Restless Artisans

“We are still beavering away with a steady trickle of new offerings”, writes Stella Coffey from the much-admired Ladybird Organics, makers of superlative organic meat products.
“We have dry cured rare breed back and streaky rashers, preservative-free farmhouse sausages named after townlands and villages in Co Tipperary (Ballypatrick - 100% pork, nothing added; Ballylooby - parsley and garlic; Ballyhickey - sage and sautéed onion; Ballydavid - red wine and garlic).
Now, isn't that a proud way to behave when you are an artisan producer? One of our plans for 2008 is to convert the nation into the Italian way of thinking about food, which is to say that your define yourself by the food of your region, and you proudly assert that it is better than everyone else's region. Stella and Richard of Ladybird have gotten there before us: hand-made sausage named after Tipp townlands! We like it.
And there's more.
“Beefburgers with chili and coriander, and in two weeks we will launch Well Hung Angus Organic Beef cuts which have been hung for 21 days. Like our other beef products these will be sold frozen. We hope the salami will be ready for Easter!!”
Thank Heavens Easter is early this year.

Curraghchase Farm Shop

Here is a Sunday afternoon jaunt with a difference. Pack the kids in the car. Drive to Kilcornan in west Limerick, with Curraghchase Forest Park as your general point of reference. From the N71, around Kildimo, look for signs that say "Farm Shop". Follow the signs.

These will take you to a tall, dark-red house, with a small stone shop just across from it. You have arrived at Caroline Rigney's Farm Shop, home of Curraghchase bacon and pork products.
Let the kids wander off to see the geese, the horses, the pigs and the cows and the chickens, whilst you get the cheque book out to splurge on superb bacon, Caroline's own hand-made sausages, and rarities such as the best pig's trotters you ever did see.

Admire the luscious creamy white fat on the superb rashers - Limerick Lardo. Pack a few roundels of the superb white pudding into your basket - this is one of the best puddings you can buy. Fill up the freezer bag with roast pork cuts. Round up the kids. Head back home. Get Fergus Henderson's new book, "Beyond Nose to Tail Cooking", and brew up some wicked Trotter Gear with your newly purchased trotters. Have a porky repast with all the Curraghchase pork and bacon. Now, wasn't that a grand excursion? Same again next Sunday afternoon, then?

Caroline's Curraghchase is just one of the many exciting things happening with Irish artisan pork. Not too far away, between Newmarket and Kanturk, John and Olive Forde are producing superb pork products that they sell at local markets. In Tipperary T.J. Crowe is processing the pigs of Tom and Sharyn Shore, as well as his own happy porkers. Pork and bacon, once the most tragic example of Irish low-quality commodity farming, is undergoing a welcome renaissance.

Once you eat these great products, there is no going back. Brilliant.

Web: www.rigneysfarm.com
Tel: 061 393988