West Cork, it’s been a while. It’s probably been my longest period away from the sod since Covid, in fact. Between house renovations, professional commitments and mobile grandparents eager to use their Charlie Pass to Dublin, we just haven’t been very good this year.
Still, there’s no journey quite like the road home to West Cork, especially when you’re bundled into a car with two young ones fuelled by 99’s and too much screen time.
The rituals of the drive have become reassuring and the kids know all the benchmarks well at this stage: the inevitable stop at a Services, those new cathedrals to Irish capitalism; the first glimpse of the Jack Lynch Tunnel; the road that snakes under the Viaduct (can you believe a fella threw a heavy metal roadbowl over that?!) and the sensation of a warm hug as we turn onto the causeway home to Ardfield.
After about a thousand ‘are we there yets?’ and far too many true crime podcasts, the pilgrimage is complete - West Cork in August. And once the fog eventually cleared, I knew I was home again.
All things must end
It’s probably been six months or so since I’ve been back and the world has done about seven complete somersaults in the meantime.
There are too many to detail at this point , but the main feeling we can all agree on is that our little planet is in a bit of a tailspin and it’s hard to track everything from hour to hour, not to mention day to day or week to week.
However, some things that seem unfixable and immutable can change.
It’s easy to forget that. I’m speaking, of course, about the eternal roadworks outside Bandon, which I was shocked to see have been fully completed.
It’s a project we all assumed would outlast cockroaches and Keith Richards, and then suddenly it was done.
I now feel a pang of nostalgia for it, a sort of infrastructural Stockholm Syndrome setting in as I dream of the traffic cones and dust of yesteryear.
Taste the difference
The changes aren’t all infrastructural, mind you.
We managed to snag a precious booking at Dede, the brilliant Irish-Turkish restaurant in Baltimore that’s earned two Michelin stars and was officially crowned Best Restaurant of the Year.
When planning our summer holidays months ago I knew we’d have family home from London and that this was something we had to try.
Chef Ahmet Dede combines West Cork produce with Turkish tradition and it works beautifully.
Sogan Dolma with smoked Labneh that would make you question everything you thought you knew about stuffed onions (which wasn’t much in my case).
Mary’s Sweet Corn paired with brown crab oyster. West Cork beef with leeks and green olive that was so tender it practically apologised for existing.
And don’t get me started on the Alayna Baba - buttermilk muhallebi with blueberries and elderflower…
Listen, I grew up with bacon and cabbage and Gino Ginelli pizzas like the rest of you, and nd I still count the Rossa Grill as one of the finest establishments on the planet.
So this was well outside my comfort zone, but why not push the boat out every now and again?
The wine pairings were equally adventurous - bottles from the Loire Valley rubbing shoulders with Californian gems, Turkish wines (who knew?), and selections from Macedonia and Greece.
It was like a United Nations summit, except we were even drunker.
When the bill arrived, and I eventually stopped crying, I did feel proud and thankful that a place like this exists. In a more divided and isolationist world, Dede is a living symbol of how we’ve changed.
We’ve become a more interesting, confident, and diverse country, culinarily, socially, and culturally, and sometimes food is the mirror of that change. It reflects who we are, and more importantly, who we’ve decided to become. And even if we’re on pot noodles for the rest of August trying to make up the balance, then I’m glad for it.
Time to look to the East
I have food on the brain this week, it seems. I was surprised to read on the Eater website that the Chinese-Irish spice bag has started to take on the world.
Now, I have no idea if this culinary revelation has reached West Cork yet, but it has certainly gone forth to conquer the world, first spreading across Ireland where it was invented by our ‘Hongkonger”’community, and now in Australia, New Zealand and further afield thanks to social media.
Born in Dublin in the early 2010s, the spice bag is the perfect cultural hybrid: fried chicken, chips, onion and peppers with a generous shake of five-spice, soy sauce, and a small helping of MSG.
There are countless variations on the theme and it has since evolved, almost like a life-form of its own, and its march now looks to be unstoppable. An assault, perhaps, on the cholesterol levels of all mankind.
In many ways, it shows how cultural melting pots can create wonderful things, and serves as a reminder that it may be in our interest to look east instead of west all the time.
In an age where Chinese EVs now line many driveways and our houses are powered by cheap, reliable Chinese solar panels, maybe we should be less concerned with Trump and his bin fire to the west, and consider what’s happening out the other way?
