Jenny Bristow: recipes to make the most of autumn’s bounty
Northern Ireland is full of flavour right now as growers reap the bounty from the autumn crops. Eleanor McGillie talks to Ireland’s Good Food Ambassador Jenny Bristow about apples, foraging and the Richhill Apple Harvest Fayre
When I was much younger I was more of a tomboy than a cook, but when I was indoors I always remember watching Jenny Bristow on the TV. My mother loved her programme and has Jenny Bristow’s cookery books piled on the kitchen dresser.
The popular Irish cook always had a warm demeanour, a welcoming persona, a house you would leave home for, and, if anyone was ever going to inspire me to get off the skateboard and into the kitchen, it was going to be Jenny Bristow.
So, when I heard Ireland’s Good Food Ambassador is to lead the cookery demonstrations at the Richhill Apple Harvest Fayre today, I knew I had to get her take on the Orchard County, the fruit it bears, her love for foraging and her love of all things old.
So I travelled to her home in Cullybackey in Co Antrim where Jenny runs her cookery school in a beautifully restored apple barn at the side of her house.
Set on 100 acres, this family home is full of rustic charm, with its autumnal wreaths and dried flowers. It’s a home full of warmth with evidence of Jenny’s passion for foraging hanging from the walls.
“I grew up in the countryside,” says Jenny, as we sit down at her kitchen table to enjoy her lemon and elderflower shortbread and Granola biscuits with a pot of freshly brewed coffee.
“We were never bored. I was always rooting through the hedges to see what I could find. We also had our own apple trees. I remember we couldn’t pick them until they had ripened. I remember waiting and checking on the apples. And the excitement, of course, when they were ready to pick was fantastic.
“When you are a child there are so many things to explore outside. I spent much of my childhood outside. That’s what makes memories. The smell and textures of the fruit, the berries, the foliage and the greenery. We used to get apples, tie them to string and hang them from the ceiling.
“And it’s now that people appreciate fruits such as the Bramley apple. Berries, pumpkins, butternut squash — these are all popular ingredients for cooking at this time of the year.
“The Bramley apple is a part of our life. Co Armagh is famous for its apples. When we were all growing up we were either eating Bramley apples or cooking with Bramley apples. We are so lucky to have this wonderful piece of fruit growing right here on our land. It’s wonderful for cooking. Apples and brown sugar is a match made in heaven.
“This time of the year is truly wonderful and I am a beaver for finding ingredients to use because it’s something we had done as children.
“The Richhill Apple Harvest Fayre is known as a celebration of all things apples so I am delighted to play a part in this year’s cookery demonstrations where I will also be joined by chefs from The Food Heartlands Initiative.”
Jenny, who will be doing two solo live cookery demonstrations in the food marquee, said people are spoiled for choice for recipes incorporating apples at this time of the year.
“There are so many dishes to make and I love sweet and savoury,” she said. “You could cook a fire cracking casserole with apples, sausages and champ, potato apple cakes, upside down tarts using the Bramley apple and also an apple jack pork homecoming casserole.
“I love wholesome foods. There is nothing like the smell of wholesome foods cooking as you come through the door. I love food which warms the body and the soul.
“The harvest has always been my favourite time of the year. This is the time for people to go out foraging with their children. There are rosehips, elderflower berries, apples, chestnuts and seeds.
“And now, of course, is the time to forage for Christmas as well. This season is bursting with opportunities. You can forage now and then dry fruit off for making Christmas wreaths.”
Jenny gave up work as a home economics teacher so she could stay at home with her three children Robert, Jane and Peter.
But her love for cooking never swayed. Indeed, if anything she admits to becoming even more passionate about it so she found a way to incorporate it into her lifestyle.
So her apple barn at her Cullybackey home was renovated and soon became the backdrop for her ever-popular TV programme which captured hearts right across Northern Ireland.
Today, the same outbuilding is the setting for her popular Jenny Bristow Cookery School Experience, which people flock to from all over the country.
The setting is simply stunning, with the colours and fruits of autumn hanging from the mature trees and bushes which line her property.
“I love welcoming people here,” Jenny says. The cookery school is unique and people coming are welcomed into the house first of all. We all sit in the drawing room and have a glass of mulled wine, sit by the fire and take in the smells of the season. It’s a lovely chance to get to know people attending the demonstration.
“From the drawing room we walk over to the cookery school where the girls will have been doing lots of prep so the smell is always fantastic as people arrive.”
After coffee we go for a stroll around
the family home. Gates lead into woodlands, vast lawns are decorated with golden leaves and the smell of the countryside is just wonderful.
“I look round,” she says, “and everything is just beautiful at this time of the year. One of my favourites is making soup in a pumpkin and also Dromona pie. Years ago, I actually received a request from Washington to see if I would fax over my recipe for Dromona pie so it could be served at an IMF conference. Obviously, I obliged.
“I think food which connects us to our land is very important and Armagh is famous for this. There is a lot of good work ongoing in Armagh to promote the county and its produce and the Richhill Apple Harvest Fayre will be a fantastic way to showcase what the county has to offer.
“I am looking forward to Saturday where I will be demonstrating some cooking techniques, people will be able to talk with me about what I am cooking and I will also be keen to incorporate Armagh produce into my cooking.”
As we walk around the grounds it’s so easy to see Jenny’s passion. Her eyes always veer towards the hedgerows or upwards at expanse of overhead branches.
She is surrounded by beauty. Her appetite for the natural environment is inspirational. Her passion for cooking is unrelenting.