Day 3 Eating Only Homegrown for Aisling

Showed my ignorance when I opened the bag of Macroom Oatmeal this morning and was surprised to see finely ground oats. I was expecting oats to-make-a-meal-from……(cue American accent)

So a new porridge experience altogether. Reminded me of Readybrek in a rush before school, but ten times tastier.

 Made those flapjacks – killbeggan oats, butter, honey, orchard syrup, fresh apple. They’re pretty much all eaten already.

Came home for lunch and Luca cooked us up a lovely ham and gubbeen cheese omelette. Still loving Deirdre's mixed leaves.

Stopped into Sheridans and Magills while running a few erands in town. Realised I havnt even began to touch on the wealth of amazing Irish cheeses we have. Picked up some black pudding which I’m looking forward to.

My slump today came when I met a friend for coffee – I don’t normally drink a lot of tea or coffee anyway, so no problem there. It was watching her eat a chocolate pastry twist thing that killed me. Trying to do this eat only irish absolutely 100% means no sugar. Some feckin idiot decided to close down the last sugar refinery in Ireland in 2008 and so now ALL our sugar is imported. Even if it says Suicra on the pack.

Essentially I’m on a diet. A wheat free, sugar free diet. And instead I’m putting butter on everything.  Buttered porridge for breakfast tomorrow? Sure why not. But like any normal person on a diet, you crave the bejaysus out of what you cant have. I’ve been substituting my sugar, so far successfully, with honey and orchard syrup, but I have to say I did get a bit depressed today.

....Until I came home from football (yes, I play ladyball on Wednesdays) and flatmate had whipped up some AMAZING fishcakes with last nights leftover mash. (Macroom oatmeal instead of breadcrumbs, Irish salmon) Dollop of thyme and chive yoghurt, which was so delisiously tangy that I could have sworn she put lemon in it. WINNING!

Day 3 of Don't Eat Any Irish for Oisin

Yesterday's brekkie was so freakin' deadly, there was no way I couldn't give it another lob. Especially as I barely made a dint on the massive tub of Turkish yoghurt I got the other day, which, incidentally, only cost me €2.50. So it was yoghurt, toasted sesame seeds, currants and date syrup again this morning. I could get quite used to that, even if the very thought of toasted seeds first thing in the morning sounds horribly Californian. But it's at moments like these where I remind myself that even hardasses like Clint Eastwood are from the Sunshine State and he's a total veggie. If it's good enough for Dirty Harry.

As I had said previously, I am using this reverse of the Eat Only Irish as a way to hunt down new tastes and products. With the Clanbrassil Street Halal shops being part of my standard shopping experience anyway, I thought it best to venture further afield. To boldly go, where very few Dubs appear to go to anymore - Moore Street. Whenever I hit the food stores there, Irish people seem to be very few and few far between. FX B's Butchers there is a classic example.They are always really busy, but never with locals. And they flog pieces of meat that Irish people wouldn't know what to do with any more, like hearts, necks, tongue, oxtail, etc. For me, this is always a welcome sight and gives me a certain feeling of optimism. While the Irish have had their taste buds and culinary sense of adventure homogenized by pre-packaged fillets and burgers, there are Filipinos, Cantonese, Hungarians, French, Poles, Brazilians flocking to FX B's on a daily basis, snapping up the cuts of meat  that we sadly no longer consume. I reckon that it's these very people who we should be talking to about our future food habits. It's these very people who can help us to de-industrialize our palettes and help us economize our grub budgets.They have the know how, the passion for great food and flavour and they are here living amongst us.

However, seeing as FX B's predominately stocks Irish bred meat (seasonal foreign game does hit their counter I'm told), I can't really venture in there this week and chat to the regulars. So the other day, I stopped off at the basement food hall on Moore St (it has another entrance on Parnell Street) to stop off at a Polish butchers.

I

 I stocked up on their Silesian sausages which would be similar in taste to say Cumberland sausies. They are made and packaged in Poland. While I was on Moore Street, I stopped off in a large Asian deli to try and find something I had never tasted before. That's where I found these little bad boys, golden egg aubergines. 

They came here from India, via the UK and are about the size of plums. I  sliced and char-grilled two of them and stuck them in a Turkish flatbread wrap with some tomatoes, Breton cream cheese and loads of the walnut dip I made yesterday. A bi-winning lunch. 

