What you leave out is just as important. We might have said the same of the four day Irish Food Trip we found ourselves at the end of last Thursday, organised by Failte Ireland for the winner and finalists of the Euro-toques Young Chef of the Year Awards 2011. Our whistlestop tour had been chock-full of visits to exemplary Irish artisan producers and meals at top-class restaurants. But for every producer we visited, there were four or five neighbouring producers equally worthy of our attention which we might have visited. And for each of the three counties of Waterford, Kilkenny and Wexford in which our travels were based, there are a good seven or eight more each to visit in this green food-rich island of ours, each with their own local food stories to discover.

Had we not had to stop eating at some point and return home to jobs and families and the likes, we could have spent another couple of days exploring the Taste Kilkenny food trail alone. I would have loved to have visited Helen Finnegan at Knockdrinna Farmhouse Cheese and pick up some of her award-winning cheese at her farm shop in Stoneyford. Or to check out Truffle Fairy’s production kitchen where chocolate truffles are infused with brilliant flavour combinations such as tequila, lemon and salt. Or to discover firsthand the 17th-century origins of Highbank Organic Orchards where one of my favourite Irish products, Highbank Orchard Syrup is produced and sold in the farm shop. Or meet free-range poultry producer Mary Walsh who leading local chef Garrett Byrne of Campagne speaks of with such respect.

Sadly we didn’t have time to visit all these producers. But we did manage to acquaint ourselves with much of their produce, thanks to a stroll around the farmers’ market and two final meals in Kilkenny city.

The first was enjoyed in Campagne, which is not only Kilkenny’s finest but also one of Ireland’s finest restaurants. Chef-proprietor Garrett Byrne headed up the kitchens at Dublin’s Chapter One for several years before returning to his native city to set up Campagne. His partner Brid Hannon leads the lovely front of house team who looked after us with charm and style from the homemade sourdough bread all the way through to the show-stopping dessert. New to the menu and one of the highlights of our whole trip, this cloud-light cheesecake of rhubarb and white chocolate was served with a gorgeously creamy rhubarb ice-cream and a baton of rhubarb with perfect bite. Clean, light and bang on in its play of flavours and textures – which is pretty much how the preceding six courses of our meal had played out too. The middle course of turbot with broad beans and Hollandaise proved to be one of the most popular dishes of the whole trip amongst the young chefs, which goes to show exactly how impressive good honest cooking can be.

Garrett clearly knows that half the battle is in sourcing great ingredients to begin with, which is perhaps why he began our meal with cured Clare Island salmon, one of Ireland’s few products to enjoy PGI status. He knew too to keep the flavours of the cure simple so that the character of the salmon could shine through. The presentation was far from simple, but a carefully constructed play of colour and form featuring tempura of oyster with forest-green samphire, pink-rimmed radish and purple leaves.

Samphire reappeared later in the meal on a beautiful plate of rump and breast of Comeragh mountain lamb and what were possibly the tastiest carrots I’ve ever enjoyed. It was a fitting final main course in a trip which had begun with Monday morning’s visit to the wilds of the Comeragh mountains to meet the black-faced ewes about to give birth to  next season’s lambs. We also got to taste local cheesemaker Helen Finnegan’s Kilree, a washed rind goats’ milk cheese that wowed the judges at the recent British Cheese Awards into awarding it Supreme Champion.

Our final meal was an Irish tapas-style lunch at Zuni on Thursday. We had just been to see Goatsbridge Trout Farm (see yesterday’s blog post for details) so were delighted to tuck into Goatsbridge smoked trout scotch eggs topped with Goatsbridge trout caviar and horseradish cream as one of the first round of delicious dishes that Euro-toques chef Maria Raftery treated us to. Zuni was a participant in last year’s innovative Blasta trail, which encouraged visitors to graze their way around the city, enjoying small plates, sharing bowls and grazing boards along the way. It’s a great way to take a little mini tour of local flavours. Other hits on Thursday’s menu included a warm chilli chicken salad featuring Mary Byrne’s Shellumsrath free-range chicken with cashews and root veg crisps; and fluffy fresh Knockdrinna goats’ cheese sandwiched between slivers of beetroot with a raspberry dressing and carmelised walnuts. Clever and gorgeous.

