SALAD DAYS: The Fitzmaurices, owners of Blazing Salads, are nuts about macrobiotics writes Christine Madden
Pre-1981, you'd only dare whisper the word. Waiters answered the request with blank looks. "You want a what? A salad? You mean ... like eggs mayonnaise?" Ireland's culinary landscape has changed phenomenally over the past few years, but it's not simply prosperity and foreign travel that have made the difference. In 1981, a radical idea for a restaurant blazed the trail for adventurous eating that was as wholesome and nutritious as it was delicious. Twenty-three years on, Blazing Salads continues to thrive amidst a forest of copycat competition, and its three owner-managers - Lorraine, Joe and Pamela Fitzmaurice - are branching out with a bakery and a new cookbook.
The conception of Blazing Salads, however, goes back even further, to the early 1970s. After reading books praising the beneficial effects of whole food and a macrobiotic diet, the Fitzmaurice siblings' father decided the family should transform its eating habits. "Dad was into the philosophies and the teaching," explains Lorraine, "the whole lifestyle. There was a group of us, with families meeting once a month - many of them still do. The men were involved with the philosophy - but the women had to produce the food."
This creative leap into the future - "They were ahead of their time, Mum and Dad," says Pamela - required a good deal of inventiveness on the part of their mother, who went to great lengths to procure and produce all their food. "People used to call Mum 'the witch' because there were all these strange smells coming from the house," recalls Lorraine. "Birthday parties were funny. There would be lots of sweet stuff - raisins and things like that - but Mum thought that was too 'ying', so we'd have buckwheat soup for starters."
Parties such as these, as well as lunches of aduki beans and seaweed, earned the young Fitzmaurices a certain renegade reputation. "Some families felt we were a bit wild," says Lorraine. "Now, when we're talking to friends, they tell us, 'you were weirdos, but you were nice weirdos'." Their individualism, however, far from setting them apart, drew interest - not only from their peers. "One of the teachers at school was fascinated with my lunchbox," Lorraine recounts. "So she went to Mum's cookery class. She met her husband there, and they both still eat like that."
Enthusiastic about their macrobiotic lifestyle, the Fitzmaurices opened the first restaurant, the Golden Dawn, on Crowe Street. "It was a holistic centre," Joe explains. "They did shiatsu and cooking classes." It eventually closed down, and Blazing Salads opened in its place. Not many people in 1980s Dublin expected it to do booming business. "We wanted to open a juice bar in Powerscourt Centre, and we couldn't get six grand from the bank manager," recalls Joe. But contrary to expectation, Blazing Salads heaved with customers. "I remember the first day we opened," says Lorraine. "I was in tears, it was so busy."
The hectic pace of the restaurant business finally convinced them to switch from that to the Blazing Salads delicatessen they opened in Drury Street. Lorraine had a young daughter, and wanted to spend more time with her. "I remember when we opened the deli," Pamela says. "We thought, 'what have we done? We've opened a vegetarian takeaway deli in freezing Ireland.' But it's really busy all the time. People like the fact that everything is made on the premises."
And, says Joe, "We use no processed ingredients at all." This also applies to the breads, which he has now taken from the deli premises to a new Blazing Salads bakery. "Joe was always destined to be a baker," Lorraine confides. "He has big hands, and he always massaged our feet when we were kids."
"Making bread is sculptural as well, it's not just out of a tube. Each loaf is hand-moulded, and every time you bake, there's something new about the bread," he explains.
The extra time gained by the move from restaurant to deli also meant Lorraine was able to get to work on The Blazing Salads Cookbook. "I did it because the customers were asking for it. The publisher's wife, Anne Gill, was a customer, and she was at us, and at us to do one." It took up to eight months to compile and write down the recipes the trio had been executing blind for 25 years, and two years to finish the process. They were careful to explain things minutely, as you can see from the very detailed description of how to create a sourdough starter and make bread from it. "It sounds more difficult than it is," says Joe. All of the other favourites are in there, too, from snacks and soups to main courses and desserts.
So how to take the plunge into healthy eating? "If you're starting off," advises Pamela, "miso soup would be the thing to go for." Lorraine agrees: "It's a good thing to eat every day. It's a living organism. People drink this Actimel for their immune systems - miso does the same thing, without the disadvantages of dairy products. You could even have it for breakfast - that's what the Japanese do."
The Blazing Salads Cookbook is published by Gill & Macmillan, price €16.99
VEGETABLE CURRY WITH CASHEW NUTS
Serves 6
unrefined sunflower oil
2 medium onions, diced
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 red chilli, deseeded and minced
1 cm (½ in) piece fresh ginger, grated finely
2 medium carrots, diced into 2½ cm (1 in) pieces
1 tsp mild or medium curry powder
½ tsp turmeric
1 x 450 g (1 lb) tin organic plum tomatoes, roughly chopped with the juice
1 small cauliflower, divided into bite-size florets
2 medium potatoes, diced into 2½ cm (1 in) pieces
1 courgette, diced into 2½ cm (1 in) pieces
225g (8 oz) button mushrooms, halved
115g (4 oz) creamed coconut
30g (1 oz) cashew nuts, toasted
½ level tsp natural honey
1 level tsp roughly chopped fresh coriander
natural sea salt
In a little sunflower oil sauté the onions until soft. Add the garlic, chilli and ginger and sauté for 3 minutes. Add the carrots, curry powder, turmeric, tomatoes and their juice and 2½ cm (1 in) of water. Bring to the boil, place a tight lid on top and simmer for three minutes.
Add the cauliflower, potatoes, courgette and mushrooms and stir. Cover with the lid and simmer for 15 minutes.
Stir in the creamed coconut, cashews, honey and coriander. Season with salt.