Local hero

MONITOR: COOK SUNDAY LUNCHfor 400? It's not the most usual of requests but then Peter Ward is not the most usual of men. The location? Nenagh. The time? 10am. This is a man who believes you cannot start the day without breakfast, so there I am sitting in his kitchen while his wife Mary produces an organic feast, the traditional Irish, you might say – although as I tuck into TJ Crowe's organic sausages I know this is real tradition, the kind that skips back more than a few generations.

We may well be a nation in touch with our inner foodie selves, but we are so out of touch with where our food comes from. Take meat. We used to have abattoirs dotted all over the country – we now have a handful. The sausages I cannot stop eating (I do it out of respect to tradition, I keep telling myself) come from the same county I am sitting in, as does the bacon, the eggs and the fried tomatoes. This is as it should be, and so it is to be with this harvest lunch, or, as Ward likes to call it, Blas an Fhómhair. The translation is a taste of autumn, an annual event he believes in passionately as a showcase for local, organic and seasonal food. But another translation could be the future of farming.

Local, seasonal and fresh is a mantra for some of us and it really doesn’t get better than this. I am on hamburger and carrot duty. The menu also includes beetroot relish, colcannon and a mixed leaf and tomato salad – which includes the most fantastic watercress – but they are being prepared elsewhere, of which more later.

Nenagh is a lively market town and as the marquee is erected, Ward spends most of his time with his right hand in the air, waving to passers-by. His shop, Country Choice, is a mecca for many. It’s the sort of store every significantly sized town in Ireland should have and his passion is supporting local artisan producers.

Retail in Nenagh has been hit by the arrival of a big ugly retail park on the outskirts. The usual suspects are there and, at the back, loading bays play host to any number of juggernauts in a day, unloading food and sundries from far-off places. Cheap food? Who is winning here, I wonder.

We, meanwhile, are strapping aprons on as the crowds arrive. This is not yet the expected lunchers but staff from Country Choice, the Pantry Cafe and nearby Brocka-on-the-Water. We are all volunteers; the food has been paid for but the labour comes free as we try to persuade people that local organic food is affordable. Tickets for lunch cost €15 with sponsorship from Bord Bia, the local chamber of commerce and Shannon Development.

We – I am partnered with Polish Nenagh resident Gosia Sado – cook off huge saucepans of carrots, make up onion gravy and start to fry off burgers and the aforementioned sausages. These are not just any burgers: these are handpressed burgers made from Aberdeen Angus heifer beef supplied by Michael Seymour. The burgers need to reach a core temperature of 72 degrees centigrade, so a combination of frying and roasting is used, with trays of 20 patties at a time placed in an industrial furnace. It still takes a while and as we approach the anointed hour of 3pm, we are marshalling five trays at a time.

I’d like to say late summer sunshine bathed events: it almost did. Yet 360 people gathered to eat and celebrate local organic food, the kind of food Ireland is good at – fantastic beef, root vegetables and potatoes. The tables were decorated with cabbages, locally grown vases of dahlias and daisies. There was local cider to drink and everyone finished off with apple pie and blackberries.

There was no juggernaut in sight, just a lot of happy, well-fed people. Why only once a year? Why only in Nenagh? This is the kind of event we should see more of. They happen in Italy, France and Spain all the time.