Cornucopia at Home reviewed by Kevin Ashton
If you ever spent any amount of time in Dublin then you’re bound to have heard of
Cornucopia. It’s a well-established, much-loved vegetarian restaurant. Open 1986 by Neil and Deirdre McCafferty. Situated on Wicklow Street it has a warm inviting feel and a lot of loyal customers.
Several weeks ago as part of this review I had intended to pay the restaurant an unannounced visit, I was curious to find the source of this well written cookbook. Unfortunately events conspired against the visit, so at this time my longing is still just that. Fate has a way of twisting and turning and I found that my sister planned a last minute trip to Ireland with her husband. With this news I manage to convince her to try the restaurant out, and she did. Lynn and Ray both concurred about the wonderful food and warm inviting welcome.
This book is in fact a collaborative effort from members of staff, ably lead by writer Eleanor Heffernan. This was in response to the many requests over the years from customers for a Cornucopia Cookbook. Eleanor has worked within Cornucopia as a waitress, manager, chef, and translator for seven years. Her intimate knowledge and love for its philosophy shines through. That warmth resonates throughout the 460 odd pages of the book and it’s recipes. To say this book was merely a cookbook would be to seriously undervalue it’s content; it is in fact a glimpse into Deirdre McCafferty’s life. Your taken on her journey of how she came to own and operate this bastion of real food.
Reading this book took me on my own journey, back to my first trip to a wonderful vegetarian restaurant in the 1989 in the English Lake district. I was amazed how interesting and delicious a vegetarian meal could be, that I’d ended the meal without a sense of lacking, rather a sense of new possibilities.
After an interesting and thoroughly readable introduction, the book is then broken into sections, soup, salads, main courses, breads and desserts. Each section begins usefully with an introduction which an engaging mixture of re-telling Cornucopia folklore and general advice and tips about the subject. Many of the recipes cover two pages, sometimes three. The first page talks about the philosophy or story behind the dish. Then the second and sometimes third is the recipe itself. These are not overly complex recipes, just lovingly well explained ones.
Each recipe is usefully labelled, vegan, glutin-free, wheat-free, yeast-free and so forth which indeed is a useful feature but I wanted the focus of this review to be about possibilities. You see, I’m still an avowed meat eater and always will be as long as I have teeth but these days I too can enjoy without sense of sacrifice a vegetarian meal once or twice a week. Next time your in a bookstore seek this book out and take time to read a recipe or two.
You probably have a friend just like me, who has a bookcase full of cookbooks and yet strangely enough they use the same 4-5 time and time again. Those favourite books are well thumbed through and are the first recipes to be looked at when seeking inspiration. This book could perhaps join that select small group and become well loved and much used………… which is all any cookbook, could hope for.
*With the kind permission of the author we shall be sharing one of her recipes tomorrow.
The book is available on most online stores such as Amazon. It is available from our website www.corkuniversitypress.com and is available in Waterstones in the UK
