SCHULL-based food writers John and Sally McKenna have just launched their latest cookbook, Milk, which features recipes from 60 Irish chefs, with each recipe using Irish dairy as a main ingredient.
Local contributors include chefs Ahmet Dede, Baltimore and Caitlin Ruth, formerly of Deasy’s in Ring, who now operates her own food truck.
The book also introduces the best dairy farmers in Ireland, the family-farm winners of the annual NDC and Kerrygold Quality Milk Awards and explores the culture, history and culinary potential of milk.
John said: ‘In France, the highest rating for wines would be a grand cru or a premier cru. You’re looking at places where people say, ‘This is the ideal location for growing this [type of] grape.’ It struck me: in Ireland, we have the perfect circumstances for making the best milk. Clean rain, green fresh grass, small farms, and hands-on farmers with small herds. It’s an echo of the French system where you have the perfect circumstance to produce optimum quality.’
*****
Click here to sign up to our mailing list and get the best of West Cork delivered straight to your inbox.