Forgotten Skills of Cooking | Darina Allen
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Intro: Welcome to the number one cookbook podcast, Cookery By the Book with Suzy Chase. She's just a home cook in New York City, sitting at her dining room table, talking to cookbook authors.
Darina Allen: Hello, I'm Darina Allen from the Ballymaloe Cooking School, which is down on the south coast of Ireland, east of Cork City. And I'm here to talk about my newly released cookbook, Forgotten Skills.
Suzy Chase: You are Ireland's best known food ambassador, the Julia Child of Ireland. You have run the world renowned Ballymaloe Cooking School in County Cork, since 1983. You've written 19 cookbooks, won numerous awards, hosted cook shows, and if that's not enough, you founded the first farmer's markets in Ireland. It is an absolute thrill to have you on the cookbook show to celebrate Saint Patrick's Day. So your national feast day is celebrated all over the world today. Here in the United States, we love shepherds pie and corned beef and cabbage, those are a couple popular of celebratory dishes. But what is your Irish favorite for St. Patrick's Day?
Darina Allen: Well, now I know in America, you normally associate corned beef and cabbage with St. Patrick's Day, but many of us here in Ireland don't eat corned beef and cabbage from one end of the year to the other, delicious as it is. But here at the cooking school, we do actually make our own corned beef and show the students how to do it as well. But you know something? If you ask me, what is our really most traditional Irish dish? Well, of course, you know about Irish stew.
Darina Allen: But actually even more so, a bacon and cabbage and parsley sauce and maybe some colcannon, which is a lovely mashed potato with some kale to it. And then you eat that with a great big lump of butter melting into the center. So that would be boiled bacon and cabbage and parsley sauce and colcannon. I mean, just delicious. Or otherwise, perhaps a big pot of Irish stew. But bacon and cabbage is a really comforting dish that many of us would remember right back to childhood. And the piece of bacon we normally use would be the cut that you call Canadian bacon, it's a piece of the back bacon.
Suzy Chase: So do you serve any dessert with this or is that just it?
Darina Allen: Yeah, well, here at the moment the first of rhubarb is just coming into season. So I always associate St. Patrick's Day with a rhubarb tart. So we make a lovely... Or what you might call a rhubarb pie, it would have a crust of pastry, both on top and the bottom. I have a wonderful recipe for a pastry that's made by the creaming method, I can send it to you if you want, by the creaming method. So the people who think they have hands that are too hot to make pastry, or one of those things that people get caught up about, and sometimes making pastry is like a mystery to people. But this is a wonderful recipe where you just cream the butter and of course, use butter.
Darina Allen: In Ireland, you probably know we have wonderful quality butter, and you can get it in America as well, of course, under the Kerrygold label, as far as I remember. But anyway, use butter, cream the butter, a little soft, add in the caster sugar, beat it around a little bit, add in egg and then stir in flour and turn it out, flatten it out, chill it for a little bit, roll it out. Oh my goodness, it's the most delicious pie pastry. And it's not just for rhubarb, it could be for apples, for plums, for damsons, green gooseberries and elderflower. As each new food comes into season, we use it. But for St. Patrick's Day, it's celebrating the first of the new season's rhubarb.
Suzy Chase: So this is a reissue of your classic cookbook, Forgotten Skills of Cooking. I'd love to know why you chose to rerelease it.
Darina Allen: Well, it's very interesting, because this book, well, it's won all kinds of awards apart from anything else. But basically it was really during COVID, this long two years of pandemic we had, this is the book it got right out of print. And this was the book that people kept asking for and it kept selling and selling and selling right around the world, Australia, New Zealand, America, et cetera. Somehow or other, there was a comforting thing, I think about the relearning forgotten skills. And many of us had quite the wake up call during COVID, where people who had concentrated in their education on a set of academic skills and hadn't taken time to learn how to cook or to grow something. Suddenly found during lockdown, and we had several lockdowns here in Ireland, you had them in the US as well, and basically that really they were not equipped with the practical life skills to feed themselves properly.
Darina Allen: Particularly, when all the restaurants and a lot of other things were closed. Basically, I remember having this woman from Dublin on the phone, this is a woman, a highly achieving woman who could run the country, normally. And her husband also a very high powered CEO of a top multinational company. They had two children, their life was they'd get the children up in the morning and get them dressed and drop them into the creche on the way to work. They picked them up at 7:00 or 7:30 in the evening in their pajamas, bring them home, pop them in, read them a little story, pop them into bed. At the weekend, they ate out every meal. And so basically, this girl could scarcely make toast.
