Clodagh McKenna might just be one of the happiest people I’ve ever met. A bundle of enthusiasm, the queen of 'Irish soul food’ has a smile as sunny as her yellow blouse, her lilting voice frequently bursting into peals of excited laughter. And it seems she has plenty to be pleased about: her new recipe column in the Evening Standard is the latest of a string of successes in her twenty-year career in food. An alumna of the Ballymaloe Cookery School & House in County Cork, Clodagh started out by running farmers’ markets in Ireland, before penning five cookbooks, opening a restaurant, hosting numerous pop-ups and appearing on television across the world.
Her food is simple, seasonal and always stylish, presented with seemingly effortless grace. She passionately advocates eating with the seasons, for the sake of our health, the environment and our palates. So it is no surprise that the natural world is ever present in Clodagh’s food and styling: her home and kitchen are filled with wildflowers and bunches of dried leaves, her dishes elegantly garnished with petals and crushed herbs. Her unbridled joy at cooking with fresh ingredients is evident from the merest glimpse at any of her recipe videos: she handles every garden vegetable as though it were the finest saffron, inhaling the scent of a bunch of parsley as she might a Valentine’s bouquet. Her excitement is infectious.
As the US ambassador for Kerrygold, Clodagh spends much of her time in America, becoming the face of Irish food stateside, introducing television audiences to modern cuisine from the Emerald Isle. Despite a gruelling schedule that sees her splitting her time between London, Dublin, New York and Toronto, Clodagh insists she loves nothing more than having guests over for supper at home. ‘My heart fills with joy when I see everyone sat around my table enjoying my food’, she says.
These simple-yet-sophisticated meals, filled with the bounty of the season, have formed the basis of Clodagh’s latest cookbook and television series, Clodagh’s Suppers, which will be released in autumn 2018. In between her monthly transatlantic journeys, I met with Clodagh to learn about her food story and the ingredients for a perfect supper.
Can you summarise a supper at Clodagh's?
Cooking for people is one of my favourite things: it's how I socialise. I make everything: down to the syrup for the cocktail guests receive when they arrive. The menu is always based on seasonal ingredients, some of which are local and foraged. I cook everything personally; there isn’t a chef downstairs while I’m upstairs hosting.
So how do you go about planning them?
The first thing I do for the menu is to look at what’s in season and what I’ve been cooking for myself at home. I try to pick dishes that really sing of that particular time of the year, so, in autumn it would be apples, blackberries, figs or perhaps wild mushrooms. Then there’s the logistics of finding all the best producers. I always try and get one producer from Ireland, the rest I find locally; the best butchers, grocers and fishmongers in my area.
If people want to organise supper clubs themselves, what advice would you give them?
I would say, start off by making dinners for your friends, and organise them really well. You will always be stressed if you haven’t planned well enough. So, start by working out how many people you’re going to invite. Work back from there and plan the menu, your shopping lists and the tableware you’re going to use for each dish. Then organise your menu so that there is one course that needs your immediate attention before serving, and make the other two things that can be prepared beforehand and served straight away. If you do too many “stand-over” dishes then you’re not going to be able to do a good job. So only pick one that will require your attention for twenty minutes straight.
It’s also good to think of garnishes that could go with the dishes, and see if you can find a way to put your signature on the food. So ask yourself “how can I make this dish reflect my personality? What is it that I really love?” Make this the finishing touch and it will make an amazing difference; it might create a new texture or change the look of the dish and taste experience.
Should hosts focus on food styling and presentation?
Yes, absolutely. I love beautiful things and creating a beautiful visual, even if I’m eating at home alone: I call it tablescaping! I think it really heightens someone’s experience of a meal, and using natural materials makes it a celebration of the season. Even just a folded napkin with an autumn leaf on it can make a difference. Simple things are really effective. Hand writing your menus is another example. Even if you only have one in the middle of the table, it’s a nice touch and makes a lovely keepsake.
What sparked your interest in cooking?
It was baking with my family on a Saturday: I think it was the same for a lot of people growing up in Ireland in the 70s and 80s, because baking was really fashionable at the time. Also important was spending summers with a French family on a language exchange. The mother was an amazing cook, so I learnt a great deal about food from her. That’s when I started organising suppers for my friends: I was hosting dinner parties from the age of 13!
So what was it that led you to make a career out of food?
It definitely wasn’t planned. I went to university in New York and studied business, and when I graduated I hoped to open a chain of cafés in Ireland. So I decided to go to cookery school to learn all about food. I took out a loan, which my mum co-signed without my dad knowing (he went mad when he found out!), did the cookery course and was then offered a job at a Michelin restaurant. It was a farm-to-table restaurant, serving traditional food done very simply, which is the same kind of cooking that I do now. I stayed there for three years; the rest is history!
Your training was French classical, but you’ve also worked in Italy. What impact did that have on the food you make now?
It really helped me focus on simplicity in cooking: adding lovely fresh herbs to baked fish rather than a beurre blanc as I might have done before. I concentrated more than ever on ingredients, removing everything from a dish except for the bare essentials, in order to allow the ingredients to speak for themselves. And food looks so much more beautiful that way!
You’ve done a lot of work in recent years promoting Irish cuisine. What is it that makes Irish food unique?
For me, it’s the fish. We have exceptional seafood: lobsters, scallops and prawns are all incredible in Ireland. You’re only ever 60km away from the coast, and being on the Atlantic means we have lovely, clean, salty water. People are always surprised when I tell them how many of our dishes resemble Jewish cuisine, too: our best-kept secrets are dishes like salted cod or spiced beef, both of which are really important in Cork. The beef is spiced with cinnamon, nutmeg, allspice and saltpetre; you boil it and it becomes like salted beef. It’s really traditional in Ireland, we had it once a week growing up.
You once said that ‘life in Ireland happens over a simmering pot’: what does that mean to you?
The Irish are quite well known for our one-pot dishes: soups, casseroles and stews are what we really do well. In Ireland when you go to people’s houses you immediately sit around the table, and there’s always either a big pot of tea with a lovely cake, or big pots of soup. Everything there happens around the kitchen table. Even when there’s a problem or disagreement, it’s always discussed at the table. And everything diffuses with food, it really does. Your mood changes when you eat, you become calmer and see things differently. It's the best way to solve problems.
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