Food File: Savour Kilkenny food festival, Ireland’s new Master of Wine, revival of home-grown garlic

SAVOUR THE FLAVOUR IN KILKENNY

Neven Maguire will be reunited with Mary Kennedy, with whom he appeared as a young chef doing cookery demos on RTÉ's Open House, for a "Conversation & Cooking" event during this year's Savour Kilkenny food festival (October 22nd-26th). Kennedy will be chatting to Maguire about his career, family and the influences that have shaped his life, while he cooks some family favourites. This is a free event on Saturday, October 24th at 12.30pm.

Maguire has just released his latest book, The Nation's Favourite Healthy Food, and healthy eating is a recurring theme at Savour this year. Before the main action kicks off, Bressie (Niall Breslin) will be talking about the importance of nutrition in maintaining mental health in "Feed your Mind & Eat Yourself Calm" at an event with All-Star hurler Michael Fennelly, a lecturer in nutrition and coaching, on October 20th in The Set Theatre. If you think removing dairy, meat, refined sugar and gluten from your diet would also remove all the joy from eating, take a seat for a brunch demo by food blogger Frances Walsh on Sunday, October 25th, at 11am. Walsh is a former solicitor who developed an interest in eating plant-based foods when she was being treated for cancer. Her website, thehonestproject.com, is worth a look.

Afterwards, you can kick-start your healthy eating regime by picking up some home-made baked goods from the Speltbakers stall run by Kilkenny bakers Bella Lysaght, pictured, and her mum Josephine Plettenberg.

See savourkilkenny.com

IRELAND’S NEW MASTER OF WINE

Lynne Coyle was on the M50, driving to work at O’Briens Wine, where she is head of wine buying and development, when she got the phone call that would allow her to join a very elite club.

There are just 340 Masters of Wine in the world, and now, having completed a course of study she began in 2009 that culminated in three final theory exams, four tasting exams and the submission of a research paper, Coyle, pictured, has earned the right to have the letters MW after her name.

Northern Ireland-based Jane Boyce is the only other female MW in Ireland, and Dermot Nolan MW, Martin Moran MW and Alan Crowley MW complete the cohort, though “there are other Irish MWs working abroad”, Coyle notes.

“Relief, delight and a touch tearful,” is how Coyle describes her reaction to the news that she had passed the final hurdle in the programme, governed by the Institute of Masters of Wine in London. So what does Ireland’s newest MW think will be the next big wine? “Whites that are a good alternative to Sauvignon Blanc such as Albarino from Spain or Grillo from Sicily.”

HOME-GROWN GARLIC

Garlic from China on Irish shop shelves should soon be a thing of the past if the resurgence of commercially grown Irish garlic continues. West Cork Garlic in Enniskeane has been producing several varieties for sale since 2011 (westcorkgarlic.com) and there are others, too.

In Baltry, Co Louth, Peter and Marita Collier (pictured) began researching alternative farming enterprises for their farm, which has been in the Collier family for 150 years, in 2012. Three years later, their Drummond House Garlic produces 10 varieties of garlic and production is expanding year on year, with 60,000 bulbs harvested in 2015.

“We would hope to be able to supply garlic for about five to six months this year, but next year we will be doubling the size of our crop and we should be able to supply for about nine months as some varieties store very well,” Marita says.

If you thought all garlic was much the same, take a look at their excellent website, drummondhousegarlic.com, for details on all the varieties they grow, from the mild elephant garlic suitable for slicing into salads, to the string bohemian rose garlic more suitable for robust cooking. The website also has stockist information and recipes.

Good news for asparagus lovers, the Colliers have been cultivating a crop that should be ready for commercial sale next year. “It is totally different in flavour and texture from the imported versions,” says Marita, who has also been experimenting with tomatoes “grown in real soil and horse manure”, and hopes to have these on sale next summer