The best things in the Irish food world in 1997 were the people who provided not only alternatives to the mess of the commercial food system, but who also inspired us with the sort of vision which is so patently absent from our politicians.
In a year when the Department of Agriculture permitted genetically modified sugar beet to be planted in Carlow, and enacted new regulations which will make the lives of farmhouse cheese-makers ever more difficult, and when concern over our agriculture persuaded the Minister for Health to recommend that meat should not be sold on the bone, the following people were beacons of light for true, pure, quality food.
The Temple Bar Market: The success of the Temple Bar Market in Dublin has been the highlight of the culinary year. Here, at last, was the true artisan's market which the capital has needed for decades, and happily the citizens straight away surrendered to the charms of both the foods and the folk who make them and sell them. Everything about the foods and the personalities of the producers is addictive, none more so than Toby Simmonds, of the Real Olive Co, who was instrumental in getting the market up and running, and whose work, both in Dublin and in markets all around the country, has been dynamically successful. In a decent society, Mr Simmonds would be running the Department of Agriculture.
The Mermaid Cafe: Ben Gorman and Mark Harrell's Dame Street restaurant in Dublin has been the quiet success of the year, its sense of innovation and risk-taking rewarded by the top prize in the Dublin Dry Gin Taste of Temple Bar Awards. Ben Gorman's cooking, in particular, has such a strong sense of intuition and inquiry about it that it makes the Mermaid doubly valuable.
The Sheridan Brothers: Seamus and Kevin Sheridan started their cheese careers selling from a stall in the Galway Saturday market, and already they have two shops, in Dublin and Galway, as well as being stalwarts of the Temple Bar Market. Their success is founded on utter expertise about what they sell, as well as their ability to harness the wild dynamism of their young staff. Priceless.
Marcella Hazan: Marcella Hazan's greatest book, Marcella Cucina, signs off with a two-page afterword, dated "Venice, January 1997", which is among the greatest statements ever written on the subject of the necessity to cook, as she writes, with "passion, clarity, sincerity". The preceding 370 pages of her masterpiece bear eloquent testament to her motivation. "Good cooking is not fantasy, it is reality, it's not theatre, it is life." Amen to that.
Bernadette O'Shea: Marcella Hazan chose an afterword to state her case, while Bernadette O'Shea chose the introduction of her book, Pizza Defined, to state this thundering definition of the responsibilities of a restaurateur to source and cook pure food: "It is the relationship between you and the earth, between you and the grower, between you and your care and responsibility for what your customers eat, between you and the shopkeeper who can provide the produce enjoyed at the restaurant. Above all else, it is about co-operation between people, it is about taking the mystery out of food, unlocking the fear people have in being accountable for our ingredients, naming sources. It is now very difficult for me to understand why it is not a first principle of every culinary institute and every chef's kitchen." Amen to that.
Rod Alston: Bernadette O'Shea used the produce of Rod Alston, the luminary grower of Eden Plants in Leitrim, and Mr Alston's ongoing work with the Organic Centre, in Rossinver, Co Leitrim, looks set to be one of the most significant legacies in modern Irish food. Out of nothing, in the middle of nowhere, Alston and his team are steadily creating a centre which, by education and example, will show just how to produce and appreciate great food.
Noel McMeel: In an age of mega-media restaurant openings, how perfect that Noel McMeel should quietly open Trompets, in Magherafelt, Co Derry, and thus grace a glorious restaurant to a part of the country renowned as being a culinary desert. His success shows that food cooked with spirit and grace, and which speaks clearly with an individual's own voice, served by charming staff, will draw in the punters from far and wide.
Paul Flynn: The real fun in modern Irish tourism is to avoid the tourist traps and seek out the up-and-coming regions. Paul Flynn's arrival in his home town of Dungarvan, when he opened The Tannery, was merely one more symptom of a region which now offers a cluster of exceptional places to eat and to stay. West Waterford is a little jewel, with all the positive attributes of modern Irish hospitality - energising cooking, true friendliness - burning brightly.
