While I made the transition from student to gainfully employed a
little while ago, there are still moments in the calendar that deliver
a jolt of nostalgia for the days of homework and timetables and
rattling tin pencil cases. Christmas is such time, where what used to
be a two week mid-winter expanse of of holidays contracts to three or
four days of frenzied revelry and a bloated, woozy return to work
before year's end. The fresh bright sunshine of late May exam weather
is another. As every college campus evolves into a bijoux hedgeschool,
us latte labourers crank up the air-conditioner and undo our ties just
a fraction more.
September protrudes from memory most prominently, noteworthy for me as
it tended to mark a dramatic shift in diet. Gone were the lazy days of
summer grazing, of late breakfasts, lingering lunches, spontaneous
ice-cream runs and of revenous midnight snacking. In its place, food
became regimented, slotted into the day's schedule as fuel for
activitiy, rather than being the activity itself.
In retrospect, my school diet was at times diabetes-inducingly
appalling. But I ran around a bit, and I ate dinner at home, would
even cook myself by times, and there was often as not something green,
something starchy, and some protein on the plate; balancing my diet
between pizza and porridge, between ketchup and coriander.
Yet in the intervening years something of a critical mass appears to
have been reached. A whole sociology has emerged around the
balkanisation of the family meal, the industrialisation of food
production and the socio-economic fissures that increasingly define
what is on our plate as much as what is in our pocket; publicised and
politicised by the likes of Jamie Oliver. The problem of poor diet,
especially among the young, is by now a well established, even
laboured discourse, yet the facts bear repeating.
Obesity is considered to be at epidemic proportions across the island
of Ireland and continues to increase year on year. 1 in 5 children in
the 5-12 year age bracket are estimated to be overweight with half of
these obese. This leads to numerous poor health outcomes with, for
instance, a gain in weight of only a stone doubling a person's chances
of developing type 2 diabetes. Obesity is thought to cost the
exchequer €4 billion annually in morbidity related costs. All of this
has led to loud cries from the 'something must be done' brigade.
The default response, it would appear, is to turn to the schools. As
they throw open their doors once again this September, healthy eating
will be promoted through a smorgasbord of curricular initiatives and
resource packs beloved of the public health campaigners. One example
is the new subject, Social, Personal and Health Education (SPHE),
taught now in our secondary schools and soon to be upgraded to a full
Leaving Cert subject, where healthy eating will be taught alongside so
many other 'life skills' in what has beomce a curricular dumping
ground for society's ills.
So can we all rest easy as the little tykes go back to school to learn
the difference between a carrot and a Crunchie? Well, not quite.
One problem is that the link between knowledge and health-behaviour is
ambiguous at best. This is well illustrated by an all-island study of
self-reported knowledge of healthy eating and actual eating habits
among Irish adolescents carried out by Safefood. The study found
knowledge of food nutrition and healthy eating practices were not
straightforwardly linked. Moreover, there was even some evidence to
show that information campaigns focusing on nutrition and obesity can
result in girls in particular filtering information to focus on
calorie content rather than nutritional value, which can actually lead
to very unbalanced eating habits.
Of course these are not pedagogical revelations. Lessons from sex
education should have taught us long ago that a frigid approach was
doomed from the outset. Just as the detailed knowledge of
contraceptive practice is so consumately overcome by hormonal revery,
so too the instant gratification and sugar induced arcadia of the fast
food hit will trump the squat earnestness of the food pyramid when the
progeny are peckish.
The education that is needed is not one of nutrition and health
warnings. This reduces food to chemistry, to biology, to life science.
It presents food without a cultural or emotional aspect. It misses the
fact that wheatgerm will never be a comfort food. If all we teach
about food is the granular facts of vitamins, calorie content and
RDAs, it's hard to get excited, it's hard to care. We loose sight of
its higher functions; the cooking, the the presentation, the social
practices that only we as humans bring to food. It will be by
exploring these latter elements with young people where our latter-day
battle of the bulge can be won.
Needless to say such an approach is unlikely to emerge from our
present education system, itself a pathetically malnourished waif. But
nor should it. Social poliy and education can help, but the fact is
that children's eating habits tend to follow that of their parents.
Parental repsonsibility seems an outmoded and pat solution to many
social issues but its influence in this instance is uncontestable.
It's an equation as robust as any theorum taught in maths. Fat mammy +
fat daddy = fat kid. Perhaps then, as with cooking, we need to stop
outsourcing the blame and the first lessons to be learned, are a
little closer to home.
Tuesday, June 8, 2010
Cava
Cava
51 Lower Dominic Street, Galway City
Tel: 091 539 884
www.cavarestaurant.ie/ cavaspanishrestaurant.blogspot.com
Word of mouth and a host of gushing reviews drew me to Cava restaurant
on a recent tour west. The Galway restaurant, owned and run by chef JP
McMahon and his wife Drigín, serves excellent tapas and spanish
influenced food that adds a new culinary dimension to the city's long
standing links to the Iberian peninsula
Spanish cuisine has emerged from the shadow of its European bretheren
of late. With this bullish charge led by the mesmeric Ferrán Adria, of
El Bulli, a stampede of tapas style restaurants and menus have
followed on his coat-tails, each flying the flag with greater or
lesser authenticity. The scaled down portions and expanded choice of
tapas offer the perfect fuel for the cost conscious, attention deficit
appetites of the modern diner. Cava then is a restaurant very much of
and for its time.
