My North Cork Collection. Including the Old Butter Roads Food Trail

My "North Cork" Collection
Including the Old Butter Roads Food Trail

Corrin Hill, one of many walks in North Cork area.

The Old Butter Roads Food Trail, launched earlier this year, is a cooperative effort between restaurants, producers and accommodation and activity providers in the North Cork area. 

North Cork is not an administrative area but then neither is West Cork. The boundaries are a bit flexible. The Food Trail organisers often refer to the three baronies of Duhallow, Muskerry and Avondhu (again none are administrative areas (except for GAA purposes!)) as being their constituent parts.

Blarney Castle

I have been visiting various restaurants and producers in the area over the past few years as you can see from the links below. Not all the places I've visited are necessarily members of  the Old Butter Roads Food Trail. If they are, you'll see the churn symbol displayed at the entrance or in their literature. Where there's a link below, it means that I have eaten, drank, visited or slept, maybe all four, at that place.

Glamping option at Ballyvolane House

So okay, just suppose you've landed in Blarney. Where to eat? Easy. Head to the The Square Table, Blarney in the evening. Just a few miles outside the village, you will find the boys of  Blairs Inn who'll feed you all day long (great place too for craft beer!). If you keep heading west, you may well end up in Macroom. Why not dine and stay the night in the Castle Hotel? 

Rainbow in Macroom

But perhaps you decide to head to the northeast. Lucky you will have much to choose from. Perhaps a day-time call to the Thatch and Thyme Café in Kildorrery. In the evening, visit the white deer at Mallow Castle and then call to the lovely and popular Peppers, Mallow for dinner. There are two cafes in Doneraile and, of course, the 166 hectare park with long and short walks that take you by the Awbeg River and herds of deer.

Deer in Doneraile Park

Lots of quality accommodation in the general area. Each of the three big houses below have an added attraction! Ballyvolane House near Castlelyons is the home of the renowned Bertha's Revenge gin. At Longueville House, enjoy the food and their very own cider, and don't forget their award winning Apple Brandy (as good as any from Normandy!).

Dinner is on. Longueville House

There's always a big welcome at Ballinwillin House & Farm and a tour of the farm where you'll see their Wild Boar and Deer. And the drink here is the wine, Chateau Mulcahy, from their very own vineyard in Hungary and the tasting is in a Hungarian style room. Cheers!

Wild Boar at Ballinwillin

And if you're a beer lover, then head west to the 9 White Deer micro-brewery in Ballyvourney.

He can talk and he can sing: Jack of McCarthy Butchers in Kanturk.

Looking for world class black-pudding and more? Then put McCarthy Butchers Kanturk on your list. You'll enjoy the produce and the chat. Close by, in Newtownshandrum you find the lovely Bluebell Falls Goats Cheese. 

Bluebell goat

Over in the Mallow direction, you'll come across Old Millbank Smoked Salmon. In the Blarney area, Hydro Farm Allotments and Blarney Chocolate are worth a check.

Toons Bridge

For great cheese and all things cheese related, Toons Bridge Dairy near Macroom is a must stop. Here too they have a café with lovely snacks and lunches, wine, even their own pizza oven.

View from Griffin's at lunch-time. Water-skier not guaranteed!

 A great place to sample what the area has to offer is the Killavullen Farmers Market. Lots of people like the garden centre and café double and you can score a good one at Griffin's Dripsey. Garden Centre & Restaurant.

Killavullen Farmers Market

If you venture into the Shandon area of the city, you'll find the place where all these old butter roads ended. While there, why not visit the Butter Museum (you might even see them making butter) and then ring the bells at St Anne's. Blarney Castle, right in the village, draws tourists from all over the world.

View of Firkin Crane from St Anne's Shandon

If you don't fancy sitting down, eating and drinking all day and need to stretch those legs then check out Blarney based Activity Days, with lots of choice for kids and adults. If you just have enough time for a short walk, there are a couple in Blarney, including the Blarney to Waterloo Loop. You'll enjoy your dinner, and the rest, that night!

