatoes. From what I've read, you had to send most of your meat—your beautiful grass-fed beef and lamb—off to England to make enough to live on here. It sounded like potatoes were really all you had left.”

“Well,” said Nellie with a sad smile, “that's true. But we're a canny lot, y'know. Leastways we can be when we have to be, and we certainly got pretty nifty with the old potato. Many times that's about all we had to eat. You're right. ‘Specially during the Troubles with the British from around 1914 to 1921. Real difficult times, those were. When y'think that eatin' up to five pounds o' potatoes a day each, if you were lucky—even y'r typical poor
cottie
and all those other landless laborers—y'had to do something a bit extra with 'em. Most of it was pretty basic. Boil 'em up and serve 'em with
anlann
—a buttermilk dip—or onions and a bit of mustard. Some added a meat bone or a few strips of salted herring to the pot to give a bit of flavor. It was strange, though. A lot thought fish—'specially herring—was rubbish food. They called it ‘paupers' porridge,' which is a bit daft when y'think how poor they were themselves! If they'd have liked fish a bit more, they might have got through the great famines of the mid-1800s. Much better than dying by the hundreds of thousands from starvation. Anyhow, where was I? Oh yeah, so—when all the potatoes were cooked, you'd pick one out of the
sciob
, a basket made of sally saplings—some people even grew an extra-long thumbnail to use as a kind of fork. And then you'd peel it as fast as you could so you could grab another one and then you'd dip it in the mix. And you'd go like the devil. Otherwise you'd lose your share. We'd not s' much in the way of manners in those days, I'm thinkin'!”

“But weren't there all kinds of other ways of serving the potatoes? I'd tried something called colcannon in Dublin. It was potatoes and cabbage mixed. A bit like England's bubble and squeak but not fried. Just lovely and creamy…”

“If it was in Dublin, they usually add some onions and even boiled parsnips or turnips—but you know what the secret is to really enjoy it? When you cream and fluff your potatoes, you use boiling milk before you mash them. Then you add the cabbage cooked down to a soft mush. Then you make a hollow in a big spoonful of colcannon on y'plate and pour in some melted butter and then spoon up the potatoes and butter together…just gorgeous.” Her wrinkled fingers were flailing away now.

“My hunger is really getting worse.”

“Y'wanna hear a song? Something my mother used to sing when she served colcannon?” Nellie didn't wait for a response. She just sang this little ditty softly and slightly off-key. I was utterly charmed:

“Now did you ever spoon colcannon

Made with yellow cream

With kale and praties blended

Like a picture in a dream?

And did you scoop that hole on top

To hold that melting lake

Of our clover-flavored butter

Which dear mother used to make.”

“Beautiful!” I gushed.

But Nellie ignored the compliment. She was deep into potato lore. “'Course, colcannon's pretty easy. But it was always fun serving it around Halloween. You hid a ring and a thimble inside. The one who got the ring was ripe for marriage, but the poor girl with the thimble would be a spinster forever. Although, to be honest—from what I've seen of Irish marriages, she most likely was the luckier one of the two!”

Nellie chuckled at her own joke, then coughed and continued. “
Bruisy
is a bit stronger as a potato dish because you're adding nettles. They have to be young shoots and well cooked to kill the sting. And lots of white pepper. They said it was a very healthy dish because of all the iron. I've tasted some done with spinach, but it's not as good. And then there's
champ
—a bit like colcannon and another popular dish at Halloween. You're supposed to leave bowls of it out for the fairies—usually under hawthorns or whitethorn trees, the favorite trees of fairies. You could add various things to be fluffed up into the potatoes—I use chives, peas, and browned chopped-up onions—and again, you put that hole in the middle with the melted butter. The secret was not so much in the recipe but in the tasting. You could add in whatever you wanted, so long as it tasted good. Like that old saying ‘To cook without tasting is like painting a picture with closed eyes!'”