The culinary tourists went home happy
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 Carla Blake
welcomes Noreen Kinney
back to Ireland |
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| Noreen Kinney, centre, leading a group of Americans and Canadians on a tour of the Cork Butter Museum. Picture: Neil Danton/News Digital |
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| Noreen was a well known culinary personality here in the 1970s and ‘80s. She wrote for the Irish Weekly Examiner before leaving in November 1990 to live in Florida, where she is still very active under the title of Cordon d’ Or Cuisine. She has many fans throughout the US and Canada. |
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| I met this very pleasant group with Noreen – whom I’d known in those far-off days in Cork – during one of their designated tour stopovers, at SeaStar in Curraglass, Co. Cork, which has received two Best of Irish Food awards from the Guild of Irish Food Writers, for its smoked salmon and whole cooked salmon. |
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| The touring party was taken on an information tour of the premises, which gave a particularly good insight into the strict hygiene regulations required in food production in Ireland nowadays. |
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| Afterwards, we all sat down to a delicious lunch of various SeaStar products, which resulted in a chorus of appreciative ‘ooohs’ and ‘aahs’ from these serious visiting foodies. |
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| They enjoyed the salmon sensation spread with dill and cucumber on crackers, the smoked salmon, the seafood chowder, whole cooked salmon subtly flavoured with dill and lemon and served with hollandaise sauce, crab claws and mouth-watering flaked crab meat, all served with salads and homemade mayonnaise. |
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| It seems that most of their Irish culinary tour stops were equally successful, judging from the responses of many of the “tourists” I spoke to. They all agreed that Noreen who’d made most of the arrangements and accompanied them, was a very good organizer and had added greatly to their enjoyment. |
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| They’d spent their first day in Dublin seeing the sights and making a most interesting visit to Bord Bia, where they learned about traditional Irish foods, including Irish soda bread, and the evolution of the Irish cheese industry. They also dropped in to the Guinness brewery, where they had a ball. |
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| Their subsequent coach tour included Wexford and Wicklow, the Garden of Ireland, where they enjoyed a stay at Tinakilly Country House. |
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| In Co. Tipperary, they checked into the Cashel Palace Hotel, which also lived up to their high expectations. |
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| En route, they visited several well-known Irish food producers and sampled their wares. |
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| I’m always fascinated to hear “from the horse’s mouth” how what we in Ireland have to offer our tourists measures up. Almost all of this group mentioned the hands-on cooking fun they had at the Ballynocken Cookery school in Wicklow; and their visit in the same county to the Orchard Centre, a dairy farm which produces some of the cream for Bailey’s Cream Liqueur, where the visitors loved the contented looking cows. |
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| They were also very impressed by the pride and commitment of the Grubb family, who make Cashel Blue cheese. |
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| “How could you pick something you’ve enjoyed the most, when it’s all been so outstanding?” was the response of Alice Meeter, a retired teacher. |
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| “But the things which immediately come to mind are the wonderful fresh food, beautiful scenery and the fact that the Irish have been so friendly,” she said. |
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| Marilyn Kostin from Kalamazoo, a cookery teacher, said she was surprised that we in Ireland seem to serve food that isn’t processed in any way, high quality, freshly cooked and good to eat. |
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| Kenneth Shackell, a retired engineer, who is English, said the food was exceptionally good, and everyone he had met here had been very pleasant, and that he’d thoroughly enjoyed the entire trip. |
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| Carol Penn Romine from Los Angeles, a writer, chef and a culinary tour guide, said everything they’d seen and done and eaten in Ireland was so special, and the welcome was so genuine, that she hopes to organize a culinary tour of this country herself. |
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| She’s already been in touch with me about it since she got home. |
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Carol Blomstrom of San Diego said, “I’m so happy with everything. People have been so friendly to us, I just love it.” |
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| Parisa Ambwani from Danville, California, said she felt very in tune with the food culture here: “It’s so visceral, the vegetables in particular are always garden fresh, and several of the producers we’ve met are so passionate and excited about what they’re doing, and about using high quality fresh ingredients, that the simplest of dishes are full of flavour and need no dressing.” |
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| Susan Bugeja from Toronto said she’s always loved cooking, is very interested in good food and enjoyed the trip to the full, but that, speaking generally, the perception in Canada is that Irish food is not good. |
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| “Ireland doesn’t get much mention in the press or in current events programmes, and most of what there is occurs around St. Patrick’s Day. Apart from that, you’d be amazed at the ignorance about your country of the average Canadian,” she revealed, adding that it might be a good idea for the Irish Tourist Board to organize effective publicity highlighting Ireland as a fantastic tourist destination. |
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| Last but not least, before they went on their way to spend the final three nights of their tour at Acton’s Hotel in Kinsale, I spoke to John O’Neill, the group’s coach driver, of O’Connor Autotours, Killarney. |
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| He was obviously well liked and respected by his passengers, and he is doing a great deal for Irish tourism in his own way. |
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| “I’ve been doing coach tours for many years, and standards have improved so much that nowadays, when we stop at a hotel for lunch, and they ask, “Is the food good here?”, I feel so confident that I say, “If you don’t find it good, I’ll pay for it myself,” and nobody has ever held me to that,” he said. |
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| He, too, agreed that Noreen had organized a hugely successful tour. |
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| I’m told that this very pleasant group of tourists from the US and Canada also greatly enjoyed their stay in Kinsale, where they used Acton’s Hotel as a comfortable base, while experiencing several of the town’s famous restaurants. |
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| They travelled by coach through beautiful Cork scenery to the Heritage Museum in Cobh, and Irish Distillers in Midleton (where they sampled Jameson’s Whiskey). |
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| They had a guided tour of the Ballymaloe Cookery School and gardens, and very much enjoyed a short presentation by the Irish Examiner’s Regina Sexton, food historian, who joined them for dinner at the famous Overdraught pub in Tracton. |
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Noreen Kinney’s culinary tourists at the Cork Butter Museum
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| On their last day in Ireland, they had a glimpse into our food history at the only Butter Museum in the world, in Cork city, and spent a happy morning exploring the English Market, which once again came as a revelation to them of what Irish food is all about. |
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| That was followed by a lovely lunch at the Farm Gate restaurant, and topped off by visits to Blarney Castle and the Blarney Woollen Mills, before they returned to Kinsale to pack for their flight home early the following morning. |
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| Congratulations Noreen, for giving these visitors a very comprehensive culinary tour of Ireland. |
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THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 23, 2006  |
© 2003 Cordon d'Or - Gold Ribbon Inc.
ell done to Noreen Kinney who is very effective in passing on her passion about Irish food, through her websites: www.cordondorcuisine.com wwwgoldribboncookery.com www.newirishcuisine.com 