Of course, a great meal is about more than the food on the plate and the service supporting it. The company plays an integral part too. The conversation over that final meal of our Irish Food Trip was spent teasing out the journey we had made together, analysing the favourite meal experiences and what made them work, and picking out the highlight dishes of the trip. These included (but were not limited to) Waterford Castle’s oxtail croquette; Ardkeen’s pork-filled blaa; l’Atmosphere’s fresh blood black pudding; The Tannery’s rabbit, wild garlic, turnip and barley stew, and their braised lamb with ribollita; and Campagne’s turbot and Hollandaise, and their rhubarb and white chocolate cheesecake.

Some of the conversations during the trip had clearly made an impression on the five young chefs too, most particularly the characteristically grounded advice dished out by Paul Flynn during his masterclass demo. Remember that there is room in life for all sorts of good food; that a well-made sandwich can be a thing of beauty too; and that many chefs have sacrificed their lives – some literally – in pursuit of the holy Grail of Michelin approval. Don’t forget to ask yourself what food you’d really like to cook; that no-one else is going to plan your life or career for you; and that without a work-life balance you’ll burn yourself out and be left with nothing. He encouraged the young chefs to take the time to go check out what other chefs were doing; to find and follow their own food heroes; and to never lose the freedom and joy to be found in cooking, even under the immense pressure of getting it spot on for 300 plates a night, six or seven nights a week.

All of his advice was aimed at the young chefs for whom the trip had been designed. But much of it was applicable to so many of us. Don’t forget to look up every now and then from the close-up focus on our own lives and have a look at some of the brilliant stuff going on around us, maybe in our very own village or town or county. Take time out to enjoy some of the joy that great food shared with like-minded folk can bring. Remember what an enormous amount of work goes into producing good food, but that fine food is not necessarily about fine dining and a special sandwich can make for a memorable meal experience. What better way to remind yourself of all of that than to jump in a car and go explore what great food your local area is producing.

Failte Ireland wanted to introduce these young chefs to a taster of what local Irish food can offer. The result of the trip is five new disciples who have gone back to their respective kitchens newly inspired. I was blessed to accompany them on this four-day Irish Food Trip but even a few hours is long enough to curate your very own.

See you on that road sometime?

Over my breakfast of apple compote, yoghurt and granola, Crinnaughton apple juice, fresh coffee and fruit muffin, all of which overnight guests at The Tannery can enjoy in the comfort of their own bedrooms, I had time to contemplate the range of food producers, eateries and chefs we had come into contact with since Sunday evening. (You can read back over the last couple of posts for more details on our food-focussed road trip around the sunny South East).

Since hitting the road on Sunday, we had met all sorts of great Irish producers, from butchers, bakers and brewers to farmers, cheesemakers and ice-cream producers. Now it was time to meet some of the people who work with Ireland’s world-class fish and shellfish.

Having spent most of Wednesday and Thursday morning doing just that, I can tell you one thing for sure: the men and women responsible for harvesting and processing the bounty of seafood that comes from our island’s waters sure work hard for their living.

It’s an industry we should and can be proud of. It’s just a shame that so much of what we do produce goes out of the country (some 85%), and mind-boggling that we should import so much fish too (in the case of many hotels and restaurants, 90% of what they sell is imported). Fancy a visit to Ireland’s largest fish market? Just head for Cork airport.

There are many reasons for this odd set-up, from historic decisions to give away our nation’s fishing rights to ever-rising costs of doing business here in Ireland, but the bottom line seems to be that countries such as France and Spain are willing to pay for the premium product they recognise Irish seafood as, whereas we Irish have tended to seek out either cheaper alternatives such as imported salmon or ‘exotic’ foreign species such as tuna or seabass.

Our first stop on Wednesday morning found us in the company of Tommy Hickey of Hook Head Shellfish who talked us through the often “back-breaking” work involved in oyster production at his Bannow Bay aquaculture farm. Tommy is one of several oyster growers based in this picturesque tidal estuary between Hook Head and Carnsore Point. Like a kind of Swiss finishing school for Irish oysters, Bannow Bay is where oysters which were born in French hatcheries and grew up in neighbouring bays at Dungarvan and Woodstown come to shape up before they can be presented to high society at the finest Parisian dining rooms. They do so by feasting on the bay’s particular type of algae which is ideal for putting meat on the little molluscs. How the aqua-farmers such as Tommy work the bags in which the oysters grow is crucial too in helping to shape the all-important deep cup of the gigas or Pacific oyster. Still tucked up in those bags, the oysters finally travel back to France where they are processed and sold on as ‘Speciale’ oysters, one of France’s most sought after classifications. Who knew these super foods could be so well travelled?

