There's something about the Irish. At the recent launch of Anne McMahon's book Floating Prisons at the Embassy of Ireland, the Ambassador His Excellency Breandan O Caollai sang a line of his address and gave us the quote from Irishman Frank Harte, "Those in power write the history, Those who suffer write the songs." After a conversation between the author and Father Frank Brennan AO about the 10,000 Irish men kept in the two hulks afloat in the bays near Dublin and Cork, before their voyage to New South Wales, the Ambassador invited us to afternoon tea.
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This was a splendid affair of savoury and sweet treats prepared by chef Kirsten Whatson who has a small kitchen garden on a terrace outside the main dining room. They are growing lots of herbs which Kirsten says saves them a fortune, as well as lemons, bay, broad beans, snow peas and garlic. A guest told me, and Kirsten has confirmed, that there was layered Bailey's Irish Cream and coffee in the pannacotta.
Among the guests I was pleased to meet 88-year-old Jim Cleaver, the amateur gardener from Yarralumla, who in 2014 found nine tomato seeds in an envelope in a wardrobe and raised tomato plants from the 1944 seed. He has shared some seeds from the new crop with members of Canberra Organic Growers Society.
I had visited Ireland in 2003 and caught a train to Cork, bought fresh produce at the amazing English market, and stayed in the beautiful harbour town of Cobh.
So it was a treat when Darina Allen's latest book Grow, Cook, Nourish - a kitchen garden companion in 500 recipes (Simon & Schuster $59.99) arrived at the Canberra Times. The author, who is currently visiting Australia, has run the Ballymaloe Cookery School in Shanagarry, County Cork, since 1983. It is situated in the middle of a 100-acre organic farm and, on the first day of a 12-week certificate course, students are taken to meet the three gardeners and their first lesson is how to make compost and then, how to sow seeds.
Allen says her working title for the book was "For God's sake grow some of your own food and cook it" and she records a number of chefs worldwide who are doing that and says every chef or cook should spend a year on a farm. She tries to encourage everyone she meets to grow some edibles, especially for their health benefits but also economics, freshness, and the feel-good factor.
The book is dedicated to Darina's husband Tim and his team who have created a sustainable farm and garden to nourish them all. Darina was responsible for developing a number of farmers' markets in the Cork area.
Every vegetable and fruit includes varieties, how to grow in container or the ground, pests and diseases, harvesting and what to do with a glut and all the recipes in the book have been tested and re-tested at the cookery school. The vegetables start with okra and onions and run through to sweet corn.
As my Aquadulce broad beans, grown in a very large black plastic pot, are turning their beautiful black and white flowers into baby pods, I looked at the recipes for this spring treat including broad beans on chargrilled sourdough, served with pappardelle or lamb chops and sumac. In the herbs chapter, broad beans come with trendy rock samphire and with summer savoury.
However, just before parsnips pass their best and as a lover of the root vegetable, I couldn't resist the recipe for parsnip and maple syrup cake. Make extra crisps to nibble with drinks.
Parsnip and maple syrup cake with parsnip crisps
Serves 8.
175g butter, plus extra for greasing
100ml maple syrup
3 large organic eggs
250g self-raising flour
2 tsp baking powder
2 tsp mixed spice
250g parsnips, peeled and grated
1 eating apple, peeled, cored and grated
50g pecans or hazelnuts roughly chopped
zest and juice of 1 small orange
edible flowers to garnish
Parsnip Crisps:
1 large parsnip
sunflower oil for frying
salt
Filling:
300g cream cheese
2 tbsp maple syrup
Preheat the oven to 180C. Brush two 20cm, deep sandwich tins with a little melted butter and line the bases with baking paper. Melt the butter and maple syrup in a pan over a gentle heat, then cool slightly. Whisk the eggs into the mixture, then stir into the flour, baking powder and mixed spice. Add the parsnip, apple, chopped nuts, orange zest and juice. Divide the mixture between the two tins and bake for 35-40 minutes or until just starting to shrink from the sides of the tin. Cool on a wire rack.
Meanwhile, make the parsnip crisps. Scrub and peel the parsnip and slice into wafer-thin rounds. Leave to dry out on kitchen paper. Heat oil in a deep fryer to 150C. Drop a few slivers parsnip at a time into the hot oil, they colour and crisp up very quickly. Drain on kitchen paper and sprinkle lightly with salt. Filling: mix cream cheese and maple syrup together. Spread over the base of one cooled cake and the top of the other. Sandwich together. Decorate the top of the cake with parsnip crisps and edible flowers.
Susan Parsons is a Canberra writer.
