"All the good stuff" from Leitrim features in new Bridgestone Food Guide
This week it is the turn of the Bridgestone Food Guide of Ireland to turn it's attention to our wee county. Restaurants, shops, accommodation and food producers from Leitrim receive great acclaim in this food guide's newest edition.
The ninth edition of the Bridgestone Food Guide by John & Sally McKenna includes "all the good stuff and only the good stuff" from around the country. This isn't the best restaurants guide, it is the most indispensable guide to Ireland's superb food culture and includes shops, restaurants, markets, pubs, food producers and more.
Starting in South Leitrim, Cannaboe Confectionary, Ballinamore is declared a county treat. It states that the owner and creator, "Sharon Sweeney is a sugarcraft wizard."
Moving on to Carrick-on-Shannon Ciin House and Hollywell Country House are given the thumbs up on the accommodation front. Ciin House is described as a "vital counterpoint to the bland hotels that are littered throughout the country now."
And owners of the Hollywell Tom and Rosaleen Maher are praised for their "light hearted, witty, selfless hospitality" while also branding the Maher family as "legendary."
"My goodness but the world and his wife" are exclaimed to visit the Market Yard Farmers' Market on a Thursday morning in Carrick-on-Shannon.
The Oarsman gets another great write up with the authors saying Ronan and Conor Maher are "amongst the leading restauratuers in the North West, their Oarsman bar and restaurant a shining example of how to run a smart business that serves its community and its visitors."
"The age of the rediscovery of boxty is dawning and Timmy Faughnan is right there, ready for the deluge of interest in this most quixotic of potato products," the guide says of Dromod Homemade Boxty.
The Cottage in Jamestown rightly gets praise for it's delicious dishes and advises consumers that this place is "one to watch" in the future.
"You are a lucky food lover if you live within the distribution circle of Sinead and Pascal's cutting edge artisan baker" the guide starts off about Jinny's Bakery, Drumshanbo. It also declares “Having bread of this quality should be a constitutional right of every citizen.”
Dromahair’s Cheese Etc gets a glowing review adding “if you want to see how Ireland’s farmhouse cheeses taste and a glimpse of the sublime, you need Cheese Etc as part of your weekly shopping.”
The Riverbank restaurant in Dromahair makes it onto the coveted pages with the authors predicting that with the food already being served here will “bode well for the future.”
The discreet Tullynascreena Goat farm’s cheese is boasted as “well worth any food lover’s detective hunt.”
Kinlough’s famed restaurant The Courthouse gains praise for chef Piero Melis and the pretty village of Kinlough, saying his imports of fine wine and food brings a “note of authenticity to a little slice of Sardinia in lovely Leitrim.”
Manorhamilton’s Co-Op shop is quoted as the one of John mcKenna’s “favourite places to shop in the North-West.” Their fine produce and traditional arrangement of items shows the shop’s “timeless service, and timeless goodness.” Manor’s Farmers’ Market every Friday also gets a mention.
Eden Plants and The Organic Centre, Rossinver are promoted in the guide. Speaking about The Organic Centre’s seasonal courses it says their timeliness and the centre’s forward planning are “so important for good food and sustainability in Ireland.”
The independent critical guides by Bridgestone (yes the tyre company!) to Ireland’s food culture doesn’t just provide advice on the best places to eat, sleep and buy your food, it also takes a hardline on the current food market in Ireland.
The book criticises supermarkets as “destructive” with “no loyalty” stating they are “mesmerically clever, for how else can one explain why people shop in stores that destroy Irish towns, refuse to disclose their profit margins, and generally act in ways that are totally contrary to the best interests of the country.”
The “resistance needed” will have to come from the grassroots and “the realisation that buying imported food in a foreign-owned supermarket in Ireland is, quite simply put, a traitorous action.”
Part of the act of resistance against the foreign food empire which has colonised the country, is of course to pick up this book and read your way around Ireland’s traditional and new organic food culture.
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Weather for Carrick-on-Shannon, Ireland
Thursday 17 May 2012
Today
Light rain
Temperature: 5 C to 11 C
Wind Speed: 7 mph
Wind direction: South
Tomorrow
Light showers
Temperature: 6 C to 11 C
Wind Speed: 10 mph
Wind direction: North east