The extensive menu reads like a tapas greatest hits with a B-side of
interesting and obscure regional dishes. Usual suspects of patatas
bravas and calamari sit alongside braised tongue, lambs heart and
kidneys in sherry and we were left to whittle down our choices over
warm bread and good oil. From a decently priced Spanish wine list we
chose two glasses of red, with the Rioja particulalry good, delivering
a flurry of red fruits that raced across the palette.
Potatoes with serrano ham and cherry tomatoes won plaudits from my
companion though I thought I picked up the acrid taste of burnt
garlic. Patatas bravas were served skin on, a little too rough and
ready for my taste, while Spanish tomato bread was simply toast,
cheese and tomato served pinchos style on a stick, but none the worse
for that. The grilled tomatoes were sweet and vibrant contrasting the
dense and unctious manchengo.
The rustic cooking continued with lamb heart, stuffed with pork and
chorizo. This was an ode to classic peaseant cooking, though let down
a little by arriving to the table lukewarm. The heart was slowly
cooked and kept remarkably tender, its visceral flavour abley matched
by the robust stuffing. A plate of cured tuna was simplicity itself,
the intensity if the opaque fishy slivers defused by sharp pickeld
cucumber.
At this point we were taken in an altogether different direction.
Where the previous dishes were rough around the edges, duck with plums
was a dish of poise and elegance that ate as well as it looked; the
duck cooked to the moment of medium rare perfection and the plums rich
and honeyed with just a little bite. It showcased not just the variety
of spanish cuisine but also the range that the kitchen was capable of.
For dessert, Creme Catalan was assuredly handled and daintily
presented. The accompanying biscotti were riotously good, baked
in-house with tantalising hints of orange peel and cinnamon.
I approached Cava with huge good will, and though it missed the mark
with one or two details, remain of that opinion. Cava owes nothing to
foody trends and everything to the knowledge and passion of its owners
for authentic, hearty spanish cooking. It proved the perfect choice of
venue to wile away an afternoon of conversation and reminisence,
punctuated by a steady procession of tasty tapas, brought as ready
from the kitchen. The length and breadth of the menu means that there
will be something for everyone's taste, and plenty left to come back
and try the next time.
We Loved: The extensive menu and obvious enthusiasm and passion of the
operation.
We Spent: €68 for two glasses of wine, seven tapas, one lemonade and a coffee.
This review appeared in Food and Wine Magazine
Plenty more fish in the sea
I was struck recently by the advertising approach taken by a newly
opened sushi restaurant in south Dublin. It's posters sought to entice
customers through the door with the slogan “Don't worry, it's not just
fish”. Now in marketing terms, this is roughly equivalent to Colonel
Sanders saying, “C'mon in, the coleslaw is great” but here in Ireland,
on reflection, it made a certain amount of sense.
Down through history, when it comes to eating fish, the Irish have
always had something of an ambivalent attitude. As the salmon of
knowledge lay sizzling in the pan before him, Fionn Mac Cumhaill never
showed the least interest in actually eating the thing. Similarly,
it's a frequent source of wonder to many why an island nation like
Ireland could experience famine while the oceans around teamed with
the food that has sustained so many other races.
Even in more contemporary times the 'fish on friday' tradition, though
belonging to a bygone age of devotion, has left an indelible cultural
mark on our collective culinary psyche. In my time in college in
Galway I could probably count on my fingers the number of times I ate
a fish meal, usually joining the long queues of ravenous and
frustrated carnivores outside McDonagh's Fish and Chip shop on Ash
Wednesday and Good Friday. Hethens and heretics to a man but
nevertheless they remained incapable of digesting meat on a holy day
of obligation. For the Irish, fish was not food, it was observance;
penance.
Recently this has been changing. We're eating more fish than ever and,
dare I say it, maybe even enjoying it. Growth in demand for seafood is
outpacing that of other protein products in the Irish food market, in
part through increasing awareness of the health and nutritional
benefits associated with fish and also because of a greater variety
and quality of product on offer. Yet, just like the reveller that
arrives late to the party to find the beer fridge empty, it seems the
fun will soon be over and all that will be left is the cleaning up.
Concern about the depletion of global fish stocks has been increasing
of late. It is generally accepted that the global fishing catch peaked
in the late 1980's and has been in steady decline since that time.
More recent estimates are have added urgency to these observations.
According to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation some
75 per cent of wild marine fish are now said to be either or
overfished or fully-exploited. In parts of European waters, stocks of
cod are as low as 10% of what they were a century ago.
As looming environmental disasters go, depleting fish stocks have
received relativley few column inches thus far but now some watchdogs
claim that we could be looking at piscean genocide and empty oceans by
the middle of this century. Having lost lives, land and mythical
cities to the depths of the sea it seems we are now exacting our
revenge by unpicking the vast ecosystem that is submerged beneath its
surface. The removal of even one significant fish species from the
food chain can result in a simplified ecosystem that is vulnerable to
total collapse.
