Good time to enjoy taste of Comber Early
Article by Michele Shirlow for Farmweek 23/06/2016
Bought my first bag of New Season Comber Early potatoes at the weekend. There’s nothing I enjoy more than boiled Comber potatoes with lashings of our butter and local beef, a delicious dish. Forget pasta and rice. The Comber Early tastes a whole lot better.
We’ll be helping to celebrate the ‘mighty spud’ at the annual potato festival in Comber over the weekend as part of our support a series of initiatives by this important industry to promote Combers and other local potatoes to younger shoppers in particular.
The Comber Early, of course, is one of three food products to have gained EU protected name status – the others being Lough Neagh Eel and the Armagh Bramley Apple. It was tremendously encouraging to see two of our cider processors, Armagh Cider in Craigavon and Kilmegan in Dundrum winning a series of awards in the recent International Cider Challenge. Kilmegan in particular struck gold for its cider.
Here’s hoping for some good weather for what should be another successful local f
ood festival around the square in Comber. The monthly farmers’ market there is certainly developing into one of the best community initiatives during Year of Food and Drink. There’s also been the recent launch of a new monthly market in the splendid setting of the forecourt of Hillsborough Castle
It was immensely encouraging to see talented chef Niall McKenna of the James Street South Group cooking with Comber Earlies at last weekend’s spectacular Taste of London show in Regent’s Park. Niall brought the message about the quality and originality of our food and drink to what is now regarded as the ‘world’s biggest restaurant festival’.
Niall served up brilliant dishes for visitors to his stand using beef and pork belly from Peter Hannan, Glenarm Organic Smoked Salmon, traditional Northern Irish potato bread, Lough Neagh Eels, Bramley apples and Walter Ewing’s smoked scallops with Rathlin Island kelp.
It was the first time that a Northern Ireland restaurant took part in Taste of London.
The company was among 40 restaurants from most parts of London putting on a show for foodies in the park. It would be great to see others following Niall’s enterprise next year. Surprisingly, only one local company, Peppup Sauces from Portaferry, had a stand at Taste of London.
And wouldn’t also be good to have a significant Northern Ireland culinary and product presence at Taste of Dublin.
We’ve certainly got a cadre of brilliant chefs who can more than hold their own with the world’s best and have superb ingredients for outstandingly tasty and creative dishes.
Paul Rankin, Michael Deane, Noel McMeel, Sean Owens and Emmet McCourt have also brought the Northern Ireland food message to important markets for exports and tourism such as the US, parts of Europe and Asia.
But we need to do much more to burnish Northern Ireland’s reputation as a region producing and cooking wonderful food and drink especially for those interested in buying from us and to attract more tourists. Both Taste of London and Taste of Dublin cover the two bases.
Our food and drink companies would certainly benefit from further initiatives to increase consumer awareness about of food and drink, especially branded products, in Great Britain and the Republic of Ireland, easily our two most important and readily accessible markets for external sales and tourism.
