Creating great food memories

MOST of us have a soft spot for our mothers’ cooking, and for Rachel Allen, it’s inspired her latest cookbook. The Irish chef talks to KEELEY BOLGER about her Icelandic heritage, why ‘foodies’ didn’t exist when she was growing up and food as nostalgia

THE world might just latching on to an idealised Nordic way of life, but chef Rachel Allen has long been fully conversed in it.

Growing up in Dublin, with an Icelandic mum and Irish father, Allen embraced both cultures, and she’s not surprised all things Scandi have become so popular.

“If it’s not the great Nordic [TV] dramas, it’s the food, or how to be hygge... It’s funny,” says the 44-year-old Cork resident with a laugh.

“I read one of those hygge books recently, and actually I identified with every bit of it. I always feel really at home there,” the mum-of-three notes of Scandinavia. I’ve always loved the design. I’ve always loved the architecture, the furniture, the fashion, the food.

“I love all the fish and how they use a lot of dill. There’s mild aniseed-y flavours, even liquorice is used in food a lot. I love the way they use barley and oats. And baking is something I come back to time and time again. They use quite a lot of cardamom, and I just absolutely adore it. I often find myself sneaking some cardamom and cinnamon into batters.”

Allen’s mother Hallfridur – a former art student, who was 19 and visiting Dublin for a weekend when she met Allen’s father – was a creative cook, and fused Nordic with Irish standards.

She’d leave comforting casseroles bubbling away in the Aga, and whip up cardamom-infused cakes, igniting a young Allen’s interest in food in the process.

But central as food is to her life, the chef, is dubious about calling herself a ‘foodie’.

“When I was growing up, it wasn’t about people being ‘foodies’,” she says. “I was born in the 70s, it was a different thing then. Mum loved to cook and put food on the table.

“We didn’t go to farmers’ markets but we always had great food from the butcher down the road, always lovely casseroles and soups. I took it for granted then, and of course, growing up, you realise, ‘Wow, she really did a great job’.” Now, Allen celebrates that ‘great job’ in her latest cookbook, Recipes From My Mother. It also draws on the beloved dishes her friends’ mums passed down to them, from soda breads, to kedgerees and creamy rice puddings, and acknowledges the influence of her mother-in-law, renowned chef Darina Allen, through their years working together at the famous Ballymaloe Cookery School – which is also where Allen found her calling and met her now-husband Isaac, after enrolling on a course there at 18, and where she still teaches today. It was a great opportunity to take a stroll down memory lane. “It’s funny how food evokes such emotions and memories and nostalgia for people,” she says. “Someone would say, ‘I remember we used to always have stewed plums with custard’, and then I thought, ‘Actually I should be including these lovely recipes as well’. I feel the book is full of memories.” Fancy cooking up some lovely memories of your own? Here are three recipes from Allen’s book to try at home...

Re cipes From My Mother by Rachel Allen is published by HarperCollins, priced £20. Available now