1. Bloody chocolate
David Cameron isn't the only one getting into hot water for his porcine peccadilloes. Austrian chocolatier Josef Zotter is known as much for his eccentricity – he's never seen wearing matching shoes, for example – as for the quality and variety of the chocolates he produces. But there's been a mixed reaction to the launch of Zotter Raspberry Blood chocolate, containing 2 per cent real blood.
The blood comes from pigs reared at the company’s Edible Zoo, one of the attractions at the factory in Styria which gets more than a quarter of a million visitors each year. The pigs are destined for the table at the company’s on-site “eco-restaurant”, where healthy meals made with organic produce are served to counteract the sugar rush that comes with an all-you-can-eat tour of the production plant.
So, what does blood chocolate taste like, and why the outrage and revulsion, when we eat blood products such as black pudding, for example?
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The pigs’ blood is mixed into a raspberry ganache, and there’s also a dark red jelly made with cornel cherries, often mistakenly thought to be poisonous, with dark chocolate enrobing the whole, er, slightly squidgy, bar. It’s organic and fair traded, if that makes you feel any less queasy.
“I have created this chocolate shocker because I know that only a few drops of blood are cause for huge uproar, while factory farming is quietly accepted. Is our value judgement a bit off?” Zotter says.
He first launched a chocolate bar containing blood in 2011, but, not surprisingly it wasn’t a huge success, and the recipe was consigned to the plant’s Cemetery for Ideas, where poor sellers and bad ideas go to rest under actual tombstones in a garden. Occasionally, as with the raspberry blood, they’re exhumed and go back into production.
You can buy raspberry blood chocolate online at zotter.at, with free shipping on orders over €25, if you have the stomach for it.
2. The rise, and rise of the Irish chef
This was the year that one of our own, 23-year-old Mark Moriarty from Dublin, was crowned San Pellegrino Best Young Chef in the World. We can expect the DIT graduate to continue to open eyes to the talent coming out of Irish catering colleges (even if there aren't quite enough of them, according to the Restaurants Association of Ireland).
“Basically I’m taking the role of world young chef 2015 and using it to allow me to step away from the kitchen for now and become an Irish food ambassador, cooking at unique events around the world”
Next year, he plans to do a 12-city tour of Europe, Asia and the US with his “Taste of Ireland” menu, which he says “takes classic Irish dishes/ingredients and presents them in a modern fashion”.
Next month, he’s cooking a medieval Irish banquet in the Cellar Restaurant at the Merrion Hotel (October 23rd), as part of the Taste City Fusion festival in Dublin (October 22nd-25th).
In December, he heads to Australia. “ I will be cooking an eight-course menu with Peter Gunn from Attica restaurant in Melbourne on December14th. Peter represented the Australia Pacific region in the San Pellegrino competition. He is doing four Australia courses and I’m doing four Irish ones ,” Moriarty says.
Before that, you can catch him at the Dingle Food Festival this weekend, where he will be cooking Monkfish roasted on the bone, broccoli, chicken butter, mussels and wheat beer in Benner's Hotel at 3pm on Saturday.
3. Funky ferments
They've been around for centuries, but fermented food and drinks – kimchi, miso, sauerkraut, kombucha – are having more than just "a moment"; they're here to stay and will gradually become more mainstream as food companies wake up to their potential.
Exponents such as chef Katie Sanderson of Dillisk Project and Living Dinners, and food writer Charlotte Pike who has just written a book on the subject (Fermented, Kyle Books, £16.99), are doing much to demystify them and integrate them into everyday meals.
If you're interested but don't know how to get started, there's an introduction to fermentation class at the Fumbally Stables in Dublin 8 on October 18th.
www.thefumballystables.ie/events/introduction-to-fermentation.
4. Liquid gold
Would you pay €280 for a couple of bottles of olive oil? UK luxury products and experiences website veryfirstto.com is offering two 200ml bottles of Karvelas Hellas olive oil, "cultivated in the plains and groves of Evia Island", at that price. The bottles are made of Italian glass and they come in a decorative olive wood box, inside a leather case. But still ...
However, this rather OTT offering is indicative of growing interest in the provenance of olive oil, following on from several international scandals, and of the interest in really good, limited-release extra virgin olive oils. Single estate chocolate bars and single origin teas and coffees are widely marketed; now we can expect to see more premium olive oils coming on the market – just make sure it’s the oil, not the packaging you’re paying for.
5. Ticket to eat
We might soon have to buy a ticket to eat at our favourite restaurants, if the growing trend for no-shows and last-minute cancellations continues. Conor Dempsey, chef patron at Amuse restaurant in Dublin recently tweeted: "11 no shows tonight and 24 cancellations for tomorrow today, do people realise what implications this has for a small resto like ours!!". It's a trend that's threatening the viability of many small businesses.
To address the issue, chef JP McMahon introduced a ticketing system, with discounts of up to 30 percent (Tuesday night, tasting menu), for meals booked and paid for in advance, at his Michelin-starred Aniar restaurant in Galway city.
Taking credit card details, and enforcing a cancellation/no-show fee, is another option being considered by restaurateurs trying to walk the tightrope of not wanting to put prospective diners off, and ensuring that they don’t face a sea of empty seats on a Saturday night.
6. Back to basics
House-made bread should be a given in restaurants – sure we're all knocking up the sourdough at home these days – but if the butter and salt on the table aren't made in-house too, they're missing a trick.
7. Irish charcuterie
Yes we can. Chef Robbie Krawczyk is the one to watch – he learned at the hands of his father, Frank, and his curing room at Tankardstown House is a treasure store. Then there's Fingal Ferguson's Gubbeen chorizo, James McGeough's air-dried Connemara lamb, Whole Hoggs salami . . .
8. Slow, baby, slow
Slow cooker, that is. Nigella's new book (Simply Nigella, Flatiron Books, November 3rd), has lots of recipes using this gadget, so get one now, before, like Delia's omelette pan, they become as rare as hen's teeth.
9. In the spirit
We're making so much liquor here now, we've got to think of ways to use it up. Teeling Whiskey has made its way into a Glastry Farm brand ice-cream, and also appears in Munroes jerk marinade. So, what'll we do with all that gin ...
10. Vegetable butchers
So who's going to be first Irish retailer to take a leaf out of the trailblazing Eataly empire, with outposts in Italy, the US, Japan, Dubai, Brasil and Istanbul, and give us a veg butcher? Drop off your onions, carrots, and those pesky broad beans and minutes later collect them peeled, prepped and cut to order. You'll never have to chiffonade a cabbage or brunoise a beet ever again (and you can throw out that Spiraliser too).