This years World Ocean's Day in June saw perhaps the beginning of the
effort to turn back the tide on this issue. The documentary End of the
Line premiered at the Sundance Film Festival, providing a compelling
insight into the impact of overfishing on the world's oceans, in
particular charting the plight of the blue fin tuna, a popular
delicacy at some of the worlds top dining tables, now perilously close
to extinction. The film is being accompanied by a global environmental
campaign with widespread green support for sustainable fishing
policies.
At the same time, Marks and Spencers has announced its plans to source
only pole and line-caught tuna for its meals and products. The chain
has never stocked blue fin tuna and this latest move sets a further
positive precedent for retailers and their suppliers. Greenpeace
recently criticised high profile tuna producers such as John West for
using unsustainable fishing techniques, frequently snaring other
species in their nets which are thrown back into the sea dead. Pole
and line-catching, such as that endorsed by M&S, avoids such waste.
Sadly there appears little political will as yet to delve down into
this problem. The European Common Fisheries Policy, for instance, was
revised in 2002 ostensibly to preserve European fish stocks. It's
stated objective is 'sustainable exploitation' and this oxymoronic
phrase is revealing. By any reasonable measure, it has failed in this
regard, consistently ignoring recommendations for sustainable fishing
quotas and prioritising the interests of the fishing industry over
conservation and environmental concerns. Such behaviour is recklessly
shortsighted in the face of startling evidence of the overexploitation
of our common waters and the urgent need to reduce our fishing fleet
and a reconfiguration of the interminable politics which decide the
current quota system.
Yet if we can take hopeful message from the End of the Line campaign
and M&S's new sustainable sourcing policies, it is that of consumer
power. Here in Ireland our consumption of fish remains modest by
international standards and the industry remains relatively
underdeveloped. There is significant scope for diverting some of
fisheries employment into diversified fish processing and in leading
the way for sustainable fishing practices in our waters. As with all
market developments, this is most likely if it is demand. When it
comes to fish our consumer behaviour is relatively newly formed, and
therefore amenable to change. Promoting a sustainable seafood culture
is vital and this can be a two-way process, providing information on
what fish to eat and when with consumers responding by eating and
shopping conscientiously. Quite what the response will look like in
places like Japan is another matter but for the moment it is clear
that action needs to be taken or else we may soon be saying sayonara
to sushi, catch you later cod.
Fishy Facts
The fishing industry in Ireland is worth €702 million per annum
It provides direct employemnt to 11,615 people
700,000 tonnes of fish are caught in Irish waters annually
38% of our fish is sourced from farming, below the EU average
The areas showing the highest proportions of fully-exploited stocks are
the Northeast Atlantic, the Western Indian Ocean and the Northwest Pacific.
www.endoftheline.com
opened sushi restaurant in south Dublin. It's posters sought to entice
customers through the door with the slogan “Don't worry, it's not just
fish”. Now in marketing terms, this is roughly equivalent to Colonel
Sanders saying, “C'mon in, the coleslaw is great” but here in Ireland,
on reflection, it made a certain amount of sense.
Down through history, when it comes to eating fish, the Irish have
always had something of an ambivalent attitude. As the salmon of
knowledge lay sizzling in the pan before him, Fionn Mac Cumhaill never
showed the least interest in actually eating the thing. Similarly,
it's a frequent source of wonder to many why an island nation like
Ireland could experience famine while the oceans around teamed with
the food that has sustained so many other races.
Even in more contemporary times the 'fish on friday' tradition, though
belonging to a bygone age of devotion, has left an indelible cultural
mark on our collective culinary psyche. In my time in college in
Galway I could probably count on my fingers the number of times I ate
a fish meal, usually joining the long queues of ravenous and
frustrated carnivores outside McDonagh's Fish and Chip shop on Ash
Wednesday and Good Friday. Hethens and heretics to a man but
nevertheless they remained incapable of digesting meat on a holy day
of obligation. For the Irish, fish was not food, it was observance;
penance.
Recently this has been changing. We're eating more fish than ever and,
dare I say it, maybe even enjoying it. Growth in demand for seafood is
outpacing that of other protein products in the Irish food market, in
part through increasing awareness of the health and nutritional
benefits associated with fish and also because of a greater variety
and quality of product on offer. Yet, just like the reveller that
arrives late to the party to find the beer fridge empty, it seems the
fun will soon be over and all that will be left is the cleaning up.
Concern about the depletion of global fish stocks has been increasing
of late. It is generally accepted that the global fishing catch peaked
in the late 1980's and has been in steady decline since that time.
More recent estimates are have added urgency to these observations.
According to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation some
75 per cent of wild marine fish are now said to be either or
overfished or fully-exploited. In parts of European waters, stocks of
cod are as low as 10% of what they were a century ago.
