Read: Irish Foodie | An alternative Christmas
First published in Irish Foodie,Winter 2023 edition.
Christmas is all about tradition – until it’s not. Things change. Your sister’s boyfriend decides to become vegetarian, you end up spending Christmas abroad or with your partner’s family, kids make an appearance and the season garners extra layers of baby bowls, food likes and dislikes. But, even as traditions change, mutate and become folded into the Christmases of other families, you don’t have to compromise on the most important things: locally produced food that tastes great. Put your own twist on it this Christmas by looking beyond the obvious and going for something just a little bit different.
To begin
Smoked fish is a much beloved starter at the Christmas table but it doesn’t always have to be salmon. Kilkenny’s Goatsbridge Trout Farm make a range of first-class, sustainably produced smoked rainbow trout products that are a delicious alternative for any meal. Choose between their classic smoked trout (100g, €4), a Drumshanbo Gunpowder Irish Gin-infused version for extra botanical flavours (100g, €4.30) or go full luxury with their innovative rainbow trout caviare (85g, €12.95), which is sublime served on baby baked potatoes with a dollop of sour cream and some chopped chives.
goatsbridgetrout.ie
The main event
While turkey has its fans, with year-round availability, it’s not as special as it once was. A richly flavoured goose, however, is something rather extraordinary. Don’t be fooled by the large carcass though: in Simply Delicious Christmas, Darina Allen warns people not to get caught out by thinking that it will serve more people than it does. She recommends making sure that you will have 450g in cooked weight per person. East Ferry Farm near Midleton, Co Cork is run by Robert and Yvonne Fitzsimmons who pride themselves on producing high quality, free range poultry and eggs for the local market. They take orders online for their free-range, oven-ready geese (from 4-5 kilos, €94, giblets included) for collection on 23 December. Potato stuffing is traditional, as Allen notes, and it also makes the goose go further. Make sure that you save all the goose fat to make the best roast potatoes.
www.eastferryfarm.com
Sweet endings
If you have a plum pudding naysayer in the household, you don’t have to ditch this Christmas day centrepiece. Based in Ballyvolane, Co Cork, the Alternative Christmas Pudding Company makes eye-catching, beautifully wrapped chocolate biscuit puddings (600g, €20) with dark chocolate, real Irish butter and brandy-soaked fruit that look just like the regular puds – until you cut into them. Using a family recipe, mother-and-daughter team Niamh and Sadhbh Cosgrove started producing them together in 2013. Ten years on, Niamh says that people “appreciate the care we put into choosing our ingredients” and the proof literally is in the pudding: “We have people who’ve been coming back to us for years, from our very earliest market days, and we love that our puddings are a new tradition in lots of people’s homes.” Three varieties – Brandy & Christmas Spices, Irish Cream Liqueur (Bronze winner at this year’s Blas na hÉireann) and Spiced Arancello & Cardamom – will be joined by a fourth this year and we hear that there’s also a gluten-free version in the pipeline for Christmas 2024.
alternativechristmaspudding.ie
To finish
Go big or go home. Why buy lots of small chunks of cheese for your cheeseboard when you could present your nearest and dearest with a very special and sizable alternative from Darcie Mayland and Mike Parle’s The Lost Valley Dairy & Creamery? The couple, together with their two children, milk three cows named Tilda, Kate and Rosie on what they call “an extremely small farm” not far from Inchigeelagh in North West Cork. Their raw milk cheese is made on site using their own starter culture, something of a rarity in the cheesemaking world, but something that ensures that their natural rind Carraignamuc and the young, crumbly Sobhriste are true reflections of place and time. Their Cheese Box Delux (€75) contains a half wheel of Carraignamuc, a half wheel of Sobhriste and a jar of their own Lost Valley Honey: that’s the perfect cheeseboard right there.
www.thelostvalleydairy.com
Sending love
Rather than posting a Christmas card, go that little bit further and send your favourite person something sweet that they’ll really appreciate. At Second Street Bakeshop, based at the Cork Incubator Kitchens in Carrigaline, Claire Keane makes addictive toffee brittle – think Daim bar, but much, much better. Buttery, crunchy and topped with milk or dark chocolate with a sprinkle of Achill Island Sea Salt on top, it comes in bags of 100g (€6.50) and 150g (€9.50). On her website, Keane also sells a selection box with four x 100g bags (€25) and you can also find the bags in selected SuperValu supermarkets and independent food shops.
www.secondstreetbakeshop.com
A little tipple
When you’re looking for a bottle to bring round to someone’s house, Kinsale Mead Co’s products are the ones to reach for. In 2016, Kate and Denis Dempsey set up their meadery in this Cork coastal town where they make their much-awarded drinks from orange blossom honey that they import from Spain infused with local botanicals and fruits. My pick is their merlot barrel-aged Wild Red Mead (70cl, €31.75) which is flavoured with cherry and blackberry before being aged in merlot wine barrels for 12 months. The result is a tart and dry tipple, loaded with dark fruit. Serve in granny’s sherry glasses for the perfect accompaniment to seasonal sweet treats, particularly mince pies and Christmas pudding (especially if it’s a dark chocolate one from the Alternative Christmas Pudding Company!).
www.kinsalemeadco.ie
