Ireland is well-known for its farm-to-table cuisine. Rachel Allen of the Ballymaloe Cookery School reveals the destination's best markets, distilleries, and food trails.Ireland is well-known for its farm-to-table cuisine. Rachel Allen of the Ballymaloe Cookery School reveals the destination's best markets, distilleries, and food trails.
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We have such great produce in Ireland, our beets, our
dairy, and of course our seafood is amazing because of
the cold lovely sea that we have surrounding the island.
So, whatever region you find yourself in Ireland, be it
north, south, east, or west, you're going to find yourself
some really good food. I live on the farm at
the Balllymaloe Cookery School. I moved down from Dublin when
I was 18 I came to take a three month
cooking course and basically never left. When people ask me
what is modern Irish food, what I'm loving now is
that we're becoming so well known for our great produce.
Being an island we've got amazing seafood. And then of
course with our whether we have a little bit of
rain which keeps the grass and everything green. So anything
that's grace based. So pork, beef, lamb and dairy is
absolutely wonderful. We've always had some wonderful markets in Ireland.
First of all there's the Victorian Saint Georgius Market in
Belfast, which is a coverage market. As is the English
market in Quark, so you have the old and the
new and I think that's what makes us interesting. A
great way to discover food is to go on a
food trail. Whether it's a [UNKNOWN] food trail, or the
Bourne food trail, Kilkenny, Dingle food trail, there are lots
of them. And I think that's a really good way
to actually get to know, properly, the food and get
to know some great characters. Festivals, as well. We love
a bit of a festival in Ireland. Whether it's the
Galway Oyster Festival at the beginning of September. That's brilliant
of course, because that's the start of the oyster season.
While we love our food, we love everything I think
that's associated with food. Whether it's beers and ciders, but
also of course the distilleries. We've got the very famous
Bushmill Distillery in the northern coast, and we of course
have got the Midleton Distillery. Which is just ten miles
from here. The Cookery School was opened 30 years ago.
What's really important I think about the Cookery School is
that, we bring the farming elements into the cooking as
well. So it's not just that you come and you
learn how to cook, so it really goes back to
basics. It is very much that farm to fork. There's
such a great range of food options actually for a
visitor coming to Ireland, because while we have wonderful fine
dining restaurants, it could be something as simple as just
great pub food, of which there is now quite a
bit. We have some of the best produce in the
world. That is why Ireland is such a special culinary
destination.