As looming environmental disasters go, depleting fish stocks have
received relativley few column inches thus far but now some watchdogs
claim that we could be looking at piscean genocide and empty oceans by
the middle of this century. Having lost lives, land and mythical
cities to the depths of the sea it seems we are now exacting our
revenge by unpicking the vast ecosystem that is submerged beneath its
surface. The removal of even one significant fish species from the
food chain can result in a simplified ecosystem that is vulnerable to
total collapse.
This years World Ocean's Day in June saw perhaps the beginning of the
effort to turn back the tide on this issue. The documentary End of the
Line premiered at the Sundance Film Festival, providing a compelling
insight into the impact of overfishing on the world's oceans, in
particular charting the plight of the blue fin tuna, a popular
delicacy at some of the worlds top dining tables, now perilously close
to extinction. The film is being accompanied by a global environmental
campaign with widespread green support for sustainable fishing
policies.
At the same time, Marks and Spencers has announced its plans to source
only pole and line-caught tuna for its meals and products. The chain
has never stocked blue fin tuna and this latest move sets a further
positive precedent for retailers and their suppliers. Greenpeace
recently criticised high profile tuna producers such as John West for
using unsustainable fishing techniques, frequently snaring other
species in their nets which are thrown back into the sea dead. Pole
and line-catching, such as that endorsed by M&S, avoids such waste.
Sadly there appears little political will as yet to delve down into
this problem. The European Common Fisheries Policy, for instance, was
revised in 2002 ostensibly to preserve European fish stocks. It's
stated objective is 'sustainable exploitation' and this oxymoronic
phrase is revealing. By any reasonable measure, it has failed in this
regard, consistently ignoring recommendations for sustainable fishing
quotas and prioritising the interests of the fishing industry over
conservation and environmental concerns. Such behaviour is recklessly
shortsighted in the face of startling evidence of the overexploitation
of our common waters and the urgent need to reduce our fishing fleet
and a reconfiguration of the interminable politics which decide the
current quota system.
Yet if we can take hopeful message from the End of the Line campaign
and M&S's new sustainable sourcing policies, it is that of consumer
power. Here in Ireland our consumption of fish remains modest by
international standards and the industry remains relatively
underdeveloped. There is significant scope for diverting some of
fisheries employment into diversified fish processing and in leading
the way for sustainable fishing practices in our waters. As with all
market developments, this is most likely if it is demand. When it
comes to fish our consumer behaviour is relatively newly formed, and
therefore amenable to change. Promoting a sustainable seafood culture
is vital and this can be a two-way process, providing information on
what fish to eat and when with consumers responding by eating and
shopping conscientiously. Quite what the response will look like in
places like Japan is another matter but for the moment it is clear
that action needs to be taken or else we may soon be saying sayonara
to sushi, catch you later cod.
Fishy Facts
The fishing industry in Ireland is worth €702 million per annum
It provides direct employemnt to 11,615 people
700,000 tonnes of fish are caught in Irish waters annually
38% of our fish is sourced from farming, below the EU average
The areas showing the highest proportions of fully-exploited stocks are
the Northeast Atlantic, the Western Indian Ocean and the Northwest Pacific.
www.endoftheline.com
Sunday, August 23, 2009
This Cut is the Deepest
You may have read last year that Ireland was to a lead in the global
response to the emerging hunger crisis. It was hard to miss. There was
a high profile launch at the UN in September 2008, with huge media
coverage and Ban Ki Moon and Bono smiling on approvingly. Much was
made of Ireland's moral obligation, given our own history of famine,
to stand shoulder to shoulder with the 1 billion people who go to bed
hungry every night.
It was with considerably less fanfare that the Government announced
the latest of its cuts to overseas aid spending in last month's
emergency budget. It didn't even make it into Brian Lenihan's budget
speech. If it had you would have heard that €100 million in funding
was cut. The baldness of the figure indicates how carefully the
decision was measured. This, added to the €95 million cut from Irish
Aid's budget in February (which may also have passed under your
radar), adds up to a 21.8% reduction of the projected total for 2009.
It now stands at €696 million.
Our aid commitments are tied directly to the size of our economy and
set at a percentage of gross national income (GNI). Therefore, as our
economy contracts (or implodes) so to, regrettably, will the aid
budget. However, even the most pessimistic predictions from our
economic talking heads warn of an 8% shrinkage, so the cut's passed on
to Irish Aid are grossly disproportionate.
Ireland, along with other developed nations, has made a commitment to
reach a figure of 0.7% of GNI for overseas aid spending. That is just
70 cent out of every €100 the Government spends but with these latest
cuts we are now further from this target than when we first made the
commitment. These numbers totally undermine one of the key
recommendations from the Hunger Task Force that Ireland should 'work
to ensure that governments internationally fulfil their commitments to
eradicate hunger'.
These are difficult times for us all no doubt but while last month's
budget may mean some harsh lifestyle choices for some of us here in
Ireland, it may be a question of life itself for many people in the
bottom billion, the euphemistic term for the one in six people across
the globe that live on less than $2 a day.
There were riots across the developed world in 2007 as prices for rice
and other cereal commodities reached their highest price ever. Even as
those prices have dropped back somewhat, the International Monetary
Fund estimates that prices for basic staple foods still remain 71%
higher today than in 2005. Add to this the effect of the global
recession on lowering wages and you get a sense of the real crisis
that looms in other parts of the world.
