Ice Cream Ireland

 This has been a hard week, and it’s only Wednesday. First a freezer failed, and we lost a lot of ice cream, and then we had news that Fresh Supermarkets in Dublin are thinking about dropping us. If you buy your Murphys Ice Cream at Fresh, please make your displeasure known to the manager!

However, there is something that cheers me up each spring, and that is when I hear from Colm, the farmer who supplies us with Kerry Cow milk, telling me that the first of his Kerry cows has given birth. It means that we’ll soon again have a regular supply of rare and delicious milk for the summer season.

I always drive over to meet the first one, and it always leaves me delighted. For me, it puts everything else in perspective…

Technorati tags: breed, ice cream, farm, cow, Kerry, Dingle

 

Paul O’Mahoney from Siopaeile has come up with this brilliant idea - a collaborative map of places one can buy food directly from farmers or artisan food producers in Ireland. Anyone with a Google account can fill in their favourite haunts or hot tips here, where you can also see it full-size. I think it could be a wonderful resource, so please help out, spread the word and add a few places - it took me only a couple of minutes to add ourselves (shamelessly) and some other Kerry foodie outlets. 

James Corbett is doing the same thing for Irish WiFi hotspots.

Happy Easter, everybody!

Technorati tags: map, Irish, farm, ingredients, Kerry, supplier

 The soaring price of food was often in the news in 2007, and we are not immune. We have been looking at our accounts, and it is impossible to miss the fact that many of our main ingredients, including milk, cream, and eggs, have risen as much as 30% within the last calender year.

While this is good news for farmers, who have seen generally declining prices up until recently, it is not good news for consumers. It is inevitable that we (like many other food companies) will be forced into a price increase to counter our rapidly shrinking margins.

What’s interesting is that the price disparity between organics and conventional foods, although still substantial, has shrunken somewhat. With a litre of local, regular milk now an amazing €1.24 in our local supermarket, we have discussed whether we should switch to organic milk for our coffee drinks. Organic milk costs more, of course, and we would have to pass that on.

Would such a move be a good idea? We all know that organics is a good thing, but how much extra would you be willing to pay for a cappuccino or latte made with organic milk?

For an organic latte or cappuccino, I would pay an extra:

• 10c
• 20c
• 30c
• 40c
• 50c
• I wouldn't pay extra for a coffee made with organic milk

View Results

Technorati tags: coffee, organic, milk, price, poll

 Since I’ve written so many times here about the Kerry Cow, I thought I’d give you the article I wrote this week for today’s Irish Times (the recipe will follow)…

When West Kerry farmer Colm Murphy first brought some Kerry cow milk to Murphys Ice Cream for us to sample, we were delighted. The test batch of ice cream came out smoother, creamier, and just plain delicious. The milk impressed our entire team, and our customers also responded to the improved taste, although most expressed bafflement when we mentioned the Kerry cow. “You mean a cow from Kerry?� It seems our indigenous breed has largely faded from our consciousness.

Once, however, the Kerry was indispensable. It is one of the oldest breeds in Europe (probably brought to Ireland from the Mediterranean by Neolithic wanderers) and the first developed for milking. Our ancestors churned Kerry cow butter, concocted Kerry cow cheeses, and stored milk treated with herbs in jars underground while other prehistoric people hunted and gathered with stone tools. So valuable was the Kerry that under Brehon Law the top unit of currency was the milking cow. There’s a traditional song, “I wish I had a Kerry cow, a Kerry cow, a Kerry cow…� No wonder it’s repeated. Your cows defined your wealth, and if you owned a few of them, you were doing ok.

