Old Butter Roads Food Trails beckon with May delights

THE second annual Old Butter Roads Food Trails festival is all the proof that is needed that all traditional butter transport roads still lead to the Rebel Cork.

The festival celebrates the excellence in locally produced food and beverages. The co-operative group of family run and owned eateries and food producers which form the kernel of the festival show their credentials with the display of a milk churn – representing a time when butter was transported to Cork city via Millstreet, Kanturk, Macroom, Mallow and Mitchelstown.

The festival will be launched this Saturday, May 5, by food writer Joe McNamee and the Old Butter Roads producers and restaurateurs at the Church of the Resurrection, Blarney. It’s a month long festival with events at Blair’s Inn in Cloghroe and a special event, ‘Remembering the Old Butter Roads’, on bank holiday Monday at Whitechurch Community Centre which will be full of historians, food writers, cheesemakers and other producers from the Old Butter Roads region.

Subsequent events are also planned for the Macroom area in the second week of May, along with Millstreet, Kanturk and Mallow in the third week and Mitchelstown on the first weekend in June.

Another highlight of the festival will be a meal showcasing producers’ foods hosted by the Aubane Community Group and marking the 270 years of the Old Butter Road from Kerry to Cork. Historians and storytelling groups will tell of the many roads leading into the Butter Exchange in Cork, which was originally established in 1730 and moved indoors form 1769 to the early 20th century.

For more information go to www.oldbutterroads.ie