The sausages were put into a ragu that my dearly beloved made for the whole family tonight for dinner. It tasted darn good but every mouthful I took in only made me think how much better it would be with Hick's sausages in there instead. 

Day 2 of Don't Eat Any Irish Week for Oisin

Tuesday's biggest challenge for me is just getting out of bed. I have a serious dose of MANflu that's really knocked me for six. For someone whose appetite knows no natural boundaries, I always know when I'm sick when my desire to eat is lost. Day 2 of Don't Eat Any Irish started off for me like that - cue the sappy violins and minor chords on the piano.

Eventually, I brushed off my self pity and knuckled down to some breakfast. A bowl of extremely rich Turkish yoghurt with some toasted sunflower seeds, currants and a nice dollop of date syrup. The yoghurt is 10% cream and tastes great even on it's own, however, definitely not something that you would see on a weightwatchers menu. For me, this is a success for the food experiment as I never would have tried this otherwise. I am very much a toast/porridge/bagel/stealing some of my daughters' cereal in the morning kinda guy.

I got all of these ingredients in the Turkish shop on Liffey Street and my local Halal shop on Donore Avenue. The makers of the date syrup should be done under the trade descriptions act as it is actually produced in Holland, just sayin'. This gave me enough energy to do a couple of hours in the office and to moan about my MANflu with my colleagues and anyone I answered the phone to.


For fear of spreading my MANgerms around the Lower Leeson Street area, I take a half day and return home. This meant that I could spend some more time on Lunch and that was made up of Turkish filo pastries stuffed with a feta like cheese served with a spicy walnut and pomegranate dip. The pastries were again bought on Liffey Street and are pre-made. You have to deep fry them. On their own, they're very boring. But they go very well with the walnut dip and scatterings of flat leaf parsley.

 The dip brought me no end of joy, to such an extent that it felt like a miraculous elixir and my MANflu felt like it was on it's way out. It's a modified recipe that I got from a Turkish cook book a friend gave me. If you want to give it a lash, blitz the following up and get stuck in:
150 grams of walnuts, 2 teaspoons of harissa, 150 ml of extra virgin olive oil, 3 tablespoons of pomegranate syrup, 1 clove of garlic, 1 teaspoon of salt, 100 ml of pomegranate juice, 1 teaspoon of cumin seeds, 1 tablespoon of lemon juice and 2 tablespoons of breadcrumbs.

As nice as this was, it did not have the healing properties I initially thought it did. So at half six I decided to skip dinner and hit the hay.  Are you feeling sorry for me yet?

Day 2 Eat Only Irish for Aisling

 Should I just start with the meals.....?

Ok

Breakfast came in the shape of a bowl of Yoghurt and some stewed rhubarb. I used honey and orchard syrup instead of sugar in the rhubarb. I had planned this. Did up the rhubarb yesterday evening and have enough left for another breakfast, a snack or a crumble or something during the week.

Lunch I didn't planned. Thank god I was working from home though when I realised it was quarter to two and hadn't eaten yet. Had a slight moment of panic that was quickly quashed after opening the fridge and seeing some left over spud from last night and a bag of greens that I had bought from Deirdre and Norman in the Co-op on Saturday (lovely organic mixed leaves). A quick hop down to the butcher for a pork chop and that was that. When I asked the butcher if the pork was Irish his eyes widened and he kind of laughed when he said 'Of course!'

Dressing for the salad: Apple balsamic vinegar, rapeseed oil, sea salt and kelp

Checked in with the flatmate for a roast chicken dinner and she was up for it. Dunnes was offering me five different types of chicken, all of them supposedly Irish ranging from €3 to €6, I went with the free range from Castlemahon for €5.59 and sincerely doubted that the '2 for €6 chickens' were actually Irish. The 'friend' came over again and so did another friend. The former was delighted to eat the flowers from the chives for the first time and so was put in charge of 'chive-flower-sprinkling on mash'. Roasted parsnips on the side. yum

The rest of the day was spent trying to track down a 100% Irish Flour (in between real work of course). I knew already that the big guns like Odlums were importing part of their wheat so I made a couple of calls to the smaller guys and ended up on the blower to Donal Creedon from Macroom Oat Mills, the only FULLY Irish Mill, as far as I could find. 

'How long have you been at it?'

'Sure my mother's mother and her mother were at it since the 1830s,' says he. With the West Cork brogue.

'And you're 100% Irish?'

'We're 100% Irish. But sure when the harvest is bad you have to import. Two years ago was a very bad year so we had to buy in. But this year we're fully Irish.'

I thought back to that pissy summer when it infamously rained for 60 days straight. The unfortunate reality for wheat in Ireland. Speaking to Joseph from Ballybrado, they've tried for years to grow organic Irish wheat but you just cant get a high enough protein content to mill a good flour, because we don't get enough sunshine. Their oats are 100% Irish though.

I managed to find the Macroom Oatmeal in the Hopstack in Rathmines but no flour. My thoughts of a ham sandwich at some stage during the week were drifting away. What I did come across on my trip to Rathmines though was hunger, followed by my second panic attack of the day. Shit. What do I do now? It was ok at home earlier with the safety of my clever planning Irish food bounty to fall back on. I had my first realisation of how utterly impossible this would be on a national scale on a day to day basis. However, Fallon & Byrne tied me over with an apple until I got home. Stocked up on some Atlantic Sea Salt while I was there, some apple juice and the parsnips for dinner.

Gonna have to make some flapjacks tomorrow in case of a repeat emergency.

Day 1 of Eat Only Irish for Aisling

This is great! I'm really enjoying this.

I did have to put a little effort into preparing for today though. I can't just pop down to the local halal shop like Oisin over there. I live in Dublin 8 aswell, so I've a real mix of local and ethnic shops around me that I buy from all the time, but that means nothing really this week, since the 'local' shops don't necessarily sell local products. Hence, the need for a bit of forward thinking.

Myself and Luca (one of the other ForFoodsSake-ers) run the cafe in the Dublin Food Co-op on weekends so after work on Saturday I came home with 2 boxes of great items like pak choi, sea veg seasoning, balsamic vinegar, cream cheese, rapeseed oil, apple juice and endless amounts of greens.

Ready for Monday!

Breakfast was a dawdle - Porridge (made with Kilbeggan Oats) and Highland's Orchard Syrup. Delish.

Lunch posed a few more problems.....and probably will continue to do so for the rest of the week.
Luca and I went down to Greystones for lunch in the Happy Pear. Love that place, they always have a great selection of locally grown veg.....but whataya know....not today. Most of their orders are due to come in tomorrow and the season hasn't started yet for all the good stuff like tomatoes, courgettes, etc. I found myself salivating over what everyone else was going to have for lunch, especially when I went into the kitchen and saw the pot of amazing aubergines bubbling away on the hob. So after a shot of wheatgrass, I went about to scrubbing together some munch. Results: sauteed mushrooms, with wicklow cheddar and fresh onion and broccoli sprouts. The lads even let me cook it up in the kitchen (it helps to have friends in culinary places). Punnet of strawberries for dessert.

temptation

strength

sustenance

Dinner was by far the winner....

Despite some severe curveballs by flatmate and friend trying to steer me off track, Ireland pulled through in the end and came up trumps with: 

chunky chips - roasted in rapeseed oil, rosemary from me mammy's garden and sea salt and kelp seasoning

striploin steak - seasoned with the sea veg again, point of contention for the others in the beginning due to lack of black pepper but it was frickin gorgeous 

'Irish' bearnaise - replaced the shallots with leeks, white wine vinegar with cider vinegar, tarragon with a mix of chives and sage.

Best steak dinner I've had in months.

Day 1 of Don't Eat Any Irish Week for Oisin

As you may or may not be aware, I will be adhereing to a polar opposite exercise of what my For Food's Sake colleague Aisling will be doing for Eat Only Irish week. She is sticking to what's made here in Ireland and I will be chowing down on all things non Irish. Why did I decide to take this approach? There are three main reasons:

1. Aisling already said she was going to do it and I didn't see the point in the two of us conducting the same experiment.
2. We all thought it would be interesting for one of us to find out what day to day products we consume that aren't from domestic soil.
3. I am a spineless chicken-shit and would probably have multiple, melodramatic mickey fits if I had a whole week without rice, pasta, noodles and all things lovely and foreign.

But I would also like to add that, living in Dublin South Central, means I have a wealth of Arabic, Polish, Asian, Slovakian and Afro Caribbean food stores and delis near me. And I thought this would be a good way to discover what they can offer up to a local greedy pig like myself. So here's what my first day has dished up:

- Breakfast - grilled polenta with parmesan cheese. Both ingredients were Italian.
- Lunch - Mexican sarnie. Bread was from UK, cheese was from Holland, veg was Spanish.
- Dinner- Home made pizza. Dough was made with Italian flour, English yeast, sugar and salt. Sauce was made with Lidl's passata and tomatoes which are supposedly Italian and Spanish garlic. Toppings are aubergine from Holland, courgettes from Spain and spicy salami from Germany. 