Down behind the dunes of Kilmore Quay strand is another exporter of Irish shellfish, albeit on a very different scale. A visit to the processing depot of Sofrimar Seafood provides quite the sensory stimulation. In one hall, the din of thousands of seashells clacking adds an impressive soundscape to the sight of some hundred hard-working women processing scallops with skillful twists of knives. Step into one side room to be wooed by the sweet smell of fresh razor clams and shelled scallops, step into another containing thousands of frozen prawns stored at -15ºC to be greeted by the sight of light snow falling. I was glad to return outside to the sunshine of one of the hottest days of the year, with a newfound appreciation for the people who process our seafood.

It was nearly lunchtime so we headed down to the quayside towards the modest little seaside shack that houses The Crazy Crab, BIM Seafood Circle’s Newcomer of the Year 2012 – but not before stopping in to see the HQ of Saltees Seafood Ltd, a family-run operation headed up by the formidable O’Flaherty clan. You may have seen the delivery trucks of these seafood wholesalers spinning around the country with their bold orders to ‘Eat More Fish’ emblazoned on the side. A family of six brothers, the O’Flahertys have cleverly and carefully developed their business over 25 years so that they now control every aspect of the process from  catching the fish to marketing, selling and distributing it. Those trucks sure do get around, travelling from their Wexford base down to Cork and up to Dublin and even as far as Killybegs, not to mention across the waters and down as far as Madrid and Barcelona. Two thirds of their catch is exported, including their entire catch of certain species such as megrim and witches (or white sole) – both plentiful Irish fish which Michael O’Flaherty describes as great eating. Sadly, even the O’Flahertys can’t control the fact that there is zero demand in Ireland for these native fish, although they would be happy to supply them to customers such as Cavistons in Greystones and Glasthule should you the consumer care to go looking for them.

Michael spends his working days on land heading up the marketing side of the business but he spoke with great respect for his brothers and their crew who work out at sea on the company’s beam trawlers. These guys work non-stop for several days at a time, breaking three or four times in 24 hours to catch an hour or two’s sleep as the nets fill before several hours of hauling and sorting. With the cost of fuel having doubled since 2008, costs such as labour have to squeezed to the absolute minimum without compromising the all-important safety of the crew. It’s a fine balancing act.

Balance is also key to conserving local lobster stocks, as John Hickey from BIM explained to us over a lovely lunch in Crazy Crab Seafood Bistro and Cafe, where everything from local crab and prawns to smoked Union Hall mackerel to freshly landed lemon sole was delicious. Well fed once again, we headed down to the quay to see just how that balance in lobster stocks is achieved. Besides returning any undersized lobsters to the water (the minimum landing size being a 87mm ‘carapace’, which is the main body between the claws and tail) a selection of lucky female lobsters are marked as protected and sent back out into the waters to procreate in peace. I got to clip the iridescent blue tail of one female who was heavy with glistening black eggs – and kept the cut-out v as a little souvenir of the trip.

The final piece in this deliciously fishy puzzle came the next morning, having travelled back inland to Kilkenny city for our final installment of fine Irish eating (see tomorrow’s post for details of dinner in Campagne and Irish tapas in Zuni). We drove out on a sparkling Thursday morning to visit Goatsbridge Trout Farm just outside Thomastown, where Ger Kirwan took us around their small-scale set-up. This second-generation operation has transformed in response to market demands over its 50-odd years of existence, most recently with the addition of an onsite processing hall. Here they can gut, fillet and pin bone whole trout, develop new products such as Ireland’s first trout caviar, and sell products directly to visitors at their factory shop. This is a fish farm worth a visit, even just to see for yourself the quality of the water and the low stocking density (which is below that required for organic certification).

