Articles

Autumn and winter bring many treats to the kitchen and, for many people, wild game is one of the most exciting. What fun it used to be walking down past Sawyers in Chatham Street, when all the feathered and furred game was hung up on display, the beautiful pheasants with their tail feathers on and a kaleidoscope of colours gleaming in the winter sun – as good a reason for going in Dublin as there could be, yet all that is banned now. But that hasn’t quite spelt the end of wild game, which is supplied oven-ready in season to good specialist shops and supermarkets by, for example, the Wicklow company, Wild Irish Game.
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No other food epitomises the plenty of autumn like the glorious orange pumpkin - although we may be inclined to underrate its many less flamboyant but very delicious cousins in the extended squash family. The pumpkin is synonymous with Hallowe’en, and the bigger the better - but, once they’ve been hollowed out, shaped into the traditional spooky face and filled with candles, thousands of families are left with a lot of lovely pumpkin flesh that’s looking for a use.
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Of the many good things September brings, one of the most exciting is the new native oyster season. Very much associated with the west of Ireland, especially Galway, its arrival is celebrated every year by the Galway International Oyster Festival –the 55th festival takes place over 24-27th September 2009. The most eagerly anticipated (and hotly contested) competition is always the Guinness World Oyster Opening Championship, in which contestants race to open 30 oysters and present them correctly.
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