The Clatter of Forks and Spoons...

I asked for and got a copy of Richard Corrigan's latest cookbook 'The Clatter of Forks and Spoons' for Christmas. I had bought it for someone else as a pressie, and then realised that I wanted my own copy! Apart from the great recipes that I want to try out, I've been reading the autobiographical bits that intersperse each of the chapters. In a weird way, his upbringing and mine have many things in common. His mother was brought up in Conamara in West Galway, and she moved to Co Meath as part of the experiment with transplanting families from the West to parts of Meath which took place in the 1950s and 1960s, resulting in some strange juxtapositions of cultures.

My grandparents on my mother's side of the family also moved during the early days and settled probably only about 5 or 6 miles away from Richard's family. My parents (and we children of course!) moved to the nearby town of Trim via a 9 month stay with the grandparents in 1970. We used to visit The Kirwan Arms in Athboy for a Sunday lunch treat for a number of years - it isnt clear from Richard's book if he was in the kitchens there during the early to mid 70s, but my father could never resist the brown windsor soup (I couldnt see the attraction of a consomme myself - still cant for that matter!).

His book is full of stories of how life was in his part of Meath in those days, and many of the stories resonate with my visits to my grandparents for holidays, as they were also smallholders. I think that Richard fared better on the food front though - I cant remember any spectacularly interesting meals being served up to me in those days. I do remember the quality of the water fetched from the local well, which was used for drinking and cooking (the house well water not being the most potable!); it was fantastic water! And I remember the lambing season when we would end up minding the occasional orphan lamb indoors at the range for a few weeks - great excitement all round for that.

Of course, we also visited the relations in Conamara - mainly on my father's side of the family - again during the 60s and 70s, during the long summer holidays (my parents being teachers fared well on the holiday front!). I still remember learning to milk a cow, feed chickens and watch with horror when my aunt killed a chicken in honour of our visit! Richard mentions the rosary being said each night in his home - I remember the same ritual in my aunt's house - I can still feel the hard surface of the ground where we knelt, while my aunt would lead the rosary for everyone in the house - adults and children and any visitor who was in the house come 10 o'clock! And all in Irish of course - no English spoken there unless some of the overseas cousins from the UK were over for their summer visits!

In those days, there was a weekly van which was the main grocery shop for the village, and a butchers called once a week, and fish could be bought straight from the boot of the fisherman's car. Everyone grew their own veg and had their own eggs from the 'sicini' (chickens), so the carrots were pulled from the garden and an hour later we were eating them for our dinner - no al dente cooking in those days!