We need more people like Darina Allen, people who make something from very little, work hard at it and then sell it to the world, writes ORNA MULCAHY
THE LOTTO is heading for €12 million tomorrow and though it seems like mere peanut dust compared to the billions of debt we’ve had rammed down our throats this week, it would be handy money all the same. I’ve been day dreaming all morning about what I would do first, pay off our ball-and-chain mortgage with a flourish or take the entire extended family to some palm-frilled resort in the sun where no one need ask for a discount, make sandwiches from the breakfast rolls or sip duty-free drinks in their room instead of running up a tab at the bar. And that would be just the beginning.
Would you even go back into the office to clear your desk, I asked a friend at work who was rushing out to buy her ticket on Wednesday evening. “No,” she said. “I’d ask them to send it on, once we got settled in the new house.” Neither of us can understand those lottery winners who say they intend to keep on working, but would like to splash out on a new car. Forget a new car. I’d splash out on a new life. One that didn’t involve waking up every morning to depressing headines about our collapsing institutions.
Lotto aside, it’s not been a good week for positive thinking. But let’s forget the banks for a moment and think of Darina Allen. Culinary stars rise and fall – there’s Marco Pierre White reduced to peddling stock cubes – but in Ireland there will always be Darina. This week as the Irish media worked itself up into a frenzy over the squandered billions, the New York Times gave scant attention to Nama but devoted a full page to Darina under the headline “Reclaiming Ireland’s culinary heritage, one roast lamb or sponge cake at a time”. Now let’s face it, there was not much of a culinary tradition to reclaim. What Darina did was to help create one for us.
She was in New York to promote her book, The Forgotten Skills of Cooking, and the newspaper followed her around a trendy outdoor food market for the interview. She stocked up on organic eggs before rushing off to try NYC's new version of the chip van, Frites 'n' Meat, an upscale wagon selling posh burgers and Belgian-style fries. Lotto winners take note – the vans are doing a roaring trade.
Clearly the New York Timesloves Darina and all that she stands for. The article puts her on a par with America's culinary giants, Julia Child and Alice Waters, and also brackets her with Jamie Oliver in the foodie firmament. It tells readers that it was back in 1968 that the young Darina O'Connell applied for a job with her future mother-in-law, Myrtle Allen, who was doing something revolutionary at Ballymaloe House in east Cork – running the family home as a restaurant to keep the surrounding farm going. Darina's application described herself as a "lady chef" but she went on to carve out her own empire in Shanagarry, opening the Ballymaloe school in 1983 and educating thousands of students who have fanned out across the world, working in or running their own restaurants or cafes. Forty-two years on, she has written more than 15 books, appeared in numerous TV shows and produced her own star of a daughter-in-law, Rachel Allen, who is continuing on the culinary heritage thing. The school continues to thrive. There are some places still available on the next three-month cookery course that starts in mid April – cost about €9,700 – but there are also short intensive courses such as the two and half day crash course in running a teashop – €575.
Darina has been at the top of her game for decades. She’s clearly a tough, gritty businesswoman but with that she exudes a quintessential Irishness – she’s talkative, wholesome, sensible, family focused and prone to using lashings of butter. She’s stoic too, having stood by husband Tim when he was convicted of possessing child pornography in 2003. Her appeal is that she is ordinary and gifted at the same time. “If I can do it, no reason why you can’t too,” say her sensible haircut and hard-working hands.
She never stops promoting and representing Irish food and her own business. Through this single NYTarticle – one of its most read this week – she will single-handedly inspire gourmet tourists to come here in their droves. It is all done in the quiet, cheery competent way that is the way of the Irish countrywoman.
Ireland is lucky to have a plethora of high-tech international companies based here but there is always the fear, now being realised, that these companies can up sticks and move away with very little notice, leaving stricken towns behind. Darina represents the kind of softer, indigenous businesses that employ local people in good times and bad. The country needs more of them.
Quite simply, as Darina herself would say, we need more people to make something from very little, work hard at it and then sell it to the world. Far better, in the long run, than dreaming about windfalls.