I stopped by a Turkish shop on Liffey Street today, so tomorrow's menu for me will have a more Eastern flavour...

Chewin the cud

So, Aisling and Oisin, two of the For Food's Sake organisers, have decided to take on the challenge, albeit from two entirely opposing ends of the table.

Aisling is going to be eating only Irish produce for the week and Oisin is going to be eating only NON Irish produce (he may have got off lightly but does have the added strain of having to feed a family of four).

They'll be documenting the week here on the blog....looking forward to seeing how they get on.

A David versus Goliath story

Ever seen ‘Food. Inc’? Or one of Hugh Fearnley Whittingstall's Channel 4 rantings about the immense buying power that supermarkets all too often bully their producers with? It proved a hot topic at the first For Food's Sake discussion in The Sugar Club, when the audience of over 100 hungry punters burst into spontaneous applause as Pat Smith, General Secretary of the Irish Farmers' Association, focussed in on the relationship between producers, consumers and supermarkets. 

“Challenges that both the consumer and the farmer need to tackle is the equity in the food supply chain. It’s definitely going against the farmer who spends two years rearing an animal to see all that effort put in then for the consumer to pay five to six times more than the farmer got.”
And it's not just the farmers who lose out, as Pat explained: 

“I think that the consumer and the farmer get a bad deal, there is too much power being invested in a very small retail multiple. I think consumers and food production will be threatened if the current situation continues.“

Pat was quick to state the strength of Irish farmers despite the unfair position they have been put under as well as the economic climate.

“We are competitive, the farming community didn’t get the whip of the Celtic Tiger but we are resilient. We are as competitive as any producers in the world and we will continue to stay that way.”

Food journalist, Suzanne Campbell then silenced the crowd with shocking facts about the unjust distribution of wealth along the Irish food chain. For instance when you divide the profit of a chicken the farmer only gets 10%, the contractor will get 30%-40% while 50% goes to the retailer.

“The growers get 58c a bird, the cost of a packet of crisps for a live animal that is born on the farm. The retailers are getting so much more. So every single item you buy the person at the beginning at the chain gets the least amount and in terms of Irish producers its [it's] particularly bad. Irish milk can go down to 30c a litre; milk is basically cheaper than bottled water.  Again it is a live animal, it has to give birth, be fed and housed.”

 For more on this, check out Suzanne’s investigative report on plight of Irish chicken producers: http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/features/2011/0329/1224293291679.html.

Suzanne reinforced Pat's points about the perils of the unfettered buying power of supermarkets. The likes of Tesco and Dunnes can create a one sided affair at the negotiations table and it’s not in the farmers favour.

“They force discounts on the farmers, the supermarkets will take X and leave Y, then the next time they will take it off someone else. Contracts are verbal, nothing is written down. They force buy-one get-one-free deals that can cost the producer hugely.”

It is obvious that changes need to be made to protect farmers in Ireland along with the consumer from the industrial might of supermarkets.

“There were several moves made by the old government but it will be interesting what the new coalition will do about the inaccuracies,” concluded Suzanne. “As long as the consumer has to pay more the supermarkets will keep control on how they price things and their dynamic in the food chain will continue to be too dominant.”

Finally a good news story

It’s not too often these days we get some good news so let’s embrace what was revealed at the first For Food’s Sake evening. The Irish food industry is one area in Ireland that is experiencing growth and it turns out things are looking pretty good for artisan producers and farming. 

The man behind Connemara Smokehouse, Graham Roberts, explains why artisan producers are succeeding despite a cost conscious country.

“How come small businesses are doing well as a result of the tough times? Well people are working very hard for their money and they want to make sure when they go and buy something that they are getting good food for their money. “

When a small business starts doing well it benefits the surrounding areas in more ways than one.

“In our business we have seventeen different employees in a small area and we’ve got all those people bar one who have young families of two children upwards. That’s a fantastic thing when you think that a small business can affect 20 to 30 people's lives in a positive.” 

Graham Roberts addresses the crowd

Una Fitzgibbon, Director of Marketing Services for Bord Bia added to the good news but was aware that it is still a difficult time for any producer.

