Darina Allen: ‘It’s important to empower them’

What is Darina Allen’s advice to new or soon-to-be grandparents?

“Just to give thanks for the sheer blessing of living long enough to have grandchildren. It’s such a joy.”

Her 11 children, ranging in age from 21 to three, all live within five minutes of her and ‘even though we were all on lockdown at the beginning, we could see each other and wave to each other which was good.’

Unsurprisingly growing up in a family where real food is paramount, and understanding where food comes from, her grandchildren all love to cook.

“Little Jago is only three but if there’s a barbecue or something going on, he’ll muck in as well,” says Darina. “By having cooking going on around them all the time, they sort of pick it up without a thought. Also because we’re in the middle of a farm and we’re very fortunate, we have a horticultural enterprise as well, and they run into the greenhouse and eat broccoli and beans and little tomatoes off the plants. It’s like their supermarket and they eat all kinds of things because it’s their norms. 

“When friends visit, they say ‘I don’t eat this etc,’ and they can’t understand it, they just eat it. Of course when their friends eat things, they often discover they’re delicious.”

Being able to recognise food in the wild is something that’s important for Darina to pass on to her grandchildren – but basic cooking skills are vital.

“They also love foraging and finding what they can eat walking along, like bits of lambs tongue sorrel or dandelion leaves. This is a skill that is really worth passing on to the children. But also it’s absolutely vital that they learn how to cook. Of all the things that they have to do every single day, one of the main ones is to feed themselves. 

“At this point, they’re fed by their parents but within a short time, when they go to school or to university, it makes such a difference if they can cook. They can make a delicious meal out of inexpensive ingredients. They’ll never be shot of friends if they can cook. It’s one of the easiest ways to win friends and influence people,” she laughs.

She talks of the 2019 survey from the Union of Students in Ireland which revealed almost 40 per cent of college students suffer from severe levels of anxiety. 

“Knowing how to cook means you’re in charge of your own health,” says Darina. “A lot of time when kids are going to university, they have quite a limited budget for food and some of the time it goes on booze before food and they end up ending something with very little nourishment in it. 

“They don’t have the resources or the nutrients to help them to cope with anxiety like they normally would.

“We need to give them the skills. They are absolutely basic life skills but unfortunately in many cases, the last generation didn’t land them either. 

“Since the 1960s, the emphasis has been on having a proper career, do law, do science etc and why would you want to stop and learn how to cook, you’ll never need that. As a result we’ve left several generations out of our houses without giving them the basic skills to make toast or an omelette.

“During this lockdown, in the initial lockdown there were people in an absolutely terrible state, suddenly having to do 21 meals a week and not having a notion how to do it.”

We talk about how, for many years, cooking or having cooking skills wasn’t deemed ‘cool’ or on trend. Darina agrees.

“In the late 1970s, I went to hotel school. I did hotel management but I really wanted to cook. It was considered to be of much less importance than my friends doing law, medicine and everything. 

“There’s no doubt about it: our health comes through our food. We can’t do anything about our genes but we can certainly do something about the quality of the fuel we put in our tank to keep us healthy.”

The book she’s working on will showcase 100 recipes that no child should leave school without knowing how to cook – and we predict it’s going to be a winner in thousands of households around Ireland. One Pot Feeds All, which she published last year, has also proved popular with would-be home cooks.

“You get a bag of potatoes for half nothing, for a few euro and they’re so nourishing,” she says. “With the bag of potatoes you can make so many delicious meals, not least your lovely potato bread, all kinds of good things, but if you don’t know how to cook you don’t know what to do with it. Cabbage is marvellous as well, maybe with a bit of streaky bacon, inexpensive ingredients to make something gorgeous. But you can’t make anything gorgeous if you don’t know where to start.”

Her grandchildren love ‘comforting, wholesome food,’ while some like spicy meals and others are interested in fermented food and can make their own water kefir. 

“I really should do more and more of it,” she says when we say her role as a grandparent is partly instructional. “I feel it’s important to equip them, to empower them really. Skills are freedom and of all the skills we can give them, it’s a real gift for life if you can teach them how to cook a few things.

“You can also start a little copy book, sort of recipe book in the house where, if you’ve time, do one recipe with them and write it down or get them to write it down themselves. That they can take away with them when they leave home. It’s also a record of family recipes.”