Darina Allen (01:28)
It was lovely to be honored with a doctorate at MTU in Cork. And I was asked in my acceptance speech to just address the students, the other people who are getting their degrees with a little few words or whatever. anyway, I

sort of said to them, well, it doesn't matter whether you're an astrophysicist or a lawyer or a pilot or whatever, be sure to take a little time to learn how to cook because it's such an important skill. you can cook, can, you'll never be short of friends. It's one of the easiest ways to win friends and influence people. can travel all over the world and get a job very easily and so on, the way to everyones heart is through their tummy

And some of them, were rolling their eyes at the thought of this. But then it sort of brought me back on a trip down memory lane to my school days when I was educated by by Dominican nuns who were always considered to be very visionary nuns. And they were, at that time, this is in the mid-60s, they were encouraging us girls to have a proper career. And this is at a time when most women, when they got married, they looked after the family and the household and so on.

And so people were just beginning to have think about women were just beginning to think about having careers. they were so anyway, so that all I really want. So a lot of my friends in my class were doing medicine or architecture or whatever. And all I wanted to do is to cook or to grow at our garden was the only thing I knew anything about.

I remember the nuns pulling themselves up to their full height and saying, my goodness, you're never going to need that, my dear. You're going to be a career woman. So you're going to have a cook and you'll have someone to look after your grounds and all of that. so anyway, I insisted and kept on persisting about this. I just wanted to learn how to cook more delicious things. And so they said, right, OK, if you must, then it needs to be a degree in horticulture or

a degree in hotel management. So I had to make a decision. So I decided a degree in hotel management. And I went to one of the top hotel schools in Ireland in Dublin, called Coughlin Road Street, and then did my