The I Q and Elite Butchers: Butchers' associations both north and south of the Border - the Irish Quality butchers here and the Elite Guild in the North - have quietly been doing their best all year to cope with the onslaught of negative news about beef. Patient, dedicated and expert, I found the continuing excellence of their work, in terribly difficult circumstances, among the most cheering things of 1997.
Sourcing from trusted farms, and steadily acquiring extra skills to enable them to do an ever better job, these are the men and women who deserve our support and our trust.
Predictions for 1998
Out: stock-based sauces
It is luridly unbelievable that it should be the Minister for Health, Mr Cowen, who will be the man who causes major changes in the style of modern Irish cooking, but such will undoubtedly be the case in '98.
The Minister's advice that meat on the bone should not be offered for sale will have an impact in restaurants by driving chefs away from using stocks made with meat and bones, simply because customers will wish to avoid them. The richness and goodness which a classic stock imparts to a sauce will steadily become a thing of the past, as the alarm about our meat continues.
In: salsas
And so, salsas and other sauces which don't use meat stocks will take over, and we are likely to see a return of good butter and egg sauces. "But what about the cholesterol!" says every doctor in the country. It will be a culinary case of the devil you know, in '98. So hello salsa verde, and hello again bearnaise and hollandaise.
Out: celebrity chefs
The whole television circus of celebrity chefs has run its course, as we have tired of Ainsley and Wozza and Garry and that crew who have been beamed at us incessantly for the last five years. These days, the celeb chefs arrive in town and scarcely a few dozen of us can be bothered to pay to see them. There has been too much light entertainment and not enough culinary education coming from this whole troupe, and their time is up.
In: culinary professionals
The true professionals of the kitchens will be the folk garnering deserved respect in 1998. So, who will we be hearing about? Long term pros like Maura Foley, of Packies in Kenmare, Co Kerry, I reckon. And John Cooke, of Cooke's in Dublin. And Derry Clarke, of course, of L'Ecrivain. And Armel Whyte of Allo's and Paul McCloskey and Kevin Thornton, and John Desmond, and all the other inspired, hard-working chefs who represent the true Irish cuisine.
Out: fusion food
East-West cooking has failed to give birth to a hybrid cuisine with a proper pedigree, so I reckon we will see less of the Cal-Ital-meets-Mexico-meetsThailand-meets-Lebanese, as chefs turn away from rootless experimentation for its own sake.
In: classical cooking
What they will turn towards, I reckon, will be the classic dishes, and in this regard the restaurateur's bible for the year will be the book which describes the London restaurant The Ivy. The food this ultrafashionable restaurant serves, as described in the book, is timeless: partridge with bread sauce; bubble and squeak; shepherd's pie; the Ivy hamburger; slow-baked shoulder of lamb; fish and chips; bread and butter pudding. All you need to do is do them right, and you have folk eating out of your hands.
Out: flavoured oils
Few will mourn the passing of the use of flavoured oils by chefs, mainly because so few chefs fully understood just how to use them. Like nouvelle cuisine, this was another affectation which was decisively misunderstood in Ireland, and accounts for more mismatched flavours on a plate than anything else in recent times.
In: purity
Out will go the flavoured oils, but I think we will see more and more good olive oils - single-estate oils from Tuscany and Umbria, lovely fruity oils from Sicily and Spain - being used to flavour food. Vegetable oils will be used for cooking, with the good, expensive oils being savoured as the delightful condiment for food which they are.
Out: tall food
The skyscraper days of restaurant food are numbered, and this silly cheffy showing off will disappear in '98. We counted it in a couple of years back when making these predictions, and now it is time to count it out. Professionalism, purity and perfectionism are the cheffy bywords as we head for the new millennium.
In: waiter service
As chefs spend less time constructing impressions of Russian Constructivist architecture, using waiters just to ferry food to the table, the skill of the waiter in terms of placing the food on the plate will come back to the fore. A good waiter is a key player in a restaurant, in some ways the key player who determines whether or not we enjoy ourselves, and it is time for them to reassert the vital importance and dignity of their trade.