Kinsale Gourmet Food Festival: 50 Mile Meal Award
October 2008
Fishy Fishy's 'Back to the Future' Herring
The annual TTK ’50 Mile Meal Award’ took place this year on 11th October as part of the Kinsale Gourmet Food Festival’s Mad Hatter’s Taste of Kinsale. This year saw an even wider array of delicious local dishes produced using ingredients from within a 50 mile radius of the town to highlight the importance of local food production and to raise awareness of food miles. Let’s face it, why transport food across huge distances when we can be growing the same stuff up the road?
This year we were very fortunate to have Sandra Nowlan MSc, a food critic and writer who was on a visit from Novia Scotia, who acted as our judge, and who based her critique on presentation, flavour and innovation. She was very impressed with the ‘amazing’ food the chefs of Kinsale had prepared and by the wide variety available on the day. The award for ‘Most Exquisite 50 Mile Meal’ went to Pearse and Mary O’Sullivan of Toddies Restaurant who along with chef Jerome Bar created the Ummera smoked eel, beetroot and watercress salad. These guys had gone to great lengths to create some truly imaginative, original and very local dishes including mackerel and potato salad, local shrimp cocktail and a pumpkin and mussel soup so a big congratulations for their conscious effort to source Toddies’ entire array of food from local producers and providers.
Sandra Nowlan MSc, food critic and writer and Liz from TTK
The TTK Special Commendation went to Peter Tiernan from The Spinnaker whose excellent traditional meat dishes of oxtail spring roll and tongue were sourced from O’Crualaoi Butchers in Ballincollig, tripe and drisheen from the English Market in Cork and salmon from Matt O’Connell. Special mention goes to Fishy Fishy’s sublime ‘Back to the Future’ herring prepared by chef Jonathan Carter and a rather wonderful seafood chowder from chef Martin El-Sahen of Restaurant d’Antibes at the White House which contained seafood from Matt O’Connell, bacon from Gubbeen and herbs and vegetables grown in owner, Michael Frawley’s back garden.
Peter Tiernan from the Spinnaker receives his award
Pearse O'Sullivan receives his award
Local producers also participated at the event: Gubbeen, Ummera, Haven Shellfish, Carrigaline Cheese whose Pat O’Farrell was delighted to inform us that their smoked cheese had just won a Gold at the International Cheese Awards in Dublin.
It has to be said that the vast majority of the food used at this event was locally sourced, but it’s great to see some extra special effort being put in by the chefs for this award. TTK would like to thank Carole Norman, the Good Food Circle and all the chefs for their talent, committment and enthusiasm in participating in this event.
Anyone who took part in the ‘Taste’ tour will have noticed our visiting cameraman, Michael, who was filming a piece for a documentary on initiatives in Cork which are based on communities becoming more sustainable. We’ll let you know when it’s on YouTube!
July '08
TTK will once again be participating in The Mad Hatters Taste of Kinsale, the Highlight of the Gourmet Food Festival which will take place on Saturday 11th October. Participants will join Alice, the Mad Hatter, March Hare and the Fieldmouse on an escorted tour of the 12 Members of Kinsale's Good Food Circle who will present spectacular dishes from their kitchens bearing testimony to the culinary skills of the chefs of Kinsale.
The Transition Town Jury (with Special Guest) will taste all the dishes produced with local produce to find out who will win the Transition Town Most Exquisite 50 Mile Meal Award this year. Last year’s winners were Jim Edwards Restaurant and Le Restaurant d'Antibes at The White House.
The TTK 50 Mile Meal Award serves to highlight the need to consider food miles when purchasing food, the value of local food production and that its development is essential for a low energy future. Though many of us are becoming aware of the environmental cost of food when viewed in terms of food miles we are not so aware of the energy cost which will only become apparent as supplies of oil diminish.
October 2007
Bronwyn Connolly, Derek Davis, Klaus Harvey, Liz Creed and Dan Benn at the Gourmet Food Festival
This year we launched a unique event in the history of Kinsale culinary concernments. We invited the organisers of the festival, Kinsale Good Food Circle, to participate in a ’50 Mile Meal’ award. A certificate was given to any dish prepared with ingredients produced within a 50 mile radius of the town.
Visitors at the event could then identify which dishes were local and were asked to vote for the one they felt was the most exquisitely prepared. Not only did this encourage support of local food producers but it helped raise awareness of ‘food miles’ and their implication of fossil fuel consumption and CO2 emissions. The response was hugely positive with many visitors expressing their support towards the initiative and enthusiastically selecting from the enticing array of local food on offer.
Liz Creed with TTK special prize winner Martin Elsahen from White House
The winners were Jim Edwards for their delicious asparagus spears wrapped in salmon, the producers of which were Waterfall Farms Ltd. and Haven Shellfish; runner up was the White Lady with two excellent meat dishes made with chicken and beef from O’Crualaoi Butchers, Ballincollig and a special TTK prize was awarded to the White House with its sweet pumpkin pie made with pumpkins grown by John Joe Murphy barely 2 miles from Kinsale. That’s about a local as you can get!
Congratulations to all the winners and everyone who put in the effort to encourage and promote local food production. A big thanks and well done to Liz Creed who worked long hours to ensure the venture got safely off the ground. Same time next year!