By the late 1970s, however, the value of a milking cow diminished to the volume it produced, and Friesans dominated the Irish herd. The little Kerry, famous for quality, not quantity, faced extinction. At the lowest point, only 100 Kerry cows survived worldwide, and half of them lived on Raymonde Hilliard’s farm in Killarney. When I took a break from our Killarney shop to visit her, Ms. Hilliard told me about farmer after farmer retiring or giving up their herds until saving the Kerry cow seemed a hopeless cause. Luckily, herself and a few other champions of the breed persevered, and the government finally introduced a protection scheme in the early 1980s. Since then, the population of the Kerry has slowly increased to its present total of 1,100. That may sound quite healthy, but to put it in perspective, there are 1,600 giant pandas in the wild, and they are considered extremely endangered.

Although there is still a decline of Irish dairy farmers, Colm Murphy is not about to give up. He loves his herd, and the Kerry cows impress him. “I’ve never had to lift the hoof of a Kerry,� he says, “and I have never had a problem with calving.� At Murphys Ice Cream, we don’t know about such things, but we do know we have never tasted better milk. This week’s recipe is “crema,� Italy’s most popular ice cream. Crema is an unflavoured frozen custard, perfect for savouring the flavour of Kerry cow milk - if you’re lucky enough to have some.

For more, visit the Kerry Cattle Society.

Technorati tags: breed, ice cream, farm, cow, Kerry, Dingle

 One of my favourite times of year in Kerry is the Spring, when all the calves and lambs appear and start hopping around the fields. There’s something inspiring about the emergence of new life after a bleak Irish winter.

This morning, I had a text from Colm, the farmer who supplies us with Kerry Cow milk, saying that the first of his Kerry cows had just given birth, and I decided to go out and meet the little fellow and his mom, who will soon be improving our ice cream with her milk. (It’s amazing what a difference it makes).

Given that the Kerry Cow breed is under threat (only 277 were born in 2006), seeing a healthy new calf certainly brings me a lot of joy. It’s a shame he wasn’t born a she, but that’s the way of things.

I think Colm can’t quite understand my excitement about being on the farm and seeing the animals.

For a former New Yorker like me, however, there is little that is as exotic and filled with magic as a trip to his farm, especially when there is a brand new calf and the promise of the wonderful milk from its mother…

Technorati tags: breed, ice cream, farm, cow, Kerry, Dingle

 I have written about Sweetbank Farm several times, the fruit farm in Wicklow. Well, their bushes and trees are long since plucked, but we did freeze some of their tayberries earlier in the season, and I pulled out the last trays of them to make a big vat of sauce. (If you also froze some berries and want a recipe, I gave one here for blackberry coulis)

In any case, we’re serving it up warm with ice cream in the shops, and it goes especially well with Irish cream liqueur ice cream. My brother Sean has been playing around with serving it with a piece of plain sponge, whipped cream, and ice cream, and customers have been loving this ready-made dessert…

Technorati tags: tayberry, coulis, sauce, ice cream

 Some time ago, I stopped into Bubble Brothers asking for Marsala wine, which was ridiculously hard to find in this country (it’s a great dessert wine used for tiramisu, zabaglione, etc.). They told me loads of chefs had been asking for it, but they didn’t stock it.

This week, I found myself in the English Market in Cork, so I chanced stopping by again. I was most delighted that they had brought it in and now stock it. Thanks, guys! (By the way, they also have an interesting blog).

Since I was surrounded by lots of wine and wanted to make the most of it, I perused the champagne section for a rosé, which I had wanted to try in sorbet for a while and had promised as a birthday present for Lady K.

They were all sold out except one brand -  Fleury. This champagne is made from 100% pinot noir grapes, and since it was a brut, I was hoping it wouldn’t be sickly sweet in the sorbet.

Today we opened the two bottles I brought back, and the champagne has wonderful flavour - it wasn’t too sweet at all. It has the added value of being not only organic, but biodynamic, although it doesn’t trumpet the fact on the front of the bottle. Apparently it was the first champagne certified by Demeter.

I finished making the pink champagne sorbet this evening (no, we didn’t drink it all!). If you want to try it, use the recipe I gave here and substitute pink champagne for the Dom Perignon. Just make sure the pink champagne you choose is not too sweet!

