Foodies flock to culinary Cork

Go Feedback:With fabulous local produce and passionate businesses, sumptuous breaks in Ireland are on the menu, writes EMMA CULLINAN

YOU INSERT the hen into a cone, with its head emerging from the thin end, to stop its wings flapping. And who wouldn’t get into a flap if death was near? Darina Allen mimes slotting the bird into the death trap and then does a twist of the hand to show how you – simply – click the hen’s neck and it’s oven ready.

She’s demonstrating what takes place on her traditional skills course. Time was when most of the students would opt out of the gory hen-end-by-bend lesson but now the majority stay for the kill, says Allen (whose daughter has just married a butcher). It illustrates how we are getting closer to the true origins of our food – even the bloody bits – again.

But students probably also stay to learn harsh lessons because of Allen’s enthusiasm for her subject. It is catching. A group of us bound across the Ballymaloe gardens behind her halting, periodically, when she stops to explain things: why organic makes sense (sliding soil and plants between her fingers to illustrate) and why her family drinks raw milk. It prevents allergies, for one, she says. She tells of how a neighbour’s child was cured of eczema by drinking unpasteurised produce from the Allen animals.

The Radisson hotel just outside Cork city sent us to Ballymaloe, as part of a tour of Cork food highlights. It starts with its own chef, James Rendell, who won Munster Best Chef in last year's Good Eating Guide to Ireland. Rendell has worked with the Radisson in Little Island, Cork, for the past five years and previously cooked in the Lime Tree Restaurant in Kenmare, Deane's in Belfast and the Red House in Co Kildare.

Sated with good food, and softened on the surface and within by an expert facial and massage in the spa, we’re in perfect mood to explore.

Because Ballymaloe is so famous you’d think there is nothing new to know, but you’ll never be bored in Darina’s company and Ballymaloe is constantly pushing forward. I came away clutching pale blue eggs laid by a non-standard hen: the various breeds at Ballymaloe sport exotic feather cuts that must be candidates for hairstyle of the year.

Traditional food is on the menu at that other renowned Cork food spot, the English Market. Kay Harte of the Farmgate Café up by the roof of the market building, overlooking the stalls, tells us how her mother cooked with tripe, something she now serves herself (with onions) in the cafe, which sources most of its food from the market below.

In the recession it makes sense to return to eating cheap cuts of meat and local produce, says Harte, who also serves lamb’s liver and bacon with champ, and rock oysters.

And there in the market is tripe draped over butchers’ counters, looking like blankets of sheepskin, although it does not engender the same cosy feeling as wool. And I think, yes, we could eat cheap cuts . . . or we could just eat less meat.

Every city in Ireland should have a market like this. There are the smells and spreads of unpackaged produce that you don’t get in supermarkets and whose prices in specialist delicatessens can be scary.

There is something about having food laid out like this: the crunchy, salivating aroma of great slabs of cheese; the sawdusty, bloody scent of animal innards laid out beneath glass, the glowing oils (including rape seed oil from Donegal) and pebble beaches of eggs marching across countertops.

Most of the food here is local, something Kinsale restaurants have picked up on with their fish specialities. We go to one of them via a gin and quinine in the part-thatched Spaniard bar that takes its name from Armada battles in the locality.

There are more stories across the road in the Man Friday restaurant – so named because Robinson Crusoeauthor Daniel Defoe came to Kinsale in 1690. Philip and Joss Horgan opened the restaurant in 1978 and have weathered a few economic waves since. Yet the place still buzzes with people and conversation.

Man Friday looks set to run and run: the Horgans’ son Daniel recently returned from London where he worked in the Petersham Nurseries restaurant, which shines beneath a Michelin star. Daniel studied commerce after school but the cooking got him in the end. He began with a course at Ballymaloe a few years ago and worked in various places in England before “coming home to his da”, says Philip gleefully. Got to be good for Ireland.

What with the sun we’ve been feeling, and with such fabulous local produce and passionate businesses, sumptuous breaks in Ireland are on the menu.

Cork where to . . .

Radisson Blu Hoteland Spa, Ditchley House, Little Island, Cork, 021-4297000, radissonblu.ie/hotel-cork.

Man Friday Restaurant, Scilly, Kinsale, Co Cork, 021-4772260, manfridaykinsale.ie.

Ballymaloe Cookery School, Shanagarry, Co Cork, 021-4646785, cookingisfun.ie.

The Spaniard, Scilly, Kinsale, Co Cork, 021-4772436, thespaniard.ie.

The English Marketis open from early morning until 5.30pm from Monday to Saturday. Access from Princess St, Grand Parade and Oliver Plunkett St.