Food

To Market, To Market

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This…

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…becomes this

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Lunch at Ard Glas

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West Cork Pies

We are fortunate to have two excellent farmers’ markets on our doorstep: the Bantry Market on Fridays and the Skibbereen Market on Saturdays. We go, just to wander, not really needing anything – but we always emerge with a bag full. We love to buy carrots and parsnips covered in this morning’s earth, and scrub them up under the outside tap back at Ard Glas. The fish stall ladies will fillet a whole fish for you in a trice, and give you hints on the best way to cook it. The numerous homemade bread and cake stalls have started to load up their tables with mince pies and Christmas puddings. A new stall, West Cork Pies, sells the world’s yummiest Steak in Murphy’s Pie (Murphy’s is the Cork Guinness), Chicken and Leek Pie, and a variety of pasties. I am putting in an order for Christmas, to take up to Dublin. Our lunch often consists of cheese from the Bantry cheese stall, with Courgette and Ginger Chutney picked up in Skibb, and (I know I shouldn’t) a slice of chocolate biscuit cake from one of the baking stalls.

2012-10-20 11.06.45I love to chat to the stall owners and ask about their produce. Trouble is, it’s hard to walk away without buying something, so now I have two packets of nutritious seaweed from the charming seaweed man, and I’m not quite sure what to do with them. Fortunately, Robert rescued me after a long conversation with the wood carver before I felt I had to buy a headboard.

At Bantry there’s even a Fight for Irish Freedom stall, selling books and images and with rebel music blaring out from speakers. I stop here to wonder what all the English people who call West Cork home make of it all. We move on to the chickens, the colourful kilims, oh…and there’s the guy with the lovely French soap!

kilimsFreedom Stall

West Cork Food

When we chose West Cork, we had no idea we were landing in Foodie Heaven: or rather, a former Foodie Heaven. The recession has hit local producers and fine dining establishments, many of which have closed.

The ‘Fuchsia Brand’ website – Fuchsia is the ubiquitous hedgerow flower hereabouts – a kind of West Cork quality assurance organization for local produce, hasn’t been updated since 2008, although other websites point to farmers’ markets and food festivals. The West Cork Artisan Awards website explains the West Cork food signature thus: It is the individual flourish in an artisan’s way of working that brings forth the best in everything, whether it’s the best loaf of bread, the best farmhouse cheese, the best potatoes, or the best beef. This is the West Cork way: a way of life first, a business second.

Whatever about the wonderful local cheeses, the yoghurt and sausages, what we have found here is that food tastes fresh and homegrown in a way I had almost forgotten in Canada. In the presence of new potatoes I believe in God, and my faith has been given a boost here with a bag of potatoes from Saturday’s Skibbereen market freshly dug that morning. The woman at the fish stall filleted a whole plaice for us and we bought some tiny round squash, about the size of hurling sliotars (like an American baseball). Saturday night’s dinner – delicious!
An Irish staple is boiled bacon and cabbage. I adapted that idea to a hearty soup with a base of leeks and lashings of root vegetables (squash, parsnips, beets, carrots and potatoes) and a great slab of green (unsmoked) bacon. We’ve been eating it for days now, with brown soda bread and aged Gubeen cheese.
We have found excellent coffee almost everywhere we go, often accompanied by scones or lemon drizzle cake. On a recent trip to the Mizen we stopped at The Gateway Restaurant in Durrus for coffee and were seduced by their pear and chocolate tort: the perfect end to an afternoon meandering around the coast of West Cork .