As part of the Taste of Kilkenny food trail, Goatsbridge is well set up for self-guided visits too, with interpretative signs taking you through the lifecycle of the fish from eyed ova in the onsite hatchery to full-sized adults in the aerated earthen ponds. As with most of the producers on the trail, visits are by appointment, as in give them a bell if you’re in the area and let them know you’d like to drop by. They’ll most likely be hard at work – but you’re guaranteed to be made welcome.

It’s like I said. One thing’s for sure: the men and women responsible for harvesting and processing the fish and seafood that comes from our island’s waters sure work hard for their living. They are rightfully proud of what they do and how they do it. It’s worth going out of your way to support them – whether by asking for Irish fish at your supermarket, fishmongers or local restaurant, or by going to visit them on their own surf.

Tune in tomorrow for my last installment about this week’s Irish Food Trip, or you can retrace our route on Twitter (@holymackers) by searching for #IrishFoodTrip.

 
Or maybe your idea of heaven is getting lost in the middle of the most beautiful nowhere, on a country boreen twisting through scratchy hedgerows and shining green fields, shading through cool forests and past whispering streams, and finally ending up in a 60-acre farm where a young third-generation farmer metamorphs the cream of his dairy herd’s yield into delicious farmhouse ice-cream?

 
Thomas Baldwin reckons he could get his cream “from cow to cone in an hour”. We didn’t see him milking his cows but we did see the green green grass they were eating, and in the time it took Thomas to talk us through the process, his co-worker Sarah had whipped up a fresh batch of Bailey’s Ice Cream for us to try. Well, as they say in Waterford. Well. Let’s just say the pairing did the country doubly proud. Gorgeous stuff, as you’d expect from an ice-cream producer who emulsifies fresh raw milk with egg yolk and flavours it with natural quality ingredients such as Madagascan vanilla pods or fresh Irish strawberries in season.

 
Thomas’s story is a common one for many artisan producers. By the time the farm was coming into his hands, it had gone from the self-sufficient family farm set-up of his grandparents to a modern dairy verging on unsustainability, and it was time to “sink or swim” – or rather to diversify and invest. A scholarship trip to visit Dutch cheese-makers and ice-cream makers introduced Thomas to ways he might add value to his milk, and a Leader grant allowed him to invest in the necessary infrastructure at the farm.

 
He decided not to go the cheese route – a wise move as his neighbour Eamonn Lonergan has been one of Ireland’s leading farmhouse cheesemakers since the late 1980s. Indeed, Eamonn has insured that the little remote village of Knockanore is a household name for many Irish foodies. It helps that the farms are “in the middle of nowhere but the middle of everywhere”, as Thomas puts it, pointing out that they are just 30 minutes from Cork’s Jack Lynch tunnel, from Dungarvan and from Waterford too.

 
Thomas keeps his supplies of Baldwin Farmhouse Ice Cream fairly localised, but Knockanore Cheese is widely available in various flavourings. I’m most familiar with their delicious smoked version (which Eamonn points out is the result of a genuine smokehouse and not liquid smoke and painted-on paprika, as some are), but the plain version is worth checking out for a cheddar-style cheese with a point of difference. This comes from the facts that the cheese is produced from raw milk, and allowed to mature for up to a year, as well as the fact that they use a special maturing culture to cultivate a sweetness in the cheese. Other flavoured versions include garlic and herbs or black pepper and chives, all of which are added in at the start of the process to layer flavour and not at the end to mask inferior flavours, as some competitors do.

 
Loaded up with cheese, we skipped on to many blaa-lovers idea of heaven: the 125-year-old Barron’s Bakery in Cappoquin where Esther Barron proudly showed us her impressive 100-year-old ovens, still yielding magnificent bread after all these years – at least to those who have mastered how to use it. As fifth-generation bakers, the Barron’s story is entwined with Cappoquin’s story, so no wonder that some 700 local supporters turned up for the launch of their recent book, Our Daily Bread (which came second in the  Gourmand World Cookbook Awards – ahead of a book by the Culinary Institute of America, as Esther proudly announced).