Darina Allen: So she was on the phone to me in tears saying, "Oh my God." She had suddenly found the reality of having to make 21 meals a week when she was in lockdown. And she said, "Please, please help me. Give me some very simple advice and simple recipes, so that I can feed myself and my children." This was heartbreaking. And this is a woman who could actually run the country. So it was a big wake up call to many people realizing that it's not enough just to have academic skills, you need also to make time to learn the practical skills. And our educational system to a great extent in many of our countries is really failing in our duty of care to our young people. And that's one of the reasons why I wrote this book originally.
Suzy Chase: It's funny, because your daughter, Emily, asked you a very insightful question one day. She said, "Mom, don't you think some of those skills have been forgotten for a very good reason?"
Darina Allen: That was actually one day I was boiling up a pig's head. Now this may not appeal to everybody, but I love all kinds of offal and making brawn and head cheese and all of those sorts of things. They are actually having quite the revival among young, adventurous chefs, cutting edge chefs. But anyway, I was boiling up a pig's head from one of our own... The cooking school here is in the middle of a 100 acre organic farm and gardens. And so we have lots of chickens and we have pigs and little Jersey herd and all that. So it was one of our own pigs that had lived a lovely, happy life, and then made a little trip into the butcher in Midleton. So I like to use every single scrap actually, from the nose to the tail to celebrate the life of the animal.
Darina Allen: And so I was cooking up a pig's head to make some brawn. And she came into the kitchen. We have an old AGA stove in the kitchen and it was bubbling away on the side. She lifted the lid and went, "Aargh," when she looked into the pot. And she said, "Er mom," because I was testing the recipe. And she said, "Mom, don't you think some of these skills were forgotten for a reason." But anyway, it depends on where you are. If you think making brawn and head cheese is cool, as many young people do, cool young chefs do now, well, that's a thing. But then it didn't float Emily's boat.
Suzy Chase: What other sorts of skills have fallen off?
Darina Allen: Well, I'll tell you how this book really came about, originally. As I said, I think somehow in the introduction of that book, I'm now 73 years of age, I'll be 74 next July. And I was very fortunate here in Ireland to catch the end of an era. I was born in 1948, and I used to spend my good part of my summer holidays with relatives on a farm in County Tipperary. They killed their own pigs and butchered, I learned all of that when I was with her making black and white puddings, homemade sausages, that kind of thing. Plus they had a dairy herd, so she made butter every couple of days, so I learned how to do that there. And learned how to cook over the open fire to cook the bread in a bastible, which is an iron pot over the open fire, taking embers from the fire and putting it on the lid in the time honored way.
Darina Allen: And anyway, fast forward to the cooking school, which is my brand new cooking school, which is opened in 1983. And I was in one of the kitchens one morning. I saw this girl looking a little flustered with a bow in her hand, making a dash across the kitchen. And something about the way she was. I said, "What's in the bowl?" And she said, "Oh, I was whipping cream and it's gone all funny." And I said, "Oh really? Let me have a look." And she said, "I was going to give it to the hens." Now, normally that would be a good thing to do, because we have this zero waste policy long before that term zero waste was coined. It's just a way of working really, that we try not to waste anything. Anyway, we also have hens here, so if something doesn't qualify for the stock pot, it will go into the hens bucket and then be fed to the hens, it comes back as eggs a few days later. So it's a wonderful holistic thing.
Darina Allen: So normally it would be a good thing to say, "Well, look, I don't want to waste this. I'm putting it into the hens bucket. But I looked into the bowl and I said, "Hey, you just over whipped the cream, you've almost made butter." And she looked at me wide eyed. Now, this is five weeks into a 12 week course. Am I a failure or what? So basically, this girl obviously knew that somehow or other butter was made from cream, but she had certainly no idea how it got from cream to butter. So I said, "Look, it's almost butter." So we put it back on the mixer again, beat it a little more and suddenly, the butter fat was separating from the whey or the buttermilk and there we had butter. And I took it out and washed it and then we sorted it... By that stage, half the other students were looking on as well. And they were all wide eyed. And I thought, "Oh my goodness."
