Hydro Farm Banquet in August

Chris' Report of the Long Table Banquet @ the Hydro farm 15^th August

The day started at approximately seven in the morning with the picking and gathering of fresh vegetables and herbs from the allotment. These included broad beans, runner beans, basil, flat leaf parsley, mint, cauliflower, chives, yellow courgettes, strawberries, potatoes and tomatoes of all shapes and colours, red onions, shallots and garlic. The weather was slightly cloudy but not enough to deter the team from prepping the vegetables outside. The size of the team for the day was 7 in total. These included the two organisers Chris and Maeve, Flo, Shane, Kathleen (Chris’s mum) and Caz and Deirdre from Slow food. The allotment owner Zwena and her son Peter helped out prior to the arrival of the 56 guests.

The first of the guests along with the sunshine arrived at approximately 1 o clock and everyone was treated to elderflower cordial (made from elderflowers picked from trees around the allotment) and sparkling wine cocktails with strawberries. Platters of canapés soon followed, these included roast beetroot hummus on char grilled sour dough and char grilled yellow courgettes and smoked salmon, crème fraiche on blinis with fresh herbs. Every platter came back empty so they seemed to go down well. Guests then had time to wander around the 40 allotment plots which also includes a very colourful pumpkin patch.

The barn were the banquet was to take place was decorated with old farm equipment, large artichoke plants that had purple flowers on them, bunches of plated onions from the allotment and baskets of produce. The bread basket was a huge wicker laundry basket that had been used years ago in the Hydro farm hotel. The table was set with white table cloths and dotted with jugs of elderflower cordial with lemon and silver buckets full with a range of hydrangea flowers.

The meal commenced around half two. The first course was a choice of ham hok terrine with allotment piccalilli and salad leaves and spinach and potato tart with char grilled courgettes and parsley pesto.

Next up was the main course which was a buffet of which the visual highlight were the salads made from produce from the allotment. There was also a choice of meats-barbecued morrocon style leg of lamb with tzatziki, combination of roast piglet on a spit (over a real fire) and slow roasted pork belly in a thyme, garlic and white wine reduction with a spicy plum and rhubarb relish. All meats were supplied by O’Flynns butchers in Cork city. The bread was also supplied by Arbutus bread. The two salads that went down really well were the char grilled cauliflower with spinach, tomato and capers in a mustardy dressing and the roast butternut squash, red onion, puy lentil and feta salad.

At this point the sunshine started to cover the entire inside of the barn and everyone needed their sunglasses which really added to the atmosphere.

The next course was the cheeseboard (Gubeen extra mature smoked, Ardsallagh goats cheese with honey and walnuts and Hegartys cheese) with crackers and fig and walnut chutney.

Then finally the dessert buffet, this was a choice from a number of tarts -apple and lemon curd, pear and almond and apple, cinnamon and custard. These were accompanied by Cork Coffee Roaster coffee and Barrys tea (of course).

The entire meal was backed up with music played by a stringed trio called dynamic.

The last of the guests left around nine o’ clock. I think it was safe to say that everyone had a brilliant time and also left with a very positive experience from produce grown in an allotment and also produce from the county of Cork.

The highlight for the organisers was the feedback from one of the guests. It was from a lady called Anne who owns an allotment plot up in Blarney. The next day she told the owner Zwena that it was one of the most beautiful days of her life. Money can just not buy that.

The organisers would also like to thank everyone for supporting the day, slow food Cork city for helping to advertise the event along with the helpers on the day and suppliers of some of the ingredients. A huge thank you also goes to the owner of the allotments Zwena.