Féile Bia

How does one define Modern Irish Food? We would suggest: a creative modern cook, working in a restaurant in Ireland, and exploiting the flavours of Irish produced ingredients. But, guess what. It seems that that sirloin steak you presumed grazed in the Golden Vale has actually come all the way from Argentina in a plastic bag. The tiger prawns? Highly dubious place of origin in Thailand, and, what's worse, the poor blighters got fixed up somewhere in Rotterdam. The leg of lamb served in the hotel for the Sunday lunch may be rather more familiar with Auckland than with Antrim, and the chicken is possibly a very scrawny bird from somewhere close to 'Brum.

Does this surprise you? It should. Can you imagine going to Perigord or to Sicily and being offered a rake of imported foods? If that happened you would think you hadn't had the real experience at all.

It remains a matter of great concern therefore, that many of our restaurants and hotels, which should be the avant garde of Irish cooking, will use any old stuff, so long as they can save a few bob. We ourselves experienced this recently in County Clare, a county with many excellent artisan producers, where the owner of a restaurant admitted, somewhat sheepishly, that he actually didn't have a single local ingredient on his entire menu.

An Bord Bia's "Féile Bia" promotion is an attempt to counteract this by listing those restaurants and hotels committed to using local Irish produce. We all know that the very best cooking comes when the food is as local and as fresh as possible. To give three benchmark examples: the MacNean Bistro in Blacklion, Co Cavan, is a tribute as much to the local producer's used by Neven Maguire as to that great cook's own skills. The Ballymore Inn in Ballymore Eustace, Co Kildare, is a tribute to the best Irish meat, as well as Penny Lange's extraordinary bio-dynamically grown vegetables from County Wicklow. The Custom's House restaurant, in Baltimore, West Cork, is a tribute to the outstanding and unbeatable quality of Irish West Coast fish.

It is these restaurants, and others like them, which we need to patronise, because if we don't support our artisan and native industries, then in a few year's time, the WalMarts of the world will dictate what we eat and where it comes from.

We have a choice, so choose wisely.

Starting from Sept 25th, Féile Bia will see a week long festival amongst participating restaurants and hotels, who will present special menus which focus on Irish and local foods.

The promotion will last for the year, and restaurants and hotels wishing to participate should contact An Bord Bia.

Click here to find a participating restaurant or hotel near you.We will follow this story as it evolves, and give you details of restaurants and hotels who have made a commitment to real Irish Food.