I WAS reared on a story about the cooking in my mother's home town of Carlow, a nice tale which shows not just how things used to be, but also how much they have changed.
It seems there was once a shop on Brown Street, in the centre of town, which plied its trade selling boiled sheep's heads and crubeens, those deliciously yummy and fatty pig's trotters.
Bad enough, thought the locals, but of course what was worse for their polite sensibilities was that the shop was a major transgressor of the fasting on Fridays rule. While no locals would go near the place as they observed their fast, it was left to the rowdy crowd and to the lads from Killeshin, tanked up on drink, to spill out of the pubs on a Friday night and pile in for their fatty feed.
Bad enough, thought the locals, but of course the local rowdies and the lads from Killeshin were no respecters of litter laws either. Saturday morning saw delicate local sensibilities further outraged, as folk had to pick their delicate way amid a sea of gnawed, chewed and sucked bones and gristle.
That not only seems a long time ago now, in Carlow, but seems to belong almost to another universe. The best eating houses in the town and the county now are smart, impressively poly cultural places, the sort of establishments where they would only consider cooking a sheep's head if it could be accompanied by a mango salsa, and where a crubeen would have to be boned and breadcrumbed and served with a sour cream and chive dressing and a glass of good Burgundy.
Just look at the food which Danette O'Connell prepares in her enticingly named restaurant, Danette's Feast, in Urglin Glebe, just outside town. Chicken in a chocolate and chilli sauce served with a chocolate and chilli tagliatelle; fillet of pork stuffed with a Mexican chorizo sausage; turbot with a dice of nectarine, cucumber and scallion; lamb with Rioja and olives. This is really sassy, international cooking. As if this wasn't enough, Ms O'Connell also organises music and food evenings with classical musicians, and is just embarking on a series of cookery classes which will exploit the talents of other local cooks and growers. These are the sort of surprises you have to be prepared for in Carlow.
One of those cooks giving classes in Danette's season will be Bryan Leech, from the lovely Kilgraney country house, near Bagenafstown. If Danette O'Connell loves working with a broad international influence, for Mr Leech the predominant influence is perhaps Thai cooking, reflecting his time spent in Thailand, and this is an influence which also spills, delightfully, over into the design of this gorgeous house. From the outside it is rather demure and prim, which makes the shock of the interior, with its spangly beaten tin mirrors and other Thai acquisitions, even more startling. By this time, we know we have to expect the unexpected.
AND we find it nowhere more so than in James Kehoe's fine coaching inn, The Lord Bagenal. This is a super, friendly, fun pub with really enjoyable cooking - shoulder of lamb stuffed with spinach and almond; sea scallops with Sauternes and saffron; Tournedos Rossini - but it is also celebrated for what may be the finest wine list in the country.
There is no more pleasurable task in Irish eating and drinking than to settle yourself into a chair in The Lord Bagenal, and to begin to leaf through the capacious girth of the wine list. Onerous, of course, but uniquely, blissfully, rewarding.
But Mr Kehoe does not have things all his own way when in comes to being super selective about wines. In the town itself, Peter and Betty O'Gorman's restaurant, The Beams, justly prides itself on the good bottles which the O'Gormans assemble to match their good dishes. The emphasis is firmly on France in both the cooking and wine selection, but again the principle of unpretentious enjoyment which all the Carlow places exhibit is evident.
The trend towards modern cafe bars has reached the town, with the successful Buzz's Bar on Tullow Street offering that laid back, democratic ambience so beloved of the students at the RTC, and one shouldn't leave the town without a visit to Mary O'Connell's excellent butchers on the same street, a shop which proves that while some things may have changed, the tradition of excellence is still pervasive in the town's best food shops.