Technorati tags: rose, pink, biodynamic, champagne, sorbet, ice cream, recipe

 I know I might get boring writing about the Kerry cow but we’ve been having a great time experimenting with making ice cream with the milk of this rare and indigenous species. Apparently, there were only 409 births of Kerry calves in 2005, so you have an idea of how few of them there are left in this world.

Still, they are making a bit of a come-back, and we’re delighted to be doing our small part supporting the breed. Yesterday, I visited the local farmer who has an interest in such things and a few of them registered for milking, and I was allowed to help milk them.

That might sound boring for some, especially those raised in rural parts, but for a city boy, it was quite a thrill. Even though I’ve lived in the wilds of Kerry for years now, there is little for someone born and bred in New York that seems as interesting or as exotic as a farm.

I can’t say I really got the hang of it, and I needed quite a bit of assistance, but the farmer was quite polite and said it’s all about the practise.

As bumbling as my hands might have been, it was a lovely experience to have my head leaning into the side of a Kerry cow and attaching the milking machine, surrounded by the sounds of the breathing of the animals and the milk pumping away.

Afterwards, we walked the cows back to pasture. The evening was so glorious, with the mountains behind us and the whole countryside bathed in golden light.

At times like these, all problems seem to disappear, and there’s nowhere I’d rather find myself than Dingle. I’m as happy as can be.

Technorati tags: breed, ice cream, farm, cow, Kerry, Dingle

 In my last issue of the New Yorker (not THE last issue, since they get to me in Ireland about a month late), there as an article about sugar and sugar substitutes. I’ve written briefly here and here about our difficulties of trying to find a way to make a natural ice cream without sugar.

The writer of the article in the New Yorker pointed out some interesting facts:

1. That sugar is remarkably hard to substitute - its properties in adding bulk, behaving consistently at different temperatures, and just the good taste of it has befuddled scientists for a hundred years. It even seems that scientists will not be looking for the next generation of sweetener like Aspartame or Sucralose but rather will be looking for ways of finding additives that will increase the effect of sugar to enable people to use less.

2. That even with the huge increase of artificial sweeteners, the per capita intake of sugar has increase markedly over the last decades. People are eating artificial sweeteners by the ton AND eating more sugar.

We have looked at all sorts of options to try to make a product suitable for diabetics, including stevia, fructose, tapioca and other natural thickeners, and still we haven’t found anything that tastes good enough for us to consider.

In addition, the various diabetic associations including Diabetes Ireland seem to be against the idea of diabetic products and are much more interested in a balanced, low-fat diet. I can see why - in Dublin I came across a “Diabetic” chocolate bar that neglected to list the ingredients. I can understand how such products could lull people into a false sense of security.

This still leaves us coming up blank. I suppose one way would be to try to find a recipe for a gelato, which is naturally low in fat, and one that has reduced sugar as well. However, what do you add instead? Fruits contain sugar, chocolate adds bulk but contains fat, nuts do the same, and soon we are back at square one!

If anyone has any ideas…

Technorati tags: diabetes, sugar, sweetener, diet, gelato

I just brought a load of ice cream to Sweetbank Farm in Wicklow, and it’s great to see them about to open up the farm shop for their second season (June 1st is the first day they open).

For anyone who hasn’t been, a visit is highly recommended. David and Debbie know their fruit, and their little shop is lovely. The old farm buildings are built around a courtyard, and the stalls hold a variety of animals that are great entertainment for kids. They also have fresh meats, a scooping cabinet with the efforts of yours truly, and an array of other goodies.

Devouring a bowl of fresh fruit with cream and a coffee in their picturesque courtyard on a nice sunny day is about as good as it gets! Their efforts are a lesson in agritourism!

We will be taking delivery of some of their fruit for our ice cream within the next few weeks, and anyone who has had our Wicklow raspberry, strawberry or tayberry ice cream will know what a treat their fruit is. This year they have also promised us cherries. Mmmmm!

Technorati tags: agritourism, ice cream, farm, fruit, Wicklow