In an extract from her book, Forgotten Skills of Cooking, Darina Allen looks back at the traditional cooking skills we’ve lost.
I was fortunate to catch the end of an era. In my early childhood, I used to go on holidays to my great aunt and uncle’s farm in County Tipperary. Even in the 50s, Aunt Lil was still cooking over an open fire and baked a daily loaf of soda bread (which she called cake bread) in a bastible on the hearth. The cream was churned into butter twice or three times a week; I loved watching the butter pats being made and eagerly learned to roll them using wooden butter bats that were far too large for my tiny hands.
Aunt Lil and Uncle Bob also killed a pig on the farm several times a year. Even though I was only nine or ten, I was delighted to be part of this ritual and wasn’t at all squeamish; I just accepted it as everyday life. I was perfectly happy to stir the pig’s blood so it didn’t coagulate and wash out the intestines under the fresh spring water from the pump in the yard. I helped to salt the bacon and was fascinated by the sight of the hams hanging high up in the enormous chimney, to smoke slowly over the turf fire. Even then, this sort of work was unfamiliar to many of my friends, whose families had already abandoned these ‘old-fashioned’ ways. But for me, these experiences were magical, and now, more than ever, I realise how lucky I was.
At home in County Laois, even though we were relatively self-sufficient, we weren’t doing things as esoteric as killing pigs. We did, however, have a kitchen garden, a house cow, a flock of hens and regularly fattened chickens for the table.
There was always cooking going on in our house. With nine children, by the time we had finished clearing up after one meal, it was almost time to start preparing for the next. Mummy baked brown soda bread every day, there was constantly something bubbling on the stove, and during summer and autumn, I remember regular jam – and chutney – making sessions. The table was nicely laid for every meal. It was never a question of grab, gobble and go – we all sat down and ate together around the kitchen table – we loved Mummy’s food. It was rare at that time for people to discuss food – they just ate it. But Daddy would always remark on how good something was, and encourage us all to hug the cook. Looking back, I now realise that at a very early age I absorbed the universal truth that the way to everyone’s heart is through their tummy.
APPRECIATING LOCAL INGREDIENTS
I came to Ballymaloe after hotel school in Dublin and there I met Myrtle Allen, who is now my mother-in-law. I feel deeply fortunate that our paths crossed in life. I was inspired by her philosophy and I soaked up everything she said like a sponge. Along with my own mother, she has been the other great influence in my life and my cooking. Even in the late 1960s, when I arrived at Ballymaloe House, Myrtle held an unshakeable belief in and appreciation of the quality of our local ingredients at a time when many were convinced that Italian or French or Californian food had to be better than what we had here at home. Both women had a strong ethic of ‘waste not want not’, as did many of their generation, something I continue to feel strongly about and which is reflected throughout this book.
During the 25 years I’ve been running the Ballymaloe Cookery School, I’ve noticed an alarming loss of skills in many students. The art of thrifty housekeeping has gradually petered out and became strangely unfashionable. Our mothers and grandmothers knew how to eke out a small budget to feed a family, and how to make a delicious meal from meagre leftovers. Given a chicken or a fish, they would have simply rolled up their sleeves and got on with eviscerating or filleting it. It mightn’t have been perfect but they just did it in their pragmatic way. The loss of these and other such skills over subsequent generations is partly a consequence of the availability of convenience foods.
Every time we go to the supermarket, an increasing number of items are oven-ready or ready-to-eat: cheese is grated, mushrooms sliced, fruit segmented – if they sold toast, we’d buy it…
Picture caption: Darina Allen
This article extract was taken from the Spring 2025 edition of The Country Smallholder. To read the article in full, you can buy the issue here.
