Knowledge of salmon: new book reveals all
Lifestyle - Judy Murphy meets cookery author Máirín Uí Chomáin who shares her lifetime’s passion for cooking salmon
Afternoon tea at Máirin Uí Chomáin’s house near Oranmore is just as you’d expect it to be from one of the country’s foremost cookery writers, a former TV presenter and a leading light in the Irish branch of the international Slow Food movement.
The table is covered with a white linen cloth, it’s set with china cups and saucers, and there are miniature chocolate brownies for the perfect guilt-free treat – home-made, naturally.
Our interview is meant to be about Máirín’s latest book, the beautifully produced Celebrating Irish Salmon, but in reality, the conversation takes off in many different directions. She is a warm, animated woman who has had so many different roles in life – among them teacher, wife, mother, TV chef, award-winning children’s writer, giver of refuge to unmarried mothers back in the 1970s and 1980s – that it’s almost impossible to keep to one topic for too long.
But the priority is the book, which sees Connemara-born Máirín share her expertise via a selection of over 100 recipes – mostly her own but also some from leading Irish chefs, including Derry Clarke, Kevin Thornton and, closer to home, Heather O’Flaherty of McCambridge’s and the Michelin-starred Aniar team.
In fact, there are several Michelin-star contributors to the book, which has a foreword by marine biologist Professor Kevin Whelan. It also contains a brief history of the Atlantic salmon and its life cycle, a chapter on conservation, and for those who are following the recipes, suggestions by wine writers Betty Murphy and Peter Dunne about the ideal accompaniment for each dish. The photographs are by renowned food photographer Walter Pfeiffer and the dishes were styled by Tricia Doyle – making this a really professional production from Letterfrack based Artisan House.
Over a pot of tea in an elegant, fun teapot decorated with colourful high-heeled shoes – a gift from her daughter to celebrate Máirín’s love of heels– she explains that this new book is her proudest achievement to date.
Máirín is a bundle of energy – tall and elegant with not a spare ounce on her. The mother of four adult children is 77 and three quarters years old, but could easily pass for 10 years younger, something she attributes partly to her positive outlook on life, partly to her diet which includes an abundance of the fish she loves. She has it for dinner most evenings.
For more, read this week’s Galway City Tribune.