At the Edge of Ireland Read online

  I think possibly, maybe, there were a couple of interludes in my half hour of meditation on my little cushion that you might say were blessed by pure unthinking silence. Moments of modest illumination expanding in a place where loose, dangling threads of thought and experience can coalesce into more enduring tied knots of perception and insight. But most of the remainder was occupied by a mental jousting match in which those errant (and ridiculously random and meaningless) thoughts would be challenged by the “wannabe a better me” advance guard of mind-protectors, valiantly warding off invaders but trying not to think about it too much!

  Finally—our guide tapped her brass bowl with the small stick, slowly lifted her head, and allowed herself a modest, rather shy smile, and it was all over. Anne thought the experience was great and was eager to return. I thought, maybe—next week, or—whenever…but first I need to have a serious chat with this lump of gray stuff that contains my rambunctious, restless mind. Whatever a “mind” actually is…

  9

  A Delicious Work in Progress

  Gastronomic Romps Around Beara

  THE HEADLINES OF A LOCAL NEWSPAPER were blunt: “US foodie magazine says ‘Ireland is no gastronomic wonderland’ but we beg to differ!”

  The editor, with obviously little patience for arrogant American journalists with overblown gastronomic claims to fame, made it very clear in unambiguous terms that, for all the international array of fancy restaurants in Dublin and Cork, there is also a marked emphasis today in Ireland on true “local” cuisine, which in turn has helped maintain local farmers and create new cheese makers and a wide array of other artisanal producers.

  After blasting the American penchant for pasteurized, homogenized, sterilized, emulsified, genetically modified, and hormone-pumped food products, the editor suggested that one of the first purist proponents of “genuine Irish menus” was Hedley MacNeice, wife of the renowned poet Louis MacNeice, at her Spinaker restaurant in Cork. Then in 1964 came the celebrated Myrtle Allen and her extended family at their Ballymaloe complex of restaurant, hotel, and cookery school. They, along with the irrepressible Ryans at Arbutus Lodge, have celebrated the abundance and excellence of Irish native fare and stimulated a well-overdue resurgence of culinary crafts.

  In the early days, when Irish cuisine consisted primarily of gargantuan breakfasts with black blood pudding as the featured attraction, watery “Irish stews,” and overbicarbonated soda bread, Myrtle Allen was dismissed as a quirkish “middle-aged farmer’s wife in the wilds of east Cork.”

  With the same determination of purpose and emphasis on authenticity as Julia Child, Elizabeth David, M. F. K. Fisher, Alice Waters, and others, Myrtle celebrated the seasonal bounties and varieties of fruits, fish, vegetables, and game. She offered menus of simply prepared dishes redolent with real, not manufactured, mélanges of flavors. She introduced—or actually reintroduced—recipes from the past utilizing often unfamiliar local ingredients such as wild garlic, cardoons, rocket, zucchini blossoms, nettles, flower-flavored honeys, and all those aromatic seaweeds—carrageen, laver, dulse, sloke, sea spinach, samphire and dilisk. Add to all these wild “fingerling” eels, unusual game birds such as snipe, woodcock, barnacle goose, plover, thrush, and even puffin, home-smoked fish and hams and salami-type sausages, wild salmon, crayfish and lobsters, salted herring and mackerel, limpets, whelks, cockles, sprats, periwinkles, rogham (blue octopus), and sea urchins, and you begin to see what a celebration of choice exists. In addition one finds heirloom breeds of farm-raised ducks and chickens, a vast array of wild mushrooms, golden raspberries, boysenberries, worcesterberries, enormous “dive scallops,” and some of the ugliest fish I’ve ever seen starting with the gelatinous mouth-for-a-head monkfish and progressing rapidly into “beyond nightmare” territory.

  Then top all this panoply of peculiar—but oh, so delicious—culinary ingredients with such utter delights as marshmallow-tender Connemara lamb, a vast array of potato types, superb freshwater fish, boar, and venison galore—and, of course, fine porters, whiskey, and even (if early promise reaches fruition) regional wines. And what we have here is a nation on the cusp, maybe well above the cusp by now, of an enticing gastronomic revolution.

  A 2006 SPECIAL ISSUE of Saveur magazine on Ireland—the one the local editor had strongly objected to—gave modest, if guarded, encouragement to this process:

  Let’s be honest here. When it comes to food, Ireland is not France or Italy, China or Japan. It has no elaborate court cuisine, no lengthy restaurant tradition, no world-famous chefs. What it does have is a damp, relatively mild climate where things love to grow. It has, in other words, the raw materials. Almost everywhere we went we saw things happening: rural entrepreneurs building little food production businesses; restaurants revising their menus to take better advantage of native bounty; writers delving seriously into the history and culture of Irish food. If we didn’t exactly find a gastronomic wonderland, we certainly found a delicious work in progress.

  Anne and I arrived on Beara quite a while after this long and photo-rich feature was published and were curious to see to what extent the gastronomic wonderland potentials had reached our home in Allihies.