Since 2008 the UN World Food Programme has added approximately 30
million more people to the swelling numbers of those it must provide
basic food and water rations to. In order to meet this growing demand
it estimates it will need to increase its budget by a fifth to €6
billion in 2009. These are simply the funds that are required for
emergency rations to stave off famine. It is an altogether bigger
question to begin to tackle the underlying causes - under-development
in agriculture; increased urbanisation; climate change - that lead to
food insecurity.
In the face of these appalling realities, Ireland is not the only
country shirking its responsibilities. A coherent international
response was conspicuous by its absence at last month’s major
international summits. At the G20 meeting the leaders of the developed
world bandied about incomprehensible figures for bank bailouts and
economic stimuli (how many zeros in a trillion anyone?). On the
Franco-German border, NATO members committed to sinking untold further
human and economic resources into the conflict in Afghanistan.
Meanwhile the cost of feeding a family in that country has increased
by nearly 75% in recent time. As a result children are being taken out
of school and put to work and daughters are being married off at a
younger age, just to put food on the table.
But let's return again to that €100 million figure. In the context of
our national finances, with €90 billion of bad debt to be absorbed and
€3 to be recouped in expenditure, it represents a cheap and cowardly
political decision when compared with larger, tougher choices that
could have been made. Yet, in the context of those who rely on the
projects and programmes of work funded through Irish Aid, this cut
will cost lives and increase the suffering and degradation of many.
This money – whether through direct government-to-government
donations, administered through multilateral funds, or supporting the
work of our missionaries and NGO’s – trickles directly down to put
food in the bellies and hope in the lives of those at the greatest
distance but suffering the worst consequences of our ailing
international economic system. April’s emergency budget has reduced
the flow from that tap, precisely when it is most needed.
response to the emerging hunger crisis. It was hard to miss. There was
a high profile launch at the UN in September 2008, with huge media
coverage and Ban Ki Moon and Bono smiling on approvingly. Much was
made of Ireland's moral obligation, given our own history of famine,
to stand shoulder to shoulder with the 1 billion people who go to bed
hungry every night.
It was with considerably less fanfare that the Government announced
the latest of its cuts to overseas aid spending in last month's
emergency budget. It didn't even make it into Brian Lenihan's budget
speech. If it had you would have heard that €100 million in funding
was cut. The baldness of the figure indicates how carefully the
decision was measured. This, added to the €95 million cut from Irish
Aid's budget in February (which may also have passed under your
radar), adds up to a 21.8% reduction of the projected total for 2009.
It now stands at €696 million.
Our aid commitments are tied directly to the size of our economy and
set at a percentage of gross national income (GNI). Therefore, as our
economy contracts (or implodes) so to, regrettably, will the aid
budget. However, even the most pessimistic predictions from our
economic talking heads warn of an 8% shrinkage, so the cut's passed on
to Irish Aid are grossly disproportionate.
Ireland, along with other developed nations, has made a commitment to
reach a figure of 0.7% of GNI for overseas aid spending. That is just
70 cent out of every €100 the Government spends but with these latest
cuts we are now further from this target than when we first made the
commitment. These numbers totally undermine one of the key
recommendations from the Hunger Task Force that Ireland should 'work
to ensure that governments internationally fulfil their commitments to
eradicate hunger'.
These are difficult times for us all no doubt but while last month's
budget may mean some harsh lifestyle choices for some of us here in
Ireland, it may be a question of life itself for many people in the
bottom billion, the euphemistic term for the one in six people across
the globe that live on less than $2 a day.
There were riots across the developed world in 2007 as prices for rice
and other cereal commodities reached their highest price ever. Even as
those prices have dropped back somewhat, the International Monetary
Fund estimates that prices for basic staple foods still remain 71%
higher today than in 2005. Add to this the effect of the global
recession on lowering wages and you get a sense of the real crisis
that looms in other parts of the world.
Since 2008 the UN World Food Programme has added approximately 30
million more people to the swelling numbers of those it must provide
basic food and water rations to. In order to meet this growing demand
it estimates it will need to increase its budget by a fifth to €6
billion in 2009. These are simply the funds that are required for
emergency rations to stave off famine. It is an altogether bigger
question to begin to tackle the underlying causes - under-development
in agriculture; increased urbanisation; climate change - that lead to
food insecurity.
In the face of these appalling realities, Ireland is not the only
country shirking its responsibilities. A coherent international
response was conspicuous by its absence at last month’s major
international summits. At the G20 meeting the leaders of the developed
world bandied about incomprehensible figures for bank bailouts and
economic stimuli (how many zeros in a trillion anyone?). On the
Franco-German border, NATO members committed to sinking untold further
human and economic resources into the conflict in Afghanistan.
Meanwhile the cost of feeding a family in that country has increased
by nearly 75% in recent time. As a result children are being taken out
of school and put to work and daughters are being married off at a
younger age, just to put food on the table.
