She believed in the quality of Irish produce and the people who produced it
LOYALTY CODE:
The paper code cannot be redeemed when browsing in private/incognito mode. Please go to a normal browser window and enter the code there
This content is copyright protected!
However, if you would like to share the information in this article, you may use the headline, summary and link below:
Title: In memory of Myrtle
Myrtle Allen – a woman who redirected the course of Irish food culture
https://www.farmersjournal.ie/in-memory-of-myrtle-464269
ENTER YOUR LOYALTY CODE:
The reader loyalty code gives you full access to the site from when you enter it until the following Wednesday at 9pm. Find your unique code on the back page of Irish Country Living every week.
CODE ACCEPTED
You have full access to farmersjournal.ie on this browser until 9pm next Wednesday. Thank you for buying the paper and using the code.
CODE NOT VALID
Please try again or contact us.
For assistance, call 01 4199525
or email subs@farmersjournal.ie
Sign in
Incorrect details
Please try again or reset password
If would like to speak to a member of
our team, please call us on 01-4199525
Reset
password
Please enter your email address and we
will send you a link to reset your password
If would like to speak to a member of
our team, please call us on 01-4199525
Link sent to
your email
address
We have sent an email to your address.
Please click on the link in this email to reset
your password. If you can't find it in your inbox,
please check your spam folder. If you can't
find the email, please call us on 01-4199525.
Email address
not recognised
There is no subscription associated with this email
address. To read our subscriber-only content.
please subscribe or use the reader loyalty code.
If would like to speak to a member of
our team, please call us on 01-4199525
Update Success !
She believed in the quality of Irish produce and the people who produced it
Even though she wasn’t there, there’s no doubt that Myrtle Allen was the star of the show at the inaugural University College Cork (UCC) memorial lecture in her name. Speakers on the night included Ross Lewis of Chapter One fame who said Myrtle remains a profound influencer on the Irish restaurant scene.
She believed in the quality of Irish produce and the people who produced it
“She used terms such as foraging, local, organic, farm-to-fork and provenance before anyone did in this country. She taught us all that great food happens at the interface of land and people. She really believed that healthy soil made for healthy food.”
He said Myrtle fed guests like she would her friends and ego played no part in her life even when the accolades poured in. “She believed in the quality of Irish produce and the people who produced it.”
Big bang
His words were echoed by John McKenna who, along with Sally McKenna, knows the story of every food establishment in the country.
“Myrtle was the ‘big bang’ of Irish cookery. She was revolutionary and always stood out. The tradition of the big house had been ‘keep out’ but she opened the gates and brought people in. That was 1964 and everything good that’s happened to Irish food dates back to that year.
There was no hierarchy at Ballymaloe. Myrtle took everyone’s strengths and made more of them
Recalling his first visit to Ballymaloe, John said the dining room was busy and there was Myrtle clearing tables for the next guests. “She showed that the boss works here. There was no hierarchy at Ballymaloe. Myrtle took everyone’s strengths and made more of them. Her advice was to ignore wretched customers who demanded swanky food. She held fast to butter and the local abattoir.”
Keynote speaker was Claudia Roden, one of the most famous food writers in the world.
“We must remember that Myrtle was a farmer’s wife, self-taught who put Ireland’s gastronomy on the world stage. That is some achievement.”
Archives
In a further development, UCC announced it had acquired Myrtle Allen’s archive of papers. The papers includes scrapbooks of traditional recipes sent to her by readers of the Irish Farmers Journal. Myrtle wrote her food columns for the paper from 1962 until the early 1970s.
The Myrtle Allen Archive will be housed at the Boole Library in UCC where it will be highly relevant to UCC Food and Culinary Historian, Regina Sexton. Regina has been researching the influence of Myrtle Allen on Irish food culture since 2013.
She described the papers as an insight into a woman whose ethos to cooking and Irish produce would come to frame much of how we engage with contemporary Irish food culture today.
The event coincided with the launch of UCC’s Post-graduate Diploma in Irish Food Culture.
SHARING OPTIONS: