TIPPERARY FOOD PRODUCERS
Tuesday 01 February 2011
A really nice bunch of people gathered together to meet me and show me their produce at Nora and John Egan’s fine Georgian Mansion, Inch House Country House and Restaurant, just outside Thurles in Co. Tipperary, which not only has a lovely restaurant but accommodation as well – great four poster beds! I was really interested in meeting these particular producers because two years ago they banded together to form the Tipperary Food Producers which collectively, they agree, is the best thing they ever did. It has given them all the opportunity not only to make new friends, both business wise and socially, and whereas before they might have been slightly isolated in their own little worlds, now they have each other to compare notes on marketing, packaging, distribution, and in all of these things!Nora, a former nurse and mother of seven children, runs the house and restaurant with their daughter, Mairin, whilst John and their son, Joe, run the farm. In recent times the Egans have diversified with an enterprising artisan venture producing black pudding divised from an old recipe of Nora’s 90 year old mother, Mary Ryan, who is delighted with the success of the pudding. Known as Nora Egan’s Inch House Black Pudding it has been going down a treat and is now being featured on many restaurant menus. The pudding is cooked in a terrine and sold in log shapes, or you can have a vacuum pack quarter log. It is not a heavy black pudding, which is nice, and there is also a coeliac version available. Nora is now working on a white pudding so watch this space. Nora is also doing a lovely range of conserves and dressings – love the orange sauce and the plum sauce – great with the black pud!
Pat Whelan of James Whelan Butchers, Clonmel, is a butcher and producer of Aberdeen Angus, Hereford and Wagyu beef, but Pat is no ordinary butcher and producer, it might now be best to describe him as an author with his new book ‘An Irish Butcher Shop’, a broadcaster with a lovely speaking voice, and he is certainly a great P.R. man for not only his own business but for Tipperary and its food producers. Indeed a master of the media and social media, you may have heard him on the Pat Kenny Show and he is a relentless Twitterer. In 1999 Pat took over the family business, which has been running for forty years, whilst the breeding and farming end has been practiced for 5 generations. The challenge for him was to grow demand for products and secondary cuts of meat so in 2003 he set up a website – which is now a really good website with recipes and video demos on cooking and preparing meats. You can order your meat online and it will be delivered generally next day. Whelan says “local sustainable economies can be the catalyst to actually lift us out of the doom and gloom.” Bord Bia, he says, took some of the food people to the U.K. a couple of years ago and whilst individual names and brands didn’t strike a chord once they mentioned “Tipperary” everyone was humming “ it’s a long way to Tipperary” and he realised there was massive potential in this. He got on to the Enterprise Board in 2008 and they had a dinner in Cahir Castle, all the produce, of course ,being from Tipperary and so it started. “We sat them down with jugs of cider, put a piper on the castle walls, and it was a great success.” Everyone’s business are a different in scale and character, they may be diverse but everyone has the same objective, to grow and sustain their businesses. The meitheal system of supporting one another is very important and the biggest market is the parish you are in and the 50 parishes around you, says Whelan, quoting the old poser of “how do you eat an elephant – one bite at a time.” Whelan methinks will eat a lot of elephants and we will see a lot more of him.
Another butcher and meat producers worth checking out is Crowe’s Farm in Dundrum, Co. Tipperary, who produce a wide range of artisan lamb, pork and bacon, free from artifical flavours additives and colours. They do great dry cure joints of pork, ham and bacon, which are now widely available and you will see them too featuring in many restaurants. They also do courses such as sausage making ‘Pig in a Day” and “Organic Pig.”
We’ve had a love affair with goat’s cheese in Ireland in the past number of years since its first fledgling appearance. I remember when it was something really exotic in a little log or crottin from France but now we can really show the French some serious competition when it comes to cheeses. In this regard, Breda Maher and her family have been winning awards all round them for their fabulous Cooleeney cheeses. The four generations of Mahers in Cooleeney at Thurles have built their herd to its present day standard, with the first award for quality milk noted in their 1905 records. The awards continue today with gold and silver medals at the 2010 Great Taste Awards in the U.K. and many many more. Their Gortnamona goat’s cheese is absolutely fabulous and you literally can do so many things with it – I love it. Dunbarra is made using pasteurised cows milk and available in three varieties, natural, pepper, and garlic but they have lots of cheese for the home market and for export.