 
They fed us with tea and ham blaas and nettle soup and sent us on our merry way to Dungarvan, where Claire Dalton and Cormac O’Flynn were waiting to show us their Dungarvan Brewing Company headquarters, aka beer-lover’s heaven. The craft beer produced here (Black Rock Irish Stout, Copper Coast Red Ale and Helvick Gold Blonde Ale) stand out from the growing number of Irish craft beers because they are bottle conditioned. This means that the beer is unfiltered and undergoes a second fermentation in the bottle, which makes them naturally lightly sparkling. They’ve also begun to stock a few places with casks (as opposed to kegs) and are part of what seems to be something of an Irish revival of the old art of keeping casks. If you’re looking to try a refreshing lemony blonde alternative to lager, a smooth and complex red ale or a surprisingly light mocha-edged stout, this trio are well worth seeking out.

 
We sadly didn’t have time to take a peek into bagel heaven aka Rosie’s Broadway Bagels run by a native New-Yorker whose bagel production is still a hand-crafted process. We had a date at the gate to another food-lovers heaven, and it wouldn’t do to be late.

 
Paul Flynn is a legend, both locally and nationally. Returning to Ireland some years ago from a stint running a Michelin-starred kitchen in London (Paul was head chef when they secured their second star), Paul won over Irish fans at La Stampa before setting up shop in his native Dungarvan, a lovely little port town in West Waterford. The food Paul now cooks at The Tannery Restaurant and adjacent Cookery School is very like the man himself: disarmingly down-to-earth, deceptively straightforward while backed with a treasure-chest of knowledge and impossible not to like. He talked us through the mis-en-place (that’s ‘prep’ in chef-talk) for what was going to be that night’s tasting menu of ‘one-pot cooking’ – a typically understated description for what was a masterclass in producing refined versions of classic rustic cooking.

 
One of the most memorable for me was the bouillabaise of John Dory and mussels, with elegant flavours built up from the gently coaxed onion and fennel base to the orange and saffron middle to the top notes of cardamom, star anise and Pernod. The art of one-pot cooking is in knowing just how long to give each stage so that every element is spot on, so that the bite of a carrot can give as much pleasure as the juicy chew of a mussel, and so that the parts come together in an integrated whole. Other highlights included braised shoulder of lamb which had the most incredible texture, served with a saucy tomato-based ribollita with pockets of flavour-soaked bread; an elegant bowl of rabbit, turnip, wild garlic and barley stew which had a gastric base that played off the natural sweet-sour of the turnip; and a dessert of rich chocolate with Blackrock Stout textured with honeycomb and cut through with a goat’s cheese cream. All of this was served to us by staff who shared Paul’s sense that food should be enjoyable above all else, and that it shouldn’t be taken too seriously – just gotten effortlessly right.

 
What’s your idea of heaven? Maybe, like me, your idea of heaven is writing up these kinds of experiences while being driven in a mini-bus through some of Ireland’s secret beauty spots such as Inistioge – where I happen to have some of my happpiest memories. We spent childhood holidays in a converted forge owned by the proprietor of the town’s tearooms who we used to ‘help’ pick redcurrants and raspberries before washing off the sticky juices in the stream that ran into the tea-coloured River Nore.

 
As far as we’re concerned (‘we’ being me and the five Euro-toques Young Chefs I’m travelling with on the Irish Food Trip) we found a little piece of heaven yesterday: it is in the middle of nowhere and the heart of everywhere. We found ours in the sunny South East but the truth is that Ireland is full of places in which to get lost and find your own little piece of heaven. What’s stopping you?

After a light breakfast in Waterford Castle’s beautiful consevatory with the sun striping in through the wrought iron windows (when I say light breakfast, I mean a mini-croissant filled with sweet ham and artisan cheese) we headed out with the hotel’s head chef Michael Quinn to meet some local food legends.

First stop, one of the regions few remaining small abattoirs run by O’Flynn’s butchers, who finish cows on their farm before slaughtering and butchering – just the thing after breakfast eh? Actually the place was spotless with a pervading scent of salt in the air. Even the words being bandied about were slightly bloodless if a little chilling: the ‘stunning box’ in the ‘killing room’ where the animals are dispatched before being ‘broken’ into various parts. Carcasses of beef hung from hooks beside bundles of offal including a lolling tongue and pointed oxtail (which looked more appetising in Sunday night’s DELICIOUS croquettes, see yesterday’s post for details). In one of the chilled rooms were tubs of pork tails and chuck bones – apparently they’re mad for these value cuts in Waterford, as anyone who has been to a GAA match down here is said to know.

