Food and Folksong might not seem like a natural combination but award-winning chef and author Emmett McCourt has teamed up with some of the best singers around for what is going to be one of the highlights of the inaugural Derry International Irish Music Festival.
Emmett is the author of the hugely successful Feast or Famine: a Cultural Food Journey of the North West of Ireland (Guildhall Press), which last year won the Gourmand World Award for Best Culinary Travel Book.
A master storyteller as well as a much-sought after chef, Emmett extols the virtues of food from the northwest which he says “is as rich in food heritage and food culture as anywhere in the world.” He is full of admiration for the people who have cherished these traditions.
“It is the sheep farmers of the rugged hills of Inishowen and the beef and dairy farmers who work the rich pastures of the lowlands who produce the finest lamb, beef and dairy products unsurpassed on this island,” he writes.
But it was also an area with a high rate of emigration over the centuries and Emmett has immersed himself in the history, in the culture, the music and the food of the early emigrants who left these shores, both the Scotch-Irish and the Irish who left after the famine.
He has travelled extensively in their footsteps, almost becoming one with those seekers of a new life.
“I always believed that that journey was mapped out with music as well as with the culinary skills that were brought from Ireland,” he says.
The show at An Croí in Cultúrlann Uí Chanáin in Great James Street in Derry is certainly going to be a unique event.
“This year is the Northern Ireland Year of Food and Drink and the theme for the month is “Love Local” so I have tied in a lot of local artisans and suppliers that I would normally use anyway, so it looks as if it is going to be a great night.”
To start the show off, Emmett will present a canape.
“For example, one of the canapes will be corned beef and boxy bread with apples, apple jelly and cabbage cream. Now, you’re probably thinking ‘what’s all that about?’” says Emmett – and he’s dead right.
“Well, those first Scotch-Irish took their skills and culture to the New World, they brought apple seed with them, they also brought potatoes to make potato bread and potatoes were cultivated in America thereafter.”
Emmett has a treasure trove of other stories he will tell on the night, tales involving Native American tribes, Indian meal, popcorn and turnips and each story will have its own food to taste.
“After I tell the story behind the canape, there will be musical pieces that will also map the route of those first Scotch Irish,” he says.
The singers will include The Henry Girls, Mary Dillon, Kathleen Mac Innes, Alan Burke, Daoirí Farrell and Kate Crossan – but they won’t be singing about the food. We can expect songs of emigration and homesickness.
“The Irish would have arrived in America after the famine and on tonight’s menu will be oatcakes as well as Lumper potatoes from the Glens of Antrim, which were known as “famine potatoes’”, explains Emmett, who is also the man behind the Irish Food Heritage Project, where he organises food heritage tours and then trips to local modern restaurants to see how food has developed over the centuries.
So with a wealth of culinary history, great singers and songs, tonight at the Cultúrlann in Derry is the place to be.
Food and Folksong: A Worldwide Irish Legacy, hosted by BBC Radio Ulster’s Brian Mullen, starts at 7.30pm tonight (Thursday 4 February) at An Croí in Cultúrlann Uí Chanáin. Tickets are £10.