But let's return again to that €100 million figure. In the context of
our national finances, with €90 billion of bad debt to be absorbed and
€3 to be recouped in expenditure, it represents a cheap and cowardly
political decision when compared with larger, tougher choices that
could have been made. Yet, in the context of those who rely on the
projects and programmes of work funded through Irish Aid, this cut
will cost lives and increase the suffering and degradation of many.
This money – whether through direct government-to-government
donations, administered through multilateral funds, or supporting the
work of our missionaries and NGO’s – trickles directly down to put
food in the bellies and hope in the lives of those at the greatest
distance but suffering the worst consequences of our ailing
international economic system. April’s emergency budget has reduced
the flow from that tap, precisely when it is most needed.
Thou Shalt Not Intensively Farm
That Irish pork scare and the outbreak of swine flu have raise some
difficult questions for the pig farming industry. These incidents of
course are just the latest in millenia of bad press. The Bible set the
tone early. 'Of their flesh shall ye not eat, and their carcase shall
ye not touch; they are unclean to you. ' (Leviticus 11.8) As reviews
go, it's hardly good for business. And yet, we continue to partake in
the sins of this particular flesh. If the snake in the Garden of Eden
had an odor, it would surely be that of grilled rashers.
These bacon bombshells have exploded in a contemporary newscylce that
is starting to take on an ever more apocalyptic tone. Is there
something in the Book of Revelation about pork famines and global
piggy pestilence? Yet, snuffle about a little in the undergrowth and
you may unearth an altogether different truffle of truth, one which
points to the malign hand of large-scale industrial farming practices,
rather than the hand of god, in bringing about our current porcine
plagues (too hammy?).
Across the globe, pork products account for some 38 per cent of the
250 million odd metric tonnes of meat produced each year. This
represents a five-fold increase in meat consumption on the middle of
the last century and estimates from the UN say this will climb to 300
million metric tonnes buy 2020 as the taste for meat develops
alongside the economies of emerging markets. To meet this demand the
raising of livestock has become industrialised along factory-like
processes. However, from a number of angles, this mode of production
is being challenged as a false economy; one with potentially hazardous
side-effects.
Domestically, the Oireachtas Committee on Agriculture, Fisheries and
Food released its first report on the contamination of Irish pork
produce at the the end of May concluding that the source of the
contamination was “contaminated oil operating a burner being used to
dry bread prior to its inclusion in animal feed”.
What the report alludes to but does not address is the much larger
question of just what we are prepared to allow into the food chain as
the industrial farming industry seeks ever cheaper and more plentiful
animal feed. Some of what the offending feed processing plant in
Carlow was licensed to handle included “waste from...coffee, tea and
tobacco preparation and processing...paper and cardboard
packaging...mixed packaging; edible oil and fat.”
It's a simple case of what an old college professor of mine would call
'garbge in, garbage out'. We know now that each of the three major
recent food scares – Belgian dioxins, BSE and foot and mouth – all
resulted from impurity in animal feed. But do we really need another
large scale food-scare before we further refine our lists of what is
and isn't fit for the trough?
Meanwhile, the World Health Organisation has just upgraded swine flu
to a full blown pandemic status and health experts are looking back to
the viruse's origins in Mexico for clues to its etiology. The virus is
seen a quite similar to a combined human/ avian/ swine flu previously
detected in North Carolina in the US in 1998 that killed huge numbers
of pigs though did not make the leap to humans.
At the time North Carolina was home to, among other things, 10 million
pigs. Researchers considered it likely that the virus had mutated in
the hospitable environs of the cramped and filthy super-sties where
thousands of hogs wallowed together. The virus was able to develop
increased resistance to antibiotics as it was exposed to the low level
preventative doses of drugs that constituted part of the pigs' regular
diet. A similar explanation has been put forward to account for the
emegergnce of avian flu from intensive poultry farming in China.
Now there are murmmerings of a viral epicentre in the Mexican town of
La Gloria where hundreds of residents were struck down by an unknown
respiratory illness in February – before the current swine flu had
been identified. The village happens to be homes to the Granjas
Carroll pig production facility which houses 950,000 pigs. The plant's
parent company, American corporation Smithfield Foods has stated that
none of the pigs at its La Gloria facility have shown clinical
symptoms of swine flu. Still, questions remain about the role of
industrial farming in incubating new and dagerous viruses and while it
would appear that the threat of this swine flu is less than originally
feared, this should not lessen the urgency with which we pursue the
answers.
To some, these stories of mutating viruses and oil guzzling hogs are
the stuff of dystopian science fiction. In fact it is using precisely
this premise that a novel online campaign has been set up to expose
and campaign against heavily industrialised animal husbandry. At
www.themeatrix.com you can journey into The Meatrix where Leo the
chosen hog and his teacher Moopheus reveal “the truth about where your
food really comes from”.
Meanwhile, in the face of such tribulations, we may return to the good
book, for solace and perhaps from some answers too. As the Lord says,
in what appears to be a clear endorsement of free-range farming
principles, “I have no need of a bull from your stall or of goats from
your pens, for every animal of the forest is mine and the cattle on a
thousand hills” (Psalm 50. 9-10). Amen.
