Read: Irish Foodie | All about autumn
First published in Irish Foodie Autumn / Winter 2024.
It’s the season of mists and mellow fruitfulness, cosy soups and stews, wild mushrooms, hefty pumpkins and just-picked-from-the-tree apples. It’s also the time of year for woolly jumpers and long scarves, crisp mornings and wind down evenings beside the first crackling fires of the season. While you’re dreaming about making the most of the harvest season, here are a few ideas for seasonally appropriate ingredients, activities and reading.
Apple it up
If you haven’t taken the small detour off the M8 to visit Con Trass’ Apple Farm near Cahir, Co Tipperary, put a pin in the map for your next trip. Tucked inside a simple green galvanised roofed shed is a cornucopia of freshly harvested fruity delights. There are boxes of eating and cooking apples grown on the farm for sale – at different stages in the year you may encounter Tipperary Pippin, Red Russet, Elstar, Karmine and / or Bramley Seedling – multicoloured rows of bottled still and sparkling apple juice, baskets of apple crisps, Con’s medium dry cider and unpasteurised Irish cider vinegar.
The Trass family have been growing apples here since Con’s parents, Willem and Ali Traas, moved from the Netherlands in 1967. They started selling direct from the farm in the 1970s and many’s the drive that has been punctuated with a quick Apple Farm stop to stock up on boxes of fruit, cases of juice or cider, along with locally produced jams, crisps (O’Donnells crisps use Apple Farm cider vinegar in their salt and vinegar version for an extra fillip of flavour), cheese and eggs. In summertime there’s the opportunity to pick up some strawberries, raspberries and – if you’re really lucky – cherries that are grown on the farm but, for my money, nothing beats an autumn visit. Ask to taste the apples on offer before you make your buying decisions. You’ll be astounded at the difference in flavour between these Irish-grown apples and the tasteless supermarket apples imported from far shores.
theapplefarm.com
Mushroom mania
If you go down to the woods today, watch out for Mark Cribbins of Ballyhoura Mountain Mushrooms. He regularly pops up in the woodlands of Tipperary, Cork and Limerick, foraging for the wild mushrooms that he and his partner, Dr Lucy Deegan, sell to chefs and other mycophiles. Established in 2011 by food scientist Cribbins and microbiologist Deegan, Ballyhoura Mountain Mushrooms sell foraged and cultivated mushrooms online and at Limerick’s Milk Market. On their eye-catching stall you’ll often find fresh umami-rich shiitakes, meaty king oysters, gloriously textured Hen of the Woods, complex chanterelles and the sweet, shaggy lion’s mane (it’s easy to see where they got their alternative name of pom poms). For the mushroom sceptic, the easy way in is via their meal kits (soup, risotto or dashi) or the absolutely addictive shiitake bites: don’t open a pack of these irresistible vacuum-fried mushroom crisps unless you’re willing to share. The BMM crew also hold highly recommended autumn mushroom foraging events which will have you spotting ‘shrooms everywhere.
ballyhouramushrooms.ie
Picking your pumpkins
You might not necessarily have thought that a pumpkin-picking outing would enable kids to get involved in food but Joe’s Farm will show you how. At the start of this guided farm tour in Killeagh, East Cork, children are given an empty potato bag and encouraged to pick vegetables like carrots straight from the earth. They learn about seasonality, where their food comes from and just how good a locally grown carrot tastes, all while exploring the farm and taking full advantage of Halloween photo ops. They also get to choose their own pumpkin and there may even be freshly made farm-grown chips to enjoy at the end of their wander through the fields.
Farm diversification has been the key for Joe and Sandra Burns and their family since they started making their delectable vegetable crisps in 2014 from the carrots, parsnips and beetroot that they were growing on their farm. They now have a range of five signature crisps in distinctive brown bags, all seasoned with Achill Island Sea Salt and available nationwide, along with a busy farm shop and their pumpkin picking and summertime sunflower picking events. Growing vegetables in Ireland is no easy job; by showing the next generation just why they should buy local, the Burns family are laying down markers for the future.
joesfarmcrisps.ie
Reading for the season
One of the joys of autumn is the arrival of a clutch of new cookbooks to enjoy and, as we turn to the kitchen for comfort on these chillier days, Cherie Denham’s The Irish Bakery is the perfect book to add to your collection. It’s a deliciously hefty one, packed with recipes that make the most of autumnal bounty. There’s a yeast-risen barmbrack for Halloween, cinnamon buns for a frosty Saturday and mincemeat to lay down for Christmas baking. A suet-crusted, slow-braised venison pie is sweetened with crab apple jelly, there’s a traditional Irish farmhouse apple tart (for your Apple Farm gleanings) placed just so on an old-fashioned crochet doily and a substantial cake packed with carrot, parsnip and apple. Baked puddings – just what we need at this time of the year – include an apple and blackberry shortcake, baked apples and an old-school baked rice pudding with vanilla and nutmeg.
With atmospheric photography by Andrew Montgomery and elegiac essays from Kitty Corrigan alongside Denham’s tempting recipes, this is a book to enjoy by the fireside as well as in the kitchen.
www.montgomerypress.co.uk