Hickey’s Bakery and Café is another fourth generation business located in Clonmel having been founded in 1901 and it falls to the delightful Nuala Hickey to run this iconic bakery nowadays. Hickey’s produce wonderful crusty artisan breads and cakes which have people driving for miles to stock up but let me tell you whatever you do buy the Barmbrack….I’ve never had anything like it, it is the best ever. Another lovely bakery business is Tipperary Kitchen based at Holycross. Here Annemarie & Brian Walsh use traditional recipes for their nutty wholemeal brown soda bread, produced by hand, using rich golden Tipperary butter and locally milled wholemeal flour. Try their cheese and onion yeast bread or wonderful meringues. In Nenagh then there is Mags and Patrick Bergin with their ‘Mags Home Baking’ making lovely wholemeal brown bread, soda bread, scones and wonderful fresh fruit tarts. All of their breads and pastries are handmade in small batches using the best of natural wholesome ingredients with no additives or preservatives. So truly homemade. Also falling within the bakery arena is American born Cate McCarthy of The Cookie Jar at Clonmel who bakes her homemade cookies, cakes, brownies and bars, using the best of locally sourced ingredients and supplies them to shops and cafes. Giant cookies are her signature produce – chocolate chip, oatmeal raisin, nutty buddies…. Her Boston Brownies are moist and scrumptious and she also does snazzy raspberry streusels.
My mother grew up on a farm in Kilkenny where the orchard was a very big feature – she and her siblings couldn’t live without apples – baked, tart, apple and custard – you name it I got it! However, the Apple Farm at Moorstown, Cahir, is a different kettle of fish. This is really serious stuff. The Traas family moved from Holland to Ireland in the 60’s to grow fruit as, although they had been fruit growing in Holland since the 1800’s it was difficult to find new land for fruit growing there. They are still growing fruit on 40 acres and selling the produce. Con Traas told me they grow 60 varieties of apple on the farm and have about 15 varieties available from their farm shop depending on when they ripen. They grow four varieties of strawberries, three of raspberry, four of cherry, three types of plums and two of pears. They make wonderful juices and some fab sparkling juices also. They also have a small camping and caravan park in summer which is 3 star….what a nice ambiance to be in.
Fancy some delicious icecream, well then try Boulaban Farm Icecream from Roscrea. Michael and Kate Cantwell decided to diversify with wonderful milk from their pedigree Holstein/Fresian herd producing now an imaginative lovely range of icecreams including strawberry, rum and raisin, hazelnut, toffee with toffee pieces, fruit of the forest, and honeycomb icecream – now that is delicious. They also do wonderful sorbets which they supply to restaurants including Inch House – think of orange and basil – apple with Calvados - yum – they will make up any flavours you want.
Sarah Browne, not Gordon’s Missus, is a lovely person who says she and her family love food. I think you have to love food to produce really good food otherwise you just miss out on the flavours and quality. Along with her husband, Michael, their company is making delicious soups under the Browne’s Soups range with a wide variety of flavours including broccoli and cheddar soup, carrot and coriander, cream of tomato, Thai style soup, a shrimp bisque and a New England clam chowder. She also makes fresh pasta sauces and condiments including the ever popular sweet chilli sauce, Southern style Barbeque sauce and a range of mayonnaises. They started out in 2003 and are now supplying many of the big named Supermarkets. They have recently introduced new packs for their brand featuring the family. Sarah says “having moved back to Tipperary, being outnumbered by our four children, setting up a food business and now employing 10 people, we are really proud of what we have achieved so far, and we’re not finished yet!” They have also received no less than 6 Great Taste Awards. Fab.
Crossogue Preserves is a family run company based on the family farm at Ballycahill, Co. Tipperary, where Veronica Molloy and her family now make over 85 varieties of jams, marmalades, chutneys, curds and jellies. Incredible is’nt it – I didn’t even know there were that many varieties!
Onwards and upwards for the Tipperary Food Producers – check them all out on www.tipperaryfoodproducers.com
www.lucindaosullivan.com