With their well-known McKenna’s Guides, husband and wife team John and Sally McKenna have been letting diners from around the world know where (and what) to eat in each county, town and even village in Ireland for many years. They possess an almost-encyclopaedic knowledge of not just restaurants, but chefs, culinary technique, ingredients and the nuances that make Irish food culture as unique as it is. Milk might seem like a basic ingredient. It’s not difficult to find, nor very expensive, and chances are, you’ll find it in almost every fridge in the country. It’s deeply ingrained in our daily routine, but easy to take for granted. To John and Sally, it’s much more than a refrigerator staple.
With their well-known McKenna’s Guides, husband and wife team John and Sally McKenna have been letting diners from around the world know where (and what) to eat in each county, town and even village in Ireland for many years. They possess an almost-encyclopaedic knowledge of not just restaurants, but chefs, culinary technique, ingredients and the nuances that make Irish food culture as unique as it is.
Milk might seem like a basic ingredient. It’s not difficult to find, nor very expensive, and chances are, you’ll find it in almost every fridge in the country. It’s deeply ingrained in our daily routine, but easy to take for granted. To John and Sally, it’s much more than a refrigerator staple.
“When we started writing about food 30 years ago, people were saying: ‘French butters are the best in the world’ – I always thought French butters were terrible,” John says. “Most animals out in the world are not [raised] on grass, and that’s a tragedy, because a cow on rations will produce milk, but it’s not the same as grass-fed milk, like what we have in Ireland.”
Chicken empanadas with milk mojo sauce; one of the recipes found in MILK by John and Sally McKenna. \ Mike O'Toole and Anne Marie Tobin
To prove their grá for the white stuff, they have devoted their latest cookbook to all things Irish dairy. Published in partnership with the National Dairy Council, the book is simply entitled Milk, written and edited in record time during the lockdown period. The book is now available in all major bookshops and online.
Featuring recipes from well-known chefs and food personalities, Milk also delves into the history and cultural significance of dairying in Ireland, featuring some of the winning farmers from the annual NDC and Kerrygold Quality Milk Awards.
John and Sally believe Ireland is producing the milk-equivalent of a grand cru wine, all thanks to our landscape and farming methods.
“In France, the highest rating for wines would be a grand cru or a premier cru,” John explains.
Butter with flowers; from MILK by John and Sally McKenna. \ Mike O'Toole and Anne Marie Tobin
“You’re looking at places where people say, ‘This is the ideal location for growing this [type of] grape.’ It struck me – in Ireland, we have the perfect circumstances for making the best milk. Clean rain, green, fresh grass, small farms and hands-on farmers with small herds. It’s an echo of the French system, where you have the perfect circumstances to produce optimum quality.”
Backed by science
These are hefty claims, but they are also backed by science. Research presented by Teagasc has shown that grass-fed dairy is higher in beneficial fats, protein and nutrients than other milk, but currently only a small percentage of global milk production uses a grass-fed system.
John believes the milk produced in Ireland is like a magic elixir – chock-full of health benefits for people of all ages.
Labneh; a recipe found in MILK by John and Sally McKenna. \ ike O'Toole and Anne Marie Tobin
“If you were to isolate all those respective vitamins and minerals and take them in a pill form, you couldn’t recreate what happens when you drink milk,” he says.
“You can’t add salt to water and expect to get sea water.
“You shouldn’t stop drinking [milk] at 12 – it has a place in everybody’s diet,” he continues.
“Dr Patrick Wall, [professor of public health] at UCD says there is growing evidence milk has a role to play in slowing the ageing process. It’s early days, but he feels the evidence is very strong.”
Culturally diverse
While the Milk cookbook features a number of chefs, and each recipe uses Irish dairy as a main ingredient, the recipes themselves are culturally diverse and impressively styled and shot by Kildare-based photographer Mike O’Toole and chef Anne Marie Tobin. John feels it’s important to showcase other cultural uses for milk, methods which are not only interesting, but often superior to our own. By combining these recipes and techniques with Irish dairy, something special is achieved.
John and Sally McKenna have written a new cookbook, in collaboration with the National Dairy Council, entitled MILK. \ Mike O'Toole and Anne Marie Tobin
“Everyone says their granny makes the best rice pudding, but really, the best rice pudding in the world comes from Spain,” John says.
“So for the book, we asked for a recipe from Tapas de Lola – two wonderful women (Anna Cabrera and Vanessa Murphy) in Dublin. Milk is integral to Ireland, but it has a multiplicity.”
Other recipes include Latin American dish chicken empanadas with milk mojo sauce, Turkish-style yoghurt and chef Tony Davidson’s (of Fisk, Downings, Co Donegal) famous recipe for buttermilk fried fish.
“It’s not just a recipe book,” John says. “We didn’t just want it to be, ‘Here are some recipes from John and Sally.’ We went to our emerging generation of chefs [for contributions]. We wanted [this book] to be a reflection of the importance of milk to Ireland and its chefs.”
Milk is published by Gill and will be available in selected bookshops across Ireland from October.
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