Pig Facts
In 2007 Ireland produced 188,000 tonnes of pigmeat
The pig industry is estimated to be worth €368 million in exports to
the economy
7,000 people are employed in the sector, 1,200 of whom work on farms
There are roughly 500 pig producers in the State producing 3.6 million pigs
difficult questions for the pig farming industry. These incidents of
course are just the latest in millenia of bad press. The Bible set the
tone early. 'Of their flesh shall ye not eat, and their carcase shall
ye not touch; they are unclean to you. ' (Leviticus 11.8) As reviews
go, it's hardly good for business. And yet, we continue to partake in
the sins of this particular flesh. If the snake in the Garden of Eden
had an odor, it would surely be that of grilled rashers.
These bacon bombshells have exploded in a contemporary newscylce that
is starting to take on an ever more apocalyptic tone. Is there
something in the Book of Revelation about pork famines and global
piggy pestilence? Yet, snuffle about a little in the undergrowth and
you may unearth an altogether different truffle of truth, one which
points to the malign hand of large-scale industrial farming practices,
rather than the hand of god, in bringing about our current porcine
plagues (too hammy?).
Across the globe, pork products account for some 38 per cent of the
250 million odd metric tonnes of meat produced each year. This
represents a five-fold increase in meat consumption on the middle of
the last century and estimates from the UN say this will climb to 300
million metric tonnes buy 2020 as the taste for meat develops
alongside the economies of emerging markets. To meet this demand the
raising of livestock has become industrialised along factory-like
processes. However, from a number of angles, this mode of production
is being challenged as a false economy; one with potentially hazardous
side-effects.
Domestically, the Oireachtas Committee on Agriculture, Fisheries and
Food released its first report on the contamination of Irish pork
produce at the the end of May concluding that the source of the
contamination was “contaminated oil operating a burner being used to
dry bread prior to its inclusion in animal feed”.
What the report alludes to but does not address is the much larger
question of just what we are prepared to allow into the food chain as
the industrial farming industry seeks ever cheaper and more plentiful
animal feed. Some of what the offending feed processing plant in
Carlow was licensed to handle included “waste from...coffee, tea and
tobacco preparation and processing...paper and cardboard
packaging...mixed packaging; edible oil and fat.”
It's a simple case of what an old college professor of mine would call
'garbge in, garbage out'. We know now that each of the three major
recent food scares – Belgian dioxins, BSE and foot and mouth – all
resulted from impurity in animal feed. But do we really need another
large scale food-scare before we further refine our lists of what is
and isn't fit for the trough?
Meanwhile, the World Health Organisation has just upgraded swine flu
to a full blown pandemic status and health experts are looking back to
the viruse's origins in Mexico for clues to its etiology. The virus is
seen a quite similar to a combined human/ avian/ swine flu previously
detected in North Carolina in the US in 1998 that killed huge numbers
of pigs though did not make the leap to humans.
At the time North Carolina was home to, among other things, 10 million
pigs. Researchers considered it likely that the virus had mutated in
the hospitable environs of the cramped and filthy super-sties where
thousands of hogs wallowed together. The virus was able to develop
increased resistance to antibiotics as it was exposed to the low level
preventative doses of drugs that constituted part of the pigs' regular
diet. A similar explanation has been put forward to account for the
emegergnce of avian flu from intensive poultry farming in China.
Now there are murmmerings of a viral epicentre in the Mexican town of
La Gloria where hundreds of residents were struck down by an unknown
respiratory illness in February – before the current swine flu had
been identified. The village happens to be homes to the Granjas
Carroll pig production facility which houses 950,000 pigs. The plant's
parent company, American corporation Smithfield Foods has stated that
none of the pigs at its La Gloria facility have shown clinical
symptoms of swine flu. Still, questions remain about the role of
industrial farming in incubating new and dagerous viruses and while it
would appear that the threat of this swine flu is less than originally
feared, this should not lessen the urgency with which we pursue the
answers.
To some, these stories of mutating viruses and oil guzzling hogs are
the stuff of dystopian science fiction. In fact it is using precisely
this premise that a novel online campaign has been set up to expose
and campaign against heavily industrialised animal husbandry. At
www.themeatrix.com you can journey into The Meatrix where Leo the
chosen hog and his teacher Moopheus reveal “the truth about where your
food really comes from”.
Meanwhile, in the face of such tribulations, we may return to the good
book, for solace and perhaps from some answers too. As the Lord says,
in what appears to be a clear endorsement of free-range farming
principles, “I have no need of a bull from your stall or of goats from
your pens, for every animal of the forest is mine and the cattle on a
thousand hills” (Psalm 50. 9-10). Amen.
Pig Facts
In 2007 Ireland produced 188,000 tonnes of pigmeat
The pig industry is estimated to be worth €368 million in exports to
the economy
7,000 people are employed in the sector, 1,200 of whom work on farms
There are roughly 500 pig producers in the State producing 3.6 million pigs
Saturday, April 11, 2009
I Ship Mine Direct
I can still remember the first time olive oil was bought in our house. It was 1998 and things would never be the same again. The splashing, pouring and drizzling of olive oil has become a kitchen reflex now - unconscious, unremarkable and necessary. Along with salt, pepper, milk and teabags, stocks are never allowed to deplete. It is all the more striking then when this familiarity with a product is turned on its head, as though you are tasting it for the first time all over again.