Darina Allen: Look, imagine this, five weeks into a 12 weeks course in a professional cooking course and so many of these students are absolutely thrilled to discover this. And I thought, "I have to write a book about these forgotten skills, which have slipped off, because I was fortunate enough to catch the end of that era and to have learned how to do these things as a child." So it's funny that this Forgotten Skills book there are over 700 recipes in it and it's been... It somehow touches something in people, it resonates with the people. And often, people who, as I said, are not necessarily cooks and chefs, but people who are maybe in the techy world or whatever, but just like to do a bit of cooking and would like to connect back how things were done years ago, they feel have missed out on.
Darina Allen: The other thing actually, the funny that... I remember when I started the school in the beginning, we used to buy in our chickens, our free range of any chickens and they'd come and we would have them... I showed them how to pluck them originally, but then they'd come in already plucked obviously, but with all the insides, entrails still in them. And then I would just show the students how to eviscerate a chicken. And this went on for a bit, for a couple of years and they were delighted to learn the skill. And then I remember it was actually an American student one day, because we had students all over the world, and said to me, "You can't be serious that you're expecting us to clean out the chickens." And I said, "It's not a question of expecting you to clean out the chickens, it's a question of you learning these skills." And she said, "Well, I'm never going to need this skill."
Darina Allen: And so anyway, I thought, "Right, that's fine. We can get them in already cleaned out. But I'll still show them how to eviscerate a pheasant or game or something, so they have the skill." Anyway, fast forward now, to about 10 years ago, when suddenly the students started to ask me again, "Can you please show us this skill again?" And now super cool for them when they have a pheasant or game or something in, to be able to deal with it themselves and so on. So things come round full circle, it's not everybody's... As I said, it doesn't float everybody's boat, but a lot of the more curious, more interesting students really want to learn these skills again.
Suzy Chase: For me, this pertains to a certain generation. I was born in 1967 and raised in the seventies. And I remember my mom was thinking, "Oh my gosh." McDonalds had just come out, she was discovering fast food. And she said, "I don't have to make lunch every day now." I think that there's a whole generation of moms who felt it was empowering to-
Darina Allen: Yes.
Suzy Chase: Not have those skills and to work.
Darina Allen: Exactly. And cooking and so on, the whole inference was that this was drudgery and women needed to be-
Suzy Chase: Yes.
Darina Allen: Released from this and needed to... I mean, even I was at a boarding school in the 1960s and educated by lovely Dominican nuns who were considered to be very visionary nuns. And they were encouraging us girls, I mean, can you imagine this, to have a proper career, to do medicine, scientists, architecture, whatever. But I mean, all I wanted to do was cook and they were appalled. I mean, why would you need this? And the whole, not even subliminal message, was that cooking skills or indeed gardening skills, which I feel very strongly that people should have the joy of sewing a seed as well, and indeed of cooking, but it was, "You're never going to need that, my dear." So the subliminal message was, concentrate on a set of academic skills, forget about that, you'll have somebody to cook for you. You'll have somebody to do your garden and so on as well.
Darina Allen: So in a way... Do you know something now? It was actually, as I said, the whole message was that women need to be released from the kitchen from the drudgery of cooking and doing three meals a day meals a day. But what happened then? Not only did they not learn the skills and looked on it of lesser value, but also they missed out on the joy of cooking a delicious meal that you can share for yourself indeed, that you can share with your family and friends. And I think a lot of young people now are rediscovering this, they want to... And actually, it's not a question of cooking three meals a day, but they love to cook particularly at the weekends and also perhaps in the evenings when they can.
Darina Allen: And they absolutely, not everybody, but many just love it. They find it relaxing and they're also really connecting the food we eat with how we feel, because our food, the hackneyed phrase, our food should be our medicine, is really... As the health of our nations diminishes at a terrifying rate, basically people are really... The message is dropping and we need to spend more of our income and let's face it, it's going down all the time, on really nourishing wholesome food, rather than spending it on meds, because it's quite [inaudible 00:15:49], the research is there, the less we spend real food, the more we spend on meds.
Suzy Chase: So you tackle something else in this cookbook. You write about how these days cheese is grated, mushrooms sliced, and food is segmented at the grocery store. You wrote-
Darina Allen: Yeah.
Suzy Chase: If they sold toast, we would buy it. It's funny, but it's true. I've heard you say food isn't something that's just wrapped in plastic on the supermarket shelf.