  “This is not gourmetland by any means,” one local told us, almost offended by the idea. “Although, when they’re finished building that ultraposh hotel at the old Dunboy Castle down the road, things could certainly change. At the moment, if you want fancy, you go over Moll’s Gap to Killarney or to Kenmare and the Park Hotel. Or closer in you can go to Josie’s overlooking the lake at Lauragh or Mossie’s at Adrigole—but I’ve heard that’s closing—or that new place over O’Neill’s in Allihies. Most local places are more basic—chips-and-peas-with-everything at the pubs and a bit more uppish at The Olde Bakery in Castletownbere. Then there’s places like Jack Patrick’s—the butcher across from MacCarthy’s. His wife runs a small restaurant next door, and she puts out some real solid Irish dishes—Guinness stews, lovely lamb and pork, colcannon, boxty, that kind of thing. Nothing too fancy—just good stick-t’-y’-ribs kind of food. Oh, and beautiful fresh seafood too when the boats come in.”

  “We’d heard there was someone here on Beara who made his own cheeses. You know anyone like that?”

  “Ah! Of course—I forgot!” Our informant slapped the side of his head rather vigorously. “Norman! And Veronica. I forgot to tell you about them and their son Quinlan. Out this side of Eyeries. Very nice family and beautiful cheeses. Go and see them—I’ll show you where they are.”

  He drew us a map on the back of an envelope dragged from his pocket. “Now be careful—if you miss this lane here you’ll end up miles down the road in Eyeries.”

  So, inevitably—we ended up miles down the road in Eyeries.

  “There’s a sign telling you when you’ve got there,” insisted the elderly lady cashier at O’Sullivan’s store in the village when we asked her for directions. And after a couple of erroneous attempts, we discovered that she was indeed correct. Norman and Veronica Steele’s farm is certainly elusive, although it’s only a mile or so west of the village of Eyeries and perched on a steep slope overlooking the local graveyard. The “sign,” which read MILLEEN’S CHEESERY, was barely the size of a paperback book and camouflaged by globs of sprayed mud from passing tractors.

  “Yeah—I’ve been meaning to put up something a bit bigger—we love people coming here…if they can find the place!” said Norman, a gentle, stocky giant of a man in crumpled jeans and an enormous gray sweater that drooped off his torso like melting lava. He’d emerged from his stone-built house to quiet a ferocious lion-size dog apparently determined to keep us locked up tight in our car.

  “Oh, don’t worry about that stupid creature.” Norman’s generously bearded red face crinkled into a chortling laugh. “He’s all noise.” And we watched bemused as the dog’s aggressive, bite-your-arms-off attitude of a moment ago morphed into a cringing, crawling, Uriah Heep–type of creature which, if human, would have been fawning all over us while pulling
its forelocks out by the roots.

  “Good trick, that,” I said, pulling myself out of the car.

  “Yes, well, it works both ways. If you’re somebody I’d rather not talk to…”

  “Like an EU regulations cheesery supervisor, for example, I suppose?”

  Norman’s grin diminished somewhat. “Y’re not…”

  “Gotcha!” I said. He was laughing again, this time with real Santa Claus ho-hos, and I’m standing there thinking he’s a far more convincing Santa than I’ll ever be with that expansive beard of his. Not quite ZZ Top–length yet, but certainly a promising start.

  “Well, you’re definitely a better-looking man in person than that photo in Saveur magazine,” said Anne with a flirty smile. (She does that on occasion. And the results can be fascinating…)

  “Oh m’God, have you seen that horror? They just sent me a copy from the States. It wasn’t fair, y’know. They didn’t tell me they were photographing, and I’m standing by our cooking stove, which is all clogged up with pans, cheesecloths by the dozen dangling from the rafters, m’shirt hangin’ out and trousers with the zipper halfway down, lookin’ like they’re about to drop off any second and expose all m’ crown jewels to all and sundry!”

  Norman Steele: Cheese Maker

  “That just about sums it up,” Anne said, laughing, looking at the photo in the article. “In fact it almost looks as if you’re intentionally pulling them down yourself!”

  Norman peered at the photograph, one of a montage in an excellent feature on Ireland and its cuisines and farm-based produce that takes up most of the magazine. “M’God! You’re right…or maybe I was pullin’ ’em up.”

  “Could go either way,” said Anne.

  “Story of my life.” Norman laughed. “So many ways I could have—actually did—go.”

  “From what we’ve read in this piece, you certainly seem to have had an interesting existence,” I said, remembering Norman’s transformations from counterculture teenager to star pupil to professor of philosophy at Dublin’s Trinity College to older counterculture New Ager to farmer in the 1970s who found that he didn’t know what to do with all the milk from his one-horned cow, so he started to make cheese.

  “Yep—I’ve led quite a dance. But somehow Veronica’s stuck with me—in fact, she’s really the power behind everything we’ve done.”

  “And your son…Quinlan?”

  “Oh, yes—great lad. He’s in the cheesery now, packing the curds into the frames. Doesn’t like to be interrupted at this stage. Random mold spores and all that kind of thing. He’s not so sociable right now—needs to focus on our two main cheeses: the big yellow Beara made with cooked curds and our Milleen’s, which is smaller, flatter, and much more pungent. I guess I’m the front man for this operation—sometimes I’m so loquacious I think I deserve an Equity acting award! Veronica’s the one who really got the whole thing rolling for us, though, and for a lot of others with her teaching. I was messing with pigs and all kind of fun things, but she’s the focused one in the family. A real determined Dublin lass.”

  “I love how Saveur quotes her,” said Anne. “She describes your Milleen’s cheese, named after the farm, as a ‘brine-washed-rind cheese with a complex floral flavor and a creamy texture—the kind of cheese that wanted to be here.’ That’s a great description.”

  “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.”

  THE SAVEUR 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?”).