Peppers in Mallow

Some other Butter Roads Food Trail members:
Annabelle Farm;
Follain, Baile Bhuirne;
Hegarty’s Cheese, Whitechurch;
O'Brien’s Free Range Eggs, Whitechurch;
Osbourne’s Butchers, Blarney;
Real Meat Co-op, Boherbue, Mallow;;
Twomey’s Buchers, Macroom;
Castle Hotel, Blarney;
Nibbles Cafe, Milstreet;
O Callaghan’s Delicatessen & Restau- rant, Mitchelstown;
Old Post Office Cafe, Blarney;
Praline Pastry Shop, Mitchelstown;
THe Farm Grenagh;
Old Post Office Cafe, Blarney

Taste of the Week. Raw Honeycomb from S Bees

Taste of the Week

Raw Honeycomb from S Bees

Stefan

Raw honeycomb is a real delicacy of nature and our Taste of the Week. It is also one of the most efficient ways of storing the honey and I picked up my most recent honeycomb at the Killavullen Farmers Market. It is delicious plus any superlative you’d like to use.

Stefan Buzoianu was the man selling them. Based in Fermoy, he is the man behind S Bees and also sells hive products and gives beekeeping advice and may be contacted at stefan.buzoianu@gmail.com

While he was selling me my honeycomb, he was also feeding bits of another one to a box of bees he had on display on his market stand. This was to compensate them in some small way for the fact “that they were missing a good day's foraging.”

Stefan supports “healthy common sense living” and is worried, like many of us, about the decline in the bee population. Life would be better if we take better care of the bees and encourage them. What happens if the bees die? Check out this video here. 

Killavullen Farmers Market. Old Butter Roads Food Trail Highlighted

Killavullen Farmers Market

Old Butter Roads Food Trail Featured

Country kitchen. Norma's demo

A little mist, a little sun, lots of good local produce and a friendly face at every stall was the impression from Saturday’s visit to the Killavullen Farmers Market, a market held, by the way, mostly in a large growing tunnel! So, well capable of dealing with the rain if need be.

Aside from the usual contributors, the market took the opportunity last Saturday to highlight the newly formed Old Butter Roads Food Trails with a couple of related demos. Food Trails chairperson Maire Ní Mhurchu filled us in on the reasons behind the venture which has “brought together producers, eateries, visitor attractions and associations” from the general North Cork region covering Muskerry, Avondhu and Duhallow.

Stefan's delicious honey

 “We are doing it to support one another,” said Maire (who has her own local business Activity Days). Mary Sleeman, chairperson of the Killavullen Market, had a big welcome for us all and gave us a brief history of butter in the area saying Ireland, and Cork in particular, “is ideal for dairy”.

All the while, John was getting on with making butter and it turned out very well indeed, the audience delighted with the taste. “Do your own,” encouraged John. “There are lots of home separators available.”

Another demo followed, this by Norma, from the newly opened Praline, a Pastry Shop and Cafe in Mitchelstown. She picked up a few ingredients around the market for her Knickerbocker Glory. “Easy to make,” she said. Easy to eat also, as it vanished in no time!

Mary Sleeman welcomes all (top left). Maura and Ciaran (top right) and, below, John shows his newly made butter.

The market, held every second Saturday (check the calendar here), takes place in the grounds of the Nano Nagle Centre, just outside the village on the main Mallow-Fermoy road, about forty minutes from the city. You may also take a walk through part of the centre and down by the river.

But we’ve come mainly for the stalls and have bags to fill. First of all though, an ice-cream, hard to resist!

There is a great variety of produce here: plants, including herbs, organic produce, jams and chutneys, home-baking, bread (Arbutus), honey, tea, coffee, cookies and more. You may also get natural soaps and oils, healing therapies, secondhand books and so on; you may even throw your own clay pot. It changes seasonally, of course, and do watch out for special events.

Fruit skewers

 After that ice-cream, we had a chat and a tasting of her honey smoked salmon with Sue Parsons of Lyreen Smokehouse. Got some honey direct from the hive and had a few words with the interesting man selling it, healthy living supporter Dr Stefan Buzoianu.

No shortage of bites for lunch and, among other things, we got a couple of slices of quiche from Noreen O’Brien who was also selling organic veg. 

One of the tastiest bites was a sausage roll made with Derryvillane Free Range Pork. Here we were talking to Ciaran and his mother Maura who gave us a bit of background on the family business. Bought some of her free range eggs too and just couldn't resist, for old times sake, a pot of the Crab Apple Jelly from Maura’s Kitchen.

Lunch from Noreen

No shortage of choice here, no shortage of chat either, in this lovely friendly market set in the corner of a field. A sheltered corner, by the way!

Here is a list of the stallholders, including some of the newer ones at the bottom. But it does change from time to time, from season to season.

