Kitchen Hero off to Killarney

Ireland's tourism industry started in Killarney more than 250 years ago, and next week on RTE's Kitchen Hero, Donal Skehan travels to the Kerry town to meet Seamus Healy, a chef who worked in hotels there for 45 years.  In the grand dining room of the Malton Hotel, formerly the Great Southern Hotel, Seamus tells Donal about the types of food served in hotels nearly 50 years ago, and they chat about how fashions have changed.

On Muckross Traditional Farms, Donal learns how to make butter and then makes honey scones with the butter. Donal also makes a tasty mutton pie and treacle sponge this week.

Loosely based on the recipes of Irish food writer Theodora Fitzgibbon, this new six-part series sees popular food writer Donal Skehan looking back over the last 50 years, drawing culinary inspiration from a generation that cooked much more than his own young generation, yet had access to far fewer ingredients.

For Donal's generation, used to Thai green curry on virtually every menu in Ireland, a wild blackberry seems more exotic than lemongrass, and a tin of coconut milk is more commonly purchased than a carton of buttermilk. While it's wonderful to have greater choices, Donal argues that it would be a shame for foreign recipes and ingredients to usurp indigenous ones, and recreates some of Theodora’s delicious recipes.

In this new Kitchen Hero series, sponsored by SPAR, Donal also rediscovers old techniques that were commonplace on farms just 40 years ago - making butter, milking cows by hand, digging lazy beds, and cooking over an open fire. For this part of the programme he visits Muckross Traditional Farms, a charming and thoughtful recreation of rural living from the 1930s to the 1970s. Donal then cooks a dish using ingredients that he has made, such as  buttermilk (a by-product of making butter) or black pudding, from the blood of a pig that most Irish farms kept. He stresses that he's not recreating dishes as an historical exercise, but because they are still great dishes to enjoy today.

 The new series of Kitchen Hero is once again sponsored by leading Irish convenience retailer SPAR, which has partnered with Donal on the show since 2011.  Marketing and Communications Director Suzanne Weldon said it’s all part of SPAR’s commitment to a healthy lifestyle.  She said, “In this series Donal is going back to basics, creating simple, healthy meals based on home grown ingredients.  SPAR Ireland is a proud supporter of local suppliers and we’re delighted to once again team up with Donal of Kitchen Hero to get the message of nutritious home-cooked food across.”

 

Kitchen Hero: Rediscovering the Irish Kitchen, programme three,  Tuesday 8th July 2014 8.30pm RTÉ One