Fuelled by buttered scones, high jinks and an inquisitive spirit, the Kerrygold Ballymaloe Literary Festival of Food and Wine welcomes authors, speakers and eaters to a very foodie corner of Cork. This year, between 15 and 17 May, London chefs clinked glasses with seashore foragers, children learned how to make butter by shaking up cream in jam jars, men in white wellies made mozzarella in front of an expectant crowd and there were discussions on everything from creative food writing to the post-pub snacks favoured by drinkers in parts of China.
LitFest is the brainchild of the Allen family, whose Ballymaloe House hotel and neighbouring cookery school have famously advanced the cause of good, simple Irish food at home and around the world.
Begun three years ago, the festival takes over the grounds of the hotel. The evocatively named Big Shed is rammed with food stalls and live events, there are panel discussions in The Grainstore, and visitors can wander through the walled kitchen garden that produces much of the food for the Ballymaloe table.
Down the road at the Cookery School, itself set on a working farm, the demonstration kitchens hosted cookery sessions with April Bloomfield from The Spotted Pig in New York, chef and food writer Allegra McEvedy, Leylie Hayes and Hugo Arnold of Avoca and Danish star chef Christian Puglisi. Alice Waters, the proprietor of California’s Chez Panisse and founder of the Edible Schoolyard project, opened the festival.
The partnership between Kerrygold and Ballymaloe is a natural one, not least because Kerrygold butter is used throughout the hotel and cookery school. Set in the middle of the Irish countryside, within striking distance of some of Kerrygold’s greenest farms (like the McCarthy farm at Ballymacredmond), LitFest aims to celebrate good food in all its forms – including in a green and gold wrapper.
