In Ireland, Benjamin Darnaud meets passionate farmers. Jeffa Gill produces a famous cheese: Durrus cheese. Martin and Noreen breed an ancient breed of English pig, the saddleback. Sally Barnes practices the traditional technique of smoking fish and Bernard King breeds lambs with incomparable taste.
En Irlande, Benjamin Darnaud rencontre des agriculteurs passionnés. Jeffa Gill produit un fromage réputé : le Durrus cheese. Martin et Noreen élèvent une race ancienne de porcs anglais, les saddleback. Sally Barnes pratique la technique traditionnelle du fumage de poisson et Bernard King élève des agneaux au goût incomparable.
Video: https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=1416570068428817
********
Durrus cheese
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/DurrusCheese/
When Jeffa Gill began making cheese on her farm in 1979, she started it as part of her pioneering spirit to provide for her family from her own small holding in West Cork and to capture something of the beauty of the area in her unique hand-crafted cheeses.
Today, 40 years on, our cheeses are still made by hand using traditional techniques on our farm in the beautiful valley of Coomkeen just beyond Durrus village in West Cork. We are a small family business dedicated to producing the highest quality product while staying true to the principles from which we were founded which were sustainability, quality and enjoying the work we do.
***
Woodside Farm – Free range pork and bacon
http://www.woodsidefarm.ie/index.html
Nestled in a quiet corner of Ballincurrig in East cork is Woodside Farm. A small family run farm, we have a mixed farm with cattle,sheep and a variety of poultry and of course our pigs.
We breed pedigree Saddleback and Pedigree Gloucester Old Spot pigs. They live outdoors all of their lives where they root and forage,they sleep in movable arks on straw bedding. We don’t feed our pigs commercial ration instead they are fed mainly rolled wheat and we also grow Kale and Swede Turnip. They are rotated onto fresh pasture regularly.
About us
Here at Woodside Farm we believe that if you want high quality Pork you must start with a traditional breed. The Saddleback and Gloucester Old Spot pigs thrive outdoors and their numbers are in decline. These traditional pigs mature slower than the modern hybrid and their meat is naturally marbled unlike the modern pig. Our pigs grow up with their litter mates and stay together all their lives as a group,our pigs are between nine and eleven months old when finished.
We cure our own bacon and make all our own sausages.We don’t use any preservatives or stabilisers,because of this our sausages have a five day shelf life. We also make Pork & Apple Burgers which contain just Pork and Apple,these are also Gluten Free. We only sell meat from our pigs and don’t buy in any meat and pass it off as our own. When you buy our products you can be sure you are getting a Truly Free Range Product.
*
Article: Innovative farmers shine at awards
Innovative farmers were at the fore when the annual Euro-toque food awards were presented today.
Four of the five awards went to groups of farmers who had added value to their produce. Euro-toques Ireland is the Irish branch of the European Community of Chefs and Cooks.
The Apple Farm, near Cahir, Co Tipperary, received an award for its range of apple and fruit varieties, juices and fruit produce.
Con Traas’s family have been growing fruit, primarily apples, at The Apple Farm in Moorstown since the 1960s.
Woodside Farm in Leamlara, Co Cork, received an award for its free-range pork and pork products. Martin and Noreen Conroy breed and rear pure traditional Saddleback and Gloucester Old Spot pigs at their farm near Midleton.
Drumeen Farm in Urlingford, Co Kilkenny was recognised for its Happy Heart organic rapeseed oil. Kitty Colchester began producing the oil on her parent’s organic farm earlier this year.
Another award went to Solaris Botanicals in Galway, for its organic whole leaf speciality and herbal teas. Medical herbalists Jorg Muller and Karin Wieland produce a wide range of whole leaf organic speciality and herbal teas.
Read more
***
Connemara Mountain Lamb
http://www.connemaramountainlamb.ie/
My name is Bernard King. You are all very welcome to our website outlining our farm in Leenane, where we produce Connemara Mountain Lamb. The farm is owned and worked by my wife Allison and myself.
The farm is around 530 hectares in size, with some of the land rising to over 500m above sea level. The farm lies beside the sea and overlooks the beautiful Killary, Irelands only fjord.
Our Sheep are the Blackface Mountain breed and we produce around 500 lambs for the Christmas market and on to the end of March.
The lambs feed on the natural grasses, heathers and herbs found in abundance in this area of outstanding natural beauty, lightly salted by the sea breezes drifting over the mountains. This unique diet produces a delicate and flavoursome meat.
***
Woodcock Smokery
https://www.woodcocksmokery.com/
SALLY BARNES AND THE WOODCOCK SMOKERY
Sally Ferns-Barnes began traditional smoke-curing as a means to preserve the bounty that she and husband at the time were catching from the Atlantic waters of the West Cork coastline. Working as a fisherwoman and commercial fisherman’s wife, she smoked her first fish in 1979 and through endless trial and error, supplying the local community with preserved fish, established a famously unique recipe that began winning awards and accolades, including the prestgious Supreme Champion at the Great Taste awards for her now legendary cold-smoked Wild Atlantic Salmon, and most recently the Eurotoques Craft award.
Working only and always with wild fish, Sally has remained a stalwort of small-scale independent business with a predominantly local client base, and dealing with genuinely sustainable quantities of real fish from local boats when the weather is good and the fish are in season.
With a firm and unfaltering stance against environmentally unsound aquaculture, Sally has won the respect of retailers and top chefs around the world, speaking regularly at Slow Food events in defence of natural produce and now supplying some of the Michelin starred restaurants around Ireland with her deep knowledge of true, natural fish from West Cork waters.
Video of the smoking process:
https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=10155240785039597
