Look what just happened!

Welcome to the first Megabites on Substack from McKennas' Guides

Get Baking!

There is a word for what has just happened in Ireland’s little world of food publishing, and that word is: UBU.

In what has been an annus mirabilis for Irish food books, the publication in the same week of Graham Herterich’s Bake and JR Ryall’s Ballymaloe Deserts is simply Unbelievable, Bizarre, and Unprecedented: UBU.

To have one world class book on modern Irish baking published is an Event. To have two world class books on modern Irish baking published in the same week is beyond extraordinary. The coincidence is Unbelievable, Bizarre and Unprecedented.

To anyone who knows the work of Ryall and Herterich, the fact that their books are world class is no surprise. They are the finest modern bakers in the land, and they are in possession of the finest creative baking brains in the land. They have both moved Irish baking forwards with their imaginative reinvention of Irish classics.

Herterich’s Bake is a truly Proustian text, for Graham Herterich roots his work in recalling inspirations gifted by his family and friends. When he gives a recipe for Iced Duck, for instance, he writes “I remember getting it from Bradbury’s, our local bakery in Athy, when I was growing up.” Time and again, the template on which Herterich weaves his brilliant improvisations is the memory of a taste, a place, a person. Bake is an extremely personal work, yet it is also universal: memories make us, and memories bake us.

For JR Ryall, the north star is the late Myrtle Allen, the woman who, in opening Ballymaloe House to guests, created the Big Bang of modern Irish food. 

“To me Myrtle was magic… I loved her approach and was immediately interested in her way of thinking and doing things.” Mrs Allen offered JR the job of head pastry chef even before he had finished college, and since 2010 he has brought glory to the famous Ballymaloe dessert trolley: that moment at dinner when the trolley is wheeled to your table is one of the great moments in Irish eating.

Bake and Ballymaloe Desserts are both world class books, which may seem unlikely, but is actually not surprising. JR Ryall’s book has benefitted from superlative photography from the Connemara-based photographer Cliodhna Prendergast, whose formal work is stunning. The publisher is the international house Phaidon, who do this sort of book superbly. 

Graham Herterich’s book is published by the Dublin firm 9 Bean Row Books, and its stupendous quality is not surprising because the publisher here is Kristin Jensen, one of the great talents in modern publishing. The photography by Jo Murphy is again outstanding, and Ms Murphy has achieved the impossible: she has made soda bread sexy.

Nua Asador

Victor Franca: remember the name.

Actually, if the name does already ring a bell, that’s because Victor was one of the six chefs who made the final of 2022’s Eurotoques Young Chef of the Year.

Or the name may ring a bell because this year, Victor’s chimichurri sauce won a gold medal at the Blas na hEireann awards. In 2021, after being open for only 5 weeks, they won a bronze for the sauce.

Victor Franca cooks at Nua Asador, one of the stalls in Cork’s funky Marina Market. Watching him cook, at his wood-fired parrilla grill, you get the sense of someone born to work with flame. He is completely at ease with the grills and pulleys, moving foods around the flames with a maestro’s calm and control. Back in his native Brazil, he started cooking aged 14, and has a spell with the luminary Alex Atala under his belt. Another key element in his armoury is the fact that Franca’s partner in Asador is Tom Durcan, the luminary butcher from Cork’s English Market. 

His skills bestow vivid life on his cooking, a series of prime cuts served with sourdough bread, grilled potatoes and onions, and the Asador sauces. The picanha, the short rib and the skirt steak are umami powerhouses, whilst West Cork chicken is moist and lushly flavoured. The slow-cooked short rib sandwich is served on ciabatta, with cheddar, organic leaves, onions and chimichurri mayo, and it’s a blast of exciting flavours, executed to perfection. The West Cork boned chicken leg is just as good: textured, intensely savoury, food that is served in modest paper boxes, but which is worthy of the best Villeroy & Boch china. 

Cork city has the great fortune to attract cooks like Victor Franca, and others just like him from all around the world, and they create a vital internationalism for the city. Nua Asador is the taste of South America, and Victor Franca is the name to remember.

Dan Saladino

Some books capture the zeitgeist.

Dan Saladino’s Eating To Extinction is one of those books.

In the same way that Michael Pollan’s The Omnivore’s Dilemma touched a deep chord amongst food lovers, back in 2006, Dan Saladino’s book is both in its time, and defining of its time. 

The book is a series of portraits of people who safeguard and produce rare foods – from Coppy perry pear trees in England, to wild honey in Tanzania – and Saladino’s gift is to make these exotica seem both unnervingly real, and unnervingly vital. These are not esoterica, he says: these are the building blocks, the food DNA, of human survival and resilience.

Dan Saladino is best-known as a reporter for the BBC Radio 4 Food Programme. He is an interviewer of extraordinary skill, a stealth actor who creates unforgettable reportage whilst always remaining in the shadows. His quiet, under-the-radar interviewing style is brilliant, and results in extraordinary stories, the stories which make it into Eating To Extinction in print form.

When he joined our panel on England’s Lost Foods, at Theatre of Food at Latitude Festival, Dan Saladino also showed that he is a masterly performer, and a new career as a panelist has been happening ever since Eating to Extinction was published, with Dan touring the world of food festivals, most recently he spoke at Dublin’s Food on the Edge. 

In the meantime, Eating To Extinction deservedly hoovers up award after award. Proper order.

Mega Bites

The new Christmas hamper selection from Builin Blasta

It’s rare for cooks and bakers from the north to head West for collabs, so don’t miss the chance to see what Dara and Ciara from the brilliant Ursa Minor get up to with Phillippa and Sinead from The Sea Hare in Clifden, 22nd October. 👉tickets from link-in-bio @theseahare

After your place in the queue has finally been rewarded by getting into the new Bskewers shop, on Crow Street, Dublin, make sure to take a serious look at the new Bskewers grill, designed by Pat and Jimmy from Wexford’s Smokin’ Soul Serious kit! 👉 bskewers.com

Laura O’Donovan, of Renvyle’s luminary So Doh Sourdough, has a new trailer! Queue up on Fridays! World domination So, Doh! 👉 @so_doh_sourdough_renvle

The new Gourmet Greenway Events Guide for 2023 should be in every Western-bound holidaymakers bag, for here is your chance to get up close to Mayo’s food masters. 2023 sees the launch of the first ever single malt whiskey made on an Irish island, from Irish American Whiskey, and you can also meet the great bakers, brewers, seafood specialists and much more. 👉 mulrannyParkHotel.ie

Congratulations to John Edward Joyce, of Limerick’s stellar The Mustard Seed, for winning the César Award for Best Hotel in Ireland, from The Good Hotel Guide. 👉 mustardseed.ie

Christmas is sorted with the new Gourmet Christmas Hampers from Builin Blasta. Nationwide delivery. If you’re already addicted to the smoked onion and mayo and pineapple chilli - there is more to discover! 👉 BuilinBlasta

Coming Up…

We are looking forward to Samhain, when we will be talking about The Women Who Created The Irish Farmhouse Cheese Revolution. Kells: November 3rd-6th 👉 boynevalleyflavours.ie