Myrtle Allen's first column in the Irish Farmers Journal

Long before country houses were running restaurants, in a time before Michelin stars and cookery schools, there was Myrtle Allen, a lady who along with her husband Ivan moved to a farm in Shanagarry, Co Cork and set up a country house to serve quality food.

Since then her impact on the Irish food, hospitality and tourism industry has been phenomenal. Founder of Ireland’s Blue Book travel guide, a founding member of Euro-Toques International and of course, the matriarch of the Ballymaloe brand, Myrtle Allen brought Irish food forward through commitment to quality produce.

You could say it all started when Myrtle was asked by Larry Sheedy to write a cookery column in the Irish Farmers Journal. Her first column was published on 28 July 1962, two years before the doors of Ballymaloe House opened.

Today, in memory of Myrtle Allen, we dusted off the cobwebs in our archive department to present our readers with her very first column. The piece started with an introduction by Larry Sheedy speaking about a visit to Ballymaloe as well as his decision to introduce her as a columnist. Myrtle then takes her readers through her jam recipes. While the costings of her raspberry jam are priced in shilling and pence, many of her comments are still as relevant today as they were in 1962.

Published 28 July 1962.

Breakfast in Myrtle Allen’s home on a recent Friday was for 13 people (including myself). Chief item was a simple dish of Swiss origin. It was oatmeal steeped in cold water and served with a mash of whatever fruit was in season – in this case strawberries (the family favourite is grated apples). Lunch was for 12 people and the menu was fresh mackerel bought on the pier in Ballycotton.

At all times, Ms Allen cooks for big numbers (she has six children) and her guiding maxims are that the meal should be simple but varied, tasty and popular, but well within the budget of farmer’s wife.

While talking in this vein I asked her to tackle a series of cookery articles for our Farm Home section. Happily, she agreed and this week we have the first article written by a farmer’s wife for farmers' wives.

By Myrtle Allen

Well, what and who are we cooking for anyway? We must be sure about our ultimate object before we start. Different people want different food – the hungry hoards in from the fields, that finiky man again, the children, bad tummies, the old person with no chewing power, visitors, or jolly well to suit ourselves with a million other things to get done and no time to do them in.

Then there are other things on the list, cost, flavour, nutritional value and appearance.

The worst thing is food that looks wonderful and isn’t; that makes your mouth water but has a distinct sawdust flavour; the salad with no dressing on the lettuce and not even salt and pepper on the sliced tomatoes. A friend and I were once asked to judge sponge cakes for a Macra competition. We gave first prize to a burnt cake with a delicious thick creamy filling. It wasn’t badly burned and it tasted wonderful.

The perfect looking ones tasted of baking powder and sawdust and the smear of bought raspberry jam didn’t help them. It is a terrible mistake to judge cakes on appearance only.

Considerations

In future articles, I shall try to write with these considerations in view – the people who eat, the cost, the flavour etc.

But now the soft fruit season is nearly over and I couldn’t live without my jams and bottles for the winter, so we’d better have a word about them before they are gone for another 12 months.

Whatever your favourite jam recipe is, don’t forget one principle. Make your jam quickly in small quantities. Never stir for hours over a big steaming pot of jam that never seems to set. Make your jam in a big wide saucepan which will boil off surplus water quickly. The quicker you boil jam, the better the colour, flavour, vitamin content and yield. Five to 10 minutes should be enough for most jams at a very fast boil.

The game is to catch it the minute it is just set, when it is neither so runny that it covers everyone’s fingers and clothes, and not yet solid.

Blackcurrant Jam

This is mild and sweet with a high proportion of jelly to fruit.

Ingredients

Pull stalks off fruit, cook in water until soft (five to 10 minutes). Add sugar and stir in and boil another five or 10 minutes until set.

Approximate yield 5 ½ lb.

Approximate costs (with blackcurrants at 1s 6d per lb.) is 9d per lb of jam.

Raspberry or Loganberry Jam

Stir 2lb of fruit on low flame until soft and juicy. Meanwhile warm 2 ¼ to 2 ½ lb. sugar in oven. Beat fruit and sugar together. Bring to boil and boil very fast for five minutes on hot plate. This seems to set and keep perfectly.

Approximate yield 3 ½ lb.

Approximate cost (with fruit at 1s 3d per lb) is 1s 2d per lb. jam.

Finally, don’t forget one preserves only surpluses. Our husbands wouldn’t make their cows do without grass so they could make hay of it. First, feed the family all the fresh fruit they need. It is better for them and less trouble for you that way.