“The artisan food group grew from 50 firms in 1995 to 400 firms today. The response we get varies, some have had a tough year, others are doing okay. The biggest challenge that artisan producers currently face is in cash flow but there is a local market and by in large they are strong and doing well."  Una added that our food industry has become a strong sector in Ireland thanks to a growing support. “There is a new informal network emerging in the industry itself where people are interested in investing into small companies.”

Suzanne Campbell, journalist and food blogger was quick to add her insider experience to the matter:

“You have entrepreneurs who have a relatively big company who are then interested in smaller companies in a variety of ways, either through working co-operatively or through formal networking. It has become an industry that has become self resilient over the years."

“There has been a 7 per cent rise since 2008 in enquiring about new food businesses. In recessionary times it’s quite remarkable. It is a growing market for artisan and niche areas, whether it’s a stall in Georges Street Arcade or selling a commodity to another manufacturing centre.”

Farming is also an area that has been growing; we supply the UK with 3 out of 5 of their mushrooms while Ireland produces over 15% of the world’s infant formula. Pat Smith, General Secretary of the Irish Farmer’s Association pointed out why he thinks Ireland is still a fighting force when it comes to food.

“The one thing I learned from the farming community, we are just short of 90,000 farmers and a lot of these people are entrepreneurial and innovative. There are many companies like the Kerry Group who are well managed business and have seen constant growth. We have very strong things to sell from the quality of our product, the animal welfare standard and the environment standard.”

 So there we have it, a cheerful start to what we hope will be an ongoing debate – but is this good news justified? Is there a market big enough to support the rise in artisan producers? Do you have any opinions? Leave a comment and continue the discussion – or drop back soon for more updates on some of the issues raised in the first of the For Food's Sake discussions.

(And don't forget to put May 26th in your diary for the next one. Details TBC in terms of theme and panellists, but same time, same place. See you there!)

The start of something special

For Food’s Sake held its first event on the 31 of March in The Sugar Club attracting over 100 food enthusiasts and rewarding them with free tasters along with some food for thought. The evening kicked off with tasters from some great Irish artisan producers. The producers on show were Janet Drew of Janet’s Country Fayre with her wide range of chutneys and relish sauces, Graham Roberts of Connemara Smokehouse with his deliciously delicate smoked tuna, and Mary and Gerry Kelly of Moonshine Organic  Dairy with their range of cheeses and yoghurts.    

Full house at The Sugar Club

After everyone treated their taste buds with some fine food and a drink from the bar the eagerly awaited talk began. Food journalist Aoife Carrigy took the host seat as she raised some relevant issues with the panellists of the evening who were: Suzanne Campbell, journalist, blogger and co-author of Basket Case: What's Happening to Ireland's Food. Pat Smith the General Secretary of the Irish Farmers' Association. Una Fitzgibbon, the Director of Marketing Services for Bord Bia and Graham Roberts as he swapped his apron for a microphone and joined the other panellists on stage.

Aoife Carrigy (center) and the panelists from left to right: Una
Fitgibbon, Pat Smith, Suzanna Campbell and Graham Roberts

The title of the evening's discussion was 'The Great Green Hope: where lies the future of Irish food production. Despite the constant doom and gloom lingering over our country the Irish food industry is experiencing growth in exports and farming sectors. Also there is great news for foodies with farmers’ markets, artisan producers and micro beer breweries all on the rise.

The panellists then tackled the complex issues regarding the buying power that certain supermarkets can have over their suppliers. Advice was also given to the audience how to support Irish producers and farmers by buying the right produce in supermarkets.

More controversial issues were also touched on, including the question of potential usage of GMOs in Irish agriculture, which sparked a healthy debate between the audience and the panellists.

There was a lot covered over the two hour discussion: keep an eye on the blog for upcoming postings with more detail on specific areas of discussions. If you didn’t have an opportunity to speak this will be your chance to let your opinion be heard and to continue the debate, so feel free to throw in your tuppence worth and leave a comment or three.

After the talks subsided the enlightened audience were treated with another round of food tasters. Some delicious bread from Rossa Crowe of Le Levain bakery was topped with a delicious cream cheese from Moonshine Organic Dairy and smoked salmon from the Connemara Smokehouse finished with some of Janet’s Country Fayre cranberry relish.

Check back here over the coming weeks for profiles of the producer's showcased at the first For Food's Sake