Slow Food Ireland is celebrating the inherited wisdom and forgotten skills of elderly generations, with their fifth annual Grandmothers’ Day this Sunday April 21. This knowledge will be the focus of a festival hosted by Slow Food Ireland at Sandbrook House, Ballon, which will including a local producers market, activities for children and workshops and demonstrations showcasing those forgotten culinary skills.
The event will be opened by Ballymaloe Cookery School’s Darina Allen, Slow Food pioneer and President of Slow Food Ireland, who will give the keynote speech and will later do a cookery demonstration of some of her most cherished recipes that represent dishes on the brink of being forgotten. Other demonstrations and workshops will include butter, cheese, sausage and chocolate making, chicken keeping and wild food foraging.
In addition to the festival, the Slow Roots symposium is being held the day before on April 20 to discuss how upholding Irish food traditions can help boost rural employment. Following presentations from international academics, Dr. Margaret Linehan of Cork Institute of Technology will introduce presentations on local projects, with topics including ‘Before the Potato’, ‘Food of the Monasteries’, ‘Artisan Food & Traditions’ and ‘Fish and Seaweed’.
For more information on Slow Food Ireland’s Grandmothers’ Day festival at Sandbrook House visit the website: www.slowfoodireland.com
If you are interested in attending Slow Roots, please email [email protected]
If you’re not in Ireland, you may like to try our recipe for Grandma’s Ginger Beer, passed to us by Irish convivium leader Hermione Winters, who says: “My grandmother taught me this as a child and I thought it was great fun and a tasty treat for the summer school holidays. I didn’t realize it at the time, but this recipe also taught me patience, how to nurture and how to share.”
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