Darina Allen: Exactly. Well, I remember actually exactly that incident. I went down to... We live right up in the country, just north of a tiny village. There's literally one shop and a petrol pump and the post office and all of that and very good little local shop. And anyway, I went down to Brodericks in the village and there I saw mushrooms sliced in a little packet and I thought, "Ye God's, is it how people can't even slice a blinkin' mushroom any longer." And also the was cheese was grated. I thought, "My God, your people can't grate cheese any longer." But it's all about convenience. And what are we doing with all this time we're saving? But anyway, probably sit looking at a screen.
Suzy Chase: So you have a Beef Stroganoff recipe on page 174. What is the key to flavorful beef stroganoff?
Darina Allen: Well, really good beef, really good mushrooms. I would prefer flat mushrooms to the little white champignon or Paris have that have virtually no flavor now. Those are chestnut mushrooms, you get a lot of different flavored mushrooms in America too. Then some really good cream and maybe some parsley as well. And it's made very, very quickly and then delicious with a little homemade pasta or with rice or with potato for that matter.
Suzy Chase: Now to my segment called, Dream Dinner Party, where I ask you who you most want to invite to your dream dinner party and why. And for this segment, it can only be one person.
Darina Allen: I think I want Michelle Obama.
Suzy Chase: Really? What would you make her?
Darina Allen: Yeah. What would I make her? Oh, it would depend on when she was coming. I'd have a look out in the garden and to see what was at its very best then. And for example, if she was coming in a couple weeks time, I would give her some sea kale with Hollandaise sauce made with lovely Irish butter. And then if there was wild salmon in season, I'd serve that with it too. And then of course at the moment, I would definitely do a lovely rhubarb pie, or I would do roast rhubarb with maybe a little rhubarb water ice or something, ah, yes. But I would want her... Or else I'd get some lovely fat prawns from the boats in Ballycotton and have that, it would be lovely, homemade mayonnaise and some watercress from a local stream.
Darina Allen: I'd want to give her a taste of this place and a taste of this season here in Ireland, yeah. And I'd want you to come, we'd have a delicious little kitchen supper. I'd bring her into my kitchen, because I doubt if she gets the opportunity to have... A lot of the time I'm sure, it'll be eating in grand restaurants. So maybe she'd enjoy a little kitchen supper in my kitchen here in Shanagarry in East Cork down the south coast of Ireland. And God, she tried so hard to actually do something about the food that children were eating particularly.
Darina Allen: And I was very, very fortunate years ago to go and visit her garden while they were in the White House. I didn't meet Michelle, but I met Billy Yosses of course, who was their chef at the White House at the time. And I went to see their garden and their beehives and all the rest of it. And just, I felt like sending her a hug for the effort she was doing. And can you imagine how difficult it was to try to progress with that policy, because of the vested interest in all of the other kinds of foods, convenience. Anyway, there you are, Michelle Obama, please, if you hear me, you're welcome to come and sit down at my kitchen table here in Shanagarry in East Cork.
Suzy Chase: Where can we find you on the web and social media?
Darina Allen: Ballymaloe Cookery School as we call it, and the cookery school has of course, an extensive website. So you can find out all about what we do on that and the various courses that we run here. So if people are in Ireland they can come in for an afternoon cookery class or for a day, or for day and a half. We also do lots of full courses for people who have maybe a little group of friends, something, plus there's weeks. And then of course, the corse we're most famous for is our 12 week certificate course. So people come from all over the world, because they want to learn how food is produced, literally from the much hackneyed phrase now, the farm to the fork. They literally can go out in the morning with the gardeners or learn how to milk the cows or make butter, cheese, yogurt, et cetera.
Darina Allen: So that's the Ballymaloe Cookery School website. And also, there's one called, cookingisfun.ie, but also there are three different Instagram accounts. There's the Ballymaloe Cookery School one. There's my one, darina_allen and then there's another one, timanddarina. So there's lots of ways to link in to see what we're doing and bring it all to life. And if people are in Ireland and do, now that everything is open again, come and see us again, do swing by the school and remind me where you heard this interview. And if I'm here, I'll come along and we'll have a little chat.
Suzy Chase: To purchase Forgotten Skills of Cooking, head on over to cookerybythebook.com. And thank you so much Darina, for coming on Cookery By The Book podcast. It has been an honor and happy St. Patrick's Day.
Darina Allen: Oh and happy St. Patrick's Day to you and enjoy your bacon and cabbage and parsley sauce.
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