Peter Rafferty - Flowers, Vegetables & Floral Gifts

Simon Treacy – Apples

Nano Nagle Centre - - Organic Produce

Mossie Buckley – Chemical Free Vegetables

Little Acre Plants

Paddy Walsh Plants

Rosemary Callanan – Natural Soaps & Organic Essential Oils

A Brush with Nature – Buckwheat Salad, Gluten & GMO Free Honey, Pro Biotic Smoothes, Super foods & Vegetables

Maura’s Kitchens – Jelly’s, Jams, Chutney’s & Cordial  

Deirdre’s Home Baking 

Nora Creed Healing Therapies 

Killavullen Organic Buyers (KOB) 

Bring & Buy Charity Bookstall 

Ron Hulshof – Selection of Fresh Breads

Ciara’s Fair trade Tea, Coffee & Cookies

New stallholders include Johnathon Owens , raw milk and yoghurt from his own herd; Hegarty's cheddar; Breda's gluten free baking;  artisan ice cream by Liam Cotter.

Superb Kale, and so much more, at Killavullen Market

Superb Kale at Killavullen Market

"Throw in a few beans, please!"

Delighted I made it to the Killavullen Farmers Market last Saturday. Brought the bags, as usual - no point in going to a market unless you bring bags - and filled them up.

A big welcome and lots of good things to eat and drink here. Rory and his Kildinan Farm organic stall caught the eye and not just because of his colourful vegetables (including yellow courgettes and black and yellow beans) but also because of his selection of great looking kale.

He had three types for sale but we eventually went for the Nero di Tuscano. Glad we did. It is terrific. Big dark leaves, beautiful texture and oh so very tasty.

We used the Kale and the beans (the black goes green, the yellow white, when cooked!) with a beautiful piece of hake from Yawl Bay Seafoods (enhanced with some of that amazing IASC seafood butter, of course!), a lovely dish.

By coincidence, I came across this recipe on Twitter this morning: Maple Drizzled Strawberry Kale Salad. What do you think? If you're doing it, why not use the Highbank Orchard Syrup.

The Killavullen market is held about twice each month in the Nano Nagle Centre  on the Mallow-Fermoy Road and it is appropriate that organic produce features highly. The centre’s mission now “is to promote a vision of eco spirituality” and it runs a 32 acre organic farm here. Directions to the centre and the market here.

Indeed, the Nano Nagle centre has its own stall in the market and here we got some very flavoursome organic tomatoes. All of the stalls are indoor, sheltered under a large polytunnel so the market is weather-proofed. Great idea.

Much to buy here. We got a few bars of the gorgeous Clonakilty Chocolate (including my Himalayan Salt favourite!) and  a lovely Spelt and Honey loaf from a well stocked bakery stall. And of course who could pass the Fermoy Natural Cheese stall? Not me. Enjoyed a lovely chat with Gudrun Shinnick as I sampled the cheese and bought some of her famous Cais Dubh and also some of the same cheese embedded with fenugreek seeds. She also has milk and kefir on sale here.

Fermoy Natural Cheese

A quote from the market site just to give you a better idea of what is available: The products available are numerous including local fresh organic vegetables and eggs, imported fruit and vegetables from small producers to complement the local, potatoes and preserves, award winning cheeses, apples and apple juice, bread and baking, flowers and plants, knits and crochet, jewellery and candles, natural soaps and organic essential oils, environmentally friendly cleaning products, personalised poetry and greeting cards, charity bookstall, recycled paper products and fair trade products available at tea and coffee stall. The market received a Cork Environmental Award in 2009.

Kathy and her skin care stall

Last Saturday was also a special Arts and Food Celebration so there was even more to enjoy, including a pottery-making stand where you, or at least the kids, could get hands-on experience.

We came across a vibrant looking herb stall on the way out and saw a pot of basil with smaller leaves than usual. If I remember rightly, it is a Greek basil. Correct name or not, it is now standing on the kitchen windowsill.

Peace on the Blackwater. The river flows by the Nano Nagle Centre

You can also have a cup of tea or coffee and some home baking, maybe before or after the market or perhaps after taking one of several walks through the centre. We did the Cosmic Walk and that took us past a very large and impressive sundial.

Then we strolled through the animal enclosures, a couple of donkeys grazing, two pigs poking in the dust with their snouts and grunting happily and a community of hens clucking. Down  a few steps then to a field where a curious calf stared back and a few minutes later we were on the peaceful banks of the lovely Blackwater. After the walk, it was back to the car and a quiet cross country drive through the drizzly hills as we returned to the city.

Sundial.