In another room, hunks of ham were transforming into bacon in baths of salted water (no nitrates/nitrites here which means no gooey white gunk on those rashers) and a vac-packed bundle of O’Flynn’s rashers gave us a hint of what we’d be having for our breakfast this morning. Well, it’d be rude not to, Waterford being the original home of the rasher (no, I hadn’t known that either). We also got a preview of last night’s dinner in the form of O’Flynn’s beef which was hanging in all it’s glory – but later would be served up to us in l’Atmosphere in the city.

Then it was off to visit M&D Bakery where Dermot ‘Blaa’ Walsh is one of four producers in Waterford’s blaa producers’ group who are in the final throes of applying to the EU for PGI status (Protected Geographical Status). No-one from anywhere near the river Suir needs an introduction to these local treats, but if you’ve never had one, a blaa is the simplest white bread roll made of just flour, water, yeast, salt and perhaps a touch of sugar. Though it is traditionally filled with ‘red lead’ luncheon sausage or maybe Tayto crisps, we had a gourmet version in the legendary Ardkeen Supermarket a little later in the day, filled with glazed pork and onion gravy (and washed down with Ponaire coffee from Limerick-based artisan coffee roasters). Because it has no preservatives the blaa is traditionally eaten by lunchtime, but freezing now allows Dermot to sell his blaas all over the country. Look out for it at Dublin’s Guinness Storehouse, Café Rua in Castlebar, Mayo or at Jane Russell’s stalls in Naas, Dun Laoghaire and Marlay Park where she fills it with her real pork sausages.

Before we left M&D Bakery we got a glimpse of some ‘Sallylunn’ fruit buns going into the oven. Like the blaa, the Sallylunn was introduced by the Huguenots who took refuge in the port town of Waterford from religious persecution in their native France. The name is a bastardisation of ‘soleil et lune’ (sun and moon) just as ‘blaa’ is a local take on ‘blanc’. Well. There’s poetry in the eating too.

Before lunch we skipped up the mountains to visit Willie Drohan and his fine looking herd of black-faced Comeragh Mountain Lamb. Willie used to sell his lamb for the basic factory price, but he knew he had something special – it’s not every herd that calls the remote, untouched Comeragh ranges home for over half the year. Clambouring up the steep inclines, grazing on heather and wild herbs, rambling up to the blanket bog – all of this makes for a unique animal. Three years ago he gave some to chef Michael Quinn to sample to see if there would be market for it as a premium product; now Willie sells about 20 lambs a week direct to the likes of Ardkeen Supermarket as well Dublin restaurants including Thornton’s, Moloughneys and Restaurant Forty One at Residence. Michael uses nothing else at Waterford Castle where Willie’s milk-fed lamb will be coming on the menu from late May – and he swears you can taste the sheep’s heather diet in the resulting jus.

The ewes are down in the foothills now, ready to lamb, but they once they’re strong enough again they’ll head back up to the heights. Willie couldn’t keep his sheep in such a remote part without the help of his neighbours to bring them in when he needs to – not to mention his trusty sheepdogs (who you can watch in action in a following video post). He also likes to enlist some unusual help at times – if there’s foxes in the area, Willie has been known to blast a little reggae on loud speakers through the night, and says it works for two or three nights anyway!

We had built up a thirst so Michael took us to the brandnew home of Metalman Brewing Co where Grainne (Ireland’s only female craft brewer to the best of my knowledge) gave us a whistlestop tour of the new premises and a taste of their current test-brew (at all of 1.5% ABV). Then it was back to The Island to sit outside Waterford Castle in the fabulous sunshine and down a pint of the real deal, which is now available on tap at the hotel’s bar – and outselling Guinness & Heineken too! It’s a great Pale Ale, with a grapefruit twist that makes it for perfect sunshine drinking.

