Wild Garlic, Gooseberries and Me: A chef’s stories and recipes from the land

To the memory of my father, Michael Cotter, a frequent and often unexpected guiding presence during the writing of this book.

The greatest service that can be rendered any country is to add a useful plant to its culture.

THOMAS JEFFERSON

Table of Contents

Cover Page

Title Page

Dedication

Epigraph

Introduction

It’s a green thing

Wild pickings

A passionate pursuit

Growing in the dark

Index

Acknowledgements

About the author

Copyright

About the Publisher

Introduction

While I was writing this book, most people I know learned not to ask two particular questions: ‘How is it coming along?’ and ‘What is it about?’ Some kept asking anyway, which was actually much appreciated. The answer to the first question was almost always a moan, often very long, sometimes monosyllabic. To the second question I would answer simply, ‘Vegetables,’ and most of the time I really felt that it was enough of an explanation. Caught on a good day, I might have added that the book is also about my relationships with the vegetables I work with as a professional cook, and with the people who grow them. It is also about the place where this happens, and my place in that place.

Now that the book is done, I guess that’s still the answer I would give. Food is life. We all know that intuitively but often forget it or lose touch with the importance of food in our lives beyond the basic need for sustenance. A healthy culture needs a healthy food culture, one that is built on trust and making the connections and relationships that shape a community.

I have been living with the structure of this book for so long that it seems completely natural to me, and I have to remind myself that it may not be quite so obvious to others. The vegetables I have chosen to write about are not listed in alphabetical order nor arranged in a pattern that reflects the seasons of a year. Instead, they are grouped according to shared characteristics, whether that be their colouring, as in the opening chapter ‘It’s a green thing’, or their habitat as in both ‘Wild pickings’ and ‘Growing in the dark’.

In ‘A passionate pursuit’ I suppose the grouping is less obvious, but these are the vegetables that are currently a major source of interest, even obsession, both to me and to Ultan Walsh, the grower who provides much of the local produce we use at Café Paradiso.

Very early, back in that innocent but hugely enjoyable stage of just sitting around talking about a potential book, I visited Ultan often, to pry further into something which I took for granted: the hows and whys of his work as a grower. I already knew that we shared a special affection for certain vegetables, such as the artichokes and asparagus that were thriving on his new farm. I knew too that we were both excited by the possibility of producing vegetables that might be thought of as non-native, or those that are difficult to grow in this part of the world. During those conversations, I came to understand better the deeply personal way in which a grower works with his produce and his specific piece of land. It was when he burst my linear notion of seasonality that I realised I needed to look at the produce from a new angle and to dig deeper into the characteristics of different vegetables and their potential.

The result, this book, is therefore a very personal take on the vegetables I have encountered in a year and a bit of concentrating on the possibilities of one small corner of the southwest of Ireland. It’s a combination of things I know or believe to be true, things I have learned in the process, and some stuff that you might find amusing. Oh, and a pile of recipes that I hope you will find useful in the kitchen if the text gets your juices going.

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