This is exactly what happened when I took delivery of 5 litres of Colletta Olivieri Extra Virgin Olive Oil. If you are someone who thinks one oil has to be much the same as the next, this may be difficult to imagine, but Colletta Olivieri Oil is to your average oil what Rolex is to the Swatch watch. Grown on the hillsides overlooking the Adriatic, the with wild herbs that share the soil with the olive trees infuse it with a complex, aromatic flavour, its texture smooth and buttery. I have, on occasion, simply drank it neat.
The oil is produced by the Colletta Olivieri family in the Puglia region of Southern Italy. I came across it when I happened to be working with Lino Olivieri, who moved to Ireland in 1999 and, more recently, has been kind enough to let me steal his lunch from time to time - he is an excellent cook! All learned from Mama.
There is a clue to the quality of the oil in the name. The family name Olivieri comes from the Latin 'Oliverius' which means 'one who owns olive groves'. As we say more parochially, where would you leave it?
Colletta Olivieri Extra Virgin Olive Oil can be bought by contacting Lino directly (lino.olivieri@gmail.com). This also allows you to say to people, "Oh, I have my olive oil shipped direct from Puglia".
Alternatively you can go to the Goldwater Shop, 17 Terenure Rd North (01 4928110) or pop along to the Dublin Food Co-Op (01-4544258; www.dublinfood.coop) where you might be lucky enough to meet Lino's two gorgeous little daughters, Florence and Sophia.
http://www.olivierioliveoil.com/index.html
Saturday, March 21, 2009
Five Times Better
Much derided for profiteering during our age of plenty, the restaurant industry is having to strip back and get creative as belts tighten. Odessa has been at the fore of this new value-for-money spirit and there has been quite a bit of buzz about their Fivers menu - a refreshingly straightforward idea where generous tapas-styple plates are served at, that's right, E5 each. And it appears that where efforts like this are being made by restaurants, diners are being responsive.
The first impression that struck me arriving in Odessa, mid-week early in March, was nostalgia. The full dining-room, hearty laughter, high spirits, tables heavy with assorted dishes and plentiful plonk all screamed, "Recession. What Recession?" While outside Rome burns and Cowen fiddles, within the cocoon of the Odessa dining room diners ate, drank and made merry like t'were early 2008.
Initially guided to an awkward table in the thick of the crowd, on request we were happily reassigned to a cosy berth by the window with no qualms, not always the customary response of a busy restaurant that would much rather you sat where they had put you and you were least likely to linger longer than was profitable. This pleasant service was maintained for the evening - our waitress disarmingly charming, knowledgeable about the menu and helpful but unobtrusive throughout. Cold tap-water arrived at the table with the menus; bread coming shortly thereafter. In sporting parlance, we were off to a flyer.
Glancing about the room we readily decided that two of the Fiver plates may not be enough to fill us individually but three may have been too much. Between the two of us then, the Med-Head and I, we picked five plates (are you detecting a theme?) from among the 12 or so on offer, a selection which ranges widely across cuisines and should keep most happy.
First up, on the express recommendation of our waitress, was the Brandade - an intensely fishy salt-cod puree. The concentration of the fish flavour was cut through to some extent by fresh herbs (dill certainly and others too) but the portions were off with too much puree and not enough bread for dipping. Less would have been more and, taking a few solo spoonfuls, the sensation was much the same I would imagine as sucking on a fisherman's tackle. Not one for the faint-hearted.
Sticking with the surf, salt and pepper calamari arrived next and were a shining example of how something so familiar, in the right hands, can be a rare treat. A judiciously seasoned crust gave way to thin cirlces of squid that had bite but were never chewy - snatched from the oil at precisely the right moment. This plate challenged the sharing ethos of the meal and the Med-Head proved himself the bigger man by leaving the last ring to me.
Mushrooms with garlic and thyme were probably the weakest element of the meal, over seasoned and over-cooked, the little button mushrooms too meagre and shrivelled. A lighter hand and a bigger, more flavourful mushroom is needed to balance the flavours in the dish. A small antipasti plate of olives, artichokes and peppers hinted at good sourcing of ingredients.
The chicken leg confit took an age to arrive, probably a good sign, but was a bit on the plain side and would have benefitted from something wet alongside the solitary poultry leg. The confit istelf was technically flawless, crisp outside like a winter morning; the meat within giving way to the fork like soft earth to shovel. The same skills are brought to bare on the impeccable duck confit on the main diner menu.
With two espressos and a drinkable, if forgetable, bottle of house red the bill came to E48.90 without service. When you consider your typical three course set menu weighing in at about the E25 mark before drinks, the Fivers menus offers a novel and economical alternative dinner for two. In the coming months our new economic gradient is likely to sort the restaurant wheat from the chaff. On this evidence a table at Odessa seems as good a place as any to wait out the last days of the Celtic Empire.
Odessa
14 Dame Court, D2
+ 353 (0)1 6707634
www.odessa.ie
info@odessa.ie
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