Like one big happy #IrishFoodTrip family at this stage, we all traipsed off to l’Atmosphere for our dinner which was cooked for us by co-owners, chef Arnaud Mary and pastry chef Patrice Garreau, both of whom have worked for Joel Robuchon in previous lives. It was served up in family style, with three casserole dishes taking pride of place in the meal, featuring three different dishes: a six-hour cooked lamb, a cassoulet with foie gras and a beef cheek bourguignon (from O’Flynn’s butchers of course). Before that two rounds of starters: bite-sized braised beef skirt; a homemade farmhouse terrine with cornichon; and a home-made black pudding that spread like a pate onto gorgeous homemade bread. Round 2 starters were an ode to the amazing seafood in the region: scallops from Kilmore Quay (where we’re off to tomorrow) with a whipped cauliflower cream; morsels of the freshest lobster and seabass; and crab claws with a kick-ass alioli. And at the other end of this rustic feast, a showcase of classic French desserts: including what was introduced as “the original 1981 Joel Robuchon chocolate tart” which was as delicious as its incredible glossy sheen suggested, and a classic Iles Flottants featuring poached meringue so light it dissappears in a puff.

And then it was time to float back to our own island over which Waterford Castle lords it, with a gorgeous new moon in the sky to guide us, and memories of an unforgettable day in the sunny South East to treasure.

For the first day of a four day tour, it wasn’t such a bad start eh?

You can follow the action live on Twitter (@holymackers, #IrishFoodTrip), and tune in tomorrow for all of today’s action, including a two dairy farming neighbours who have put their milk to different uses in Knockanore village; a family business celebrating 125 years in the same premises; a craft brewer reviving the art of bottle-conditioned beers; and a masterclass with the legend that is Paul Flynn of The Tannery…

Scenic shoreline walk at The Island

It was still glorious by the time we got to our first port of call of our foodie road trip of the sunny South East. So last night I took a stroll before dinner around the shoreline of ‘The Island’ which Waterford Castle lords it over. The boggy marsh edges of the isle looked stunning in the late Sunday sunshine. So did the water all around us, and the little boats sitting pretty. The gorse was blazing too; and though it’s still a little early for the scent to really lift it put me in mind of last year’s series of posts about gorse and wild garlic.

Back in the woods I spotted a bed of wild garlic and nettles, both of which are powerhouses of nutrients. Nettles are full of iron and a great spring detox. And as for the garlic, well apart from being super pretty and tasting gorgeous (I had a nibble – potent stuff!) they are also great for the system, as anything that’s had to fight for its life out in the wild tends to be.

Appetite duly earned, I headed back to the hotel, past the open log fire in the Castle’s handsome lobby and joined the gang of Euro-toques Young Chefs for a seven course tasting menu cooked by sous chef Dave Larkin who was running the kitchen while the bossman (head chef Michael Quinn) was away for the night. We kicked off with some brilliant Catalan-style ox-tail croquettes which came with a little dropper of intense cep jus to be squeezed over before devouring. Have a look at Dave’s photo here of the croquette which seem to be a bit of a regular – I can see why: rich yet light, these were meltingly moreish with bag loads of flavour.

Next up some nicely seared scallops from Kilmore Quay served with puy lentils and a deeply savoury scallop cream – and what should be garnishing the plate only a broad leaf of wild garlic, presumably all the way from the adjacent woodlands. The foraging theme continued with the next course, a palate cleanser of gorse flower sorbet and chocolate mint, fresh and clean and about as local as you can get, considering the island is covered with the cheerful stuff.

Wild garlic was put to work again in the next course of local lobster from fisherman Martin Simpson, which was served with ‘liquid peas’ (a nod to molecular gastronomy influences, but in a nicely reined in fashion appropriate to the old school surroundings), sauce Americaine and some lightly carmelised pecan and walnut which worked surprisingly well. More wild food for our mains (no that wasn’t our main) in the form of wild venison wellington, a gorgeous piece of loin tucked up in a pastry wrapping and served with red cabbage jelly and sweet parsnip. Brilliant stuff.

Dessert was a pistachio tart with red bell pepper jelly and a melt-away pistachio powder, and finally a hunk of Crozier Blue sheeps’ cheese drizzled with truffled honey and served with slices of red apple and a glass of port. Ahhhhh. Now that’s what I call a dinner – not to mention a brilliant start to a glorious four days in food heaven.

See the next post for pix, or follow the action live on Twitter (@holymackers, #IrishFoodTrip), and tune in later for all of Monday’s action, including a 9am visit to one of Ireland’s smallest (and cleanest) abattoirs, the home of the blaa, and a trip to the top of the morning on Comeragh Mountains…

It’s not often you get to pack your wellies and your favourite high heels for the same trip. But tomorrow’s road trip is no ordinary road trip, taking in everything from farm and fishery visits to some of Ireland’s finest dining in the likes of Kilkenny’s Campagne and Dungarvan’s The Tannery. I’m packing my Berocca too, cos I’ll need all my energy for the busy itinerary lined up which involves three and a half action packed days around Waterford and Kilkenny. I’m packing my laptop so I can blog daily about the visits to bakeries and breweries, meetings with fishermen and cheesemakers, tastings of Ireland’s first caviar and one of it’s few PGI status foods, not to mention the likes of a Nose to Tail masterclass with Michael Quinn of Waterford Castle. And I’m bringing my pen and notebook, dictaphone and camera so I can log all the insights into everything from the growing production of oysters and conservation of lobsters to the History of Food in Ireland’s South East. I’ve even downloaded Instagram to my trusty iPhone4 so I can pretty-up all my amateur photography and share it with anyone who fancies following the Twitteraction on #IrishFoodTrip and a new Facebook page for Holy Mackerel if you want to follow me there.

And how, you might well ask, does it come to be that I have such a delicious week lined up?

In a joint effort by Failte Ireland, BIM and Euro-toques Ireland, this week’s Food Tourism Road Trip in Ireland’s sunny South East was designed to educate a handful of talented young Irish chefs about the availability, range and quality of regional food produce and producers in Ireland. They’ve chosen to bring the six finalists from last year’s Euro-toques Young Chef Competition on this whirlwind feed-fest in order to foster them as food ambassadors within the industry.

And you would be right in thinking that I am neither young (well, not in my early 20s as this crew are) nor a chef nor a finalist of last year’s competition, as are Kamil Dubanik (23) from Knockranny House Hotel, Westport; Aisling Gallagher (24) from Ballynahinch Castle, Co Galway; Kyle Greer (24) from No 27 Talbot Street, Belfast; Micheal Harley (22) from Rathmullan House, Co Donegal; David Magaeen (24) from Restaurant Victoria Belfast and Margaret Roche (23) from The Cellar at The Merrion Hotel, Dublin.

But in their generous wisdom, the brains behind the trip thought they had such a good itinerary lined up that it’d be a shame not to bring a blogger and journalist along to document the experience. I heartily agreed.

And so, as promised yesterday, herein my list of some of the highlights I’m most looking forward to visiting, or Five Foods Worth Travelling The Country In Pursuit Of:

• Waterford Blaa: a simple bread roll with legendary status in the Waterford region to which it is unique. Both grandparents on my maternal side hailed from Waterford city, so it’s slightly alarming that I’ve never tasted one of these bundles of floury fluffiness before. We’ll be visiting both M&D Bakery & Barron’s Bakery both of which are famous for their blaas.
• Goatsbridge Trout: Not all farmed trout can be classified as a gourmet product but not all farmed trout is produced by Margaret Kirwan at Goatsbridge Trout Farm near Thomastown, Co Kilkenny. I love her smoked trout, and can’t wait to try her brand-new trout caviar.
• Dungarvan Brewery: It doesn’t seem like long ago since Dungarvan Brewing Company was the new kid on the block in what was then a very nascent local micro-brewing scene. How much can change in two years – the beers produced by these brothers-in-law and their wives looks positively old guard on the fridge shelves today. Looking forward to seeing where the magic happens in their Dungarvan Brewery.
• Comeragh Mountain Lamb: The general meat-eating Irish public is slowly but surely starting to realise that Irish meat, whether it be beef or lamb, is some of the best in world – and that what makes it so are the 40 shades of green available in their natural grass-fed diet. Some smart producers are a step ahead in further reminding us that if the particular grazing area of a particular herd is unique, the resulting flavours of its meat will be unique too. The place name Comeragh derives from the Gaelic ‘Cumarach’ meaning ‘abounding in hollows and river confluences’. That the land itself is lush and remote and has never been intensively farmed will has a direct influence on the lamb’s particular flavour.
• The Truffle Fairy: I can’t decide which I’m most excited to try – their Guinness truffles or their goji berry, ginger and pink peppercorn truffles… or maybe tequila, salt and lemon will be my favourite? Or chilli, ginger and orange? Ooh, or what about Jameson whiskey, clove and lemon?!? Tell you what, let me go do my research and get back to you on it. (The things I do for you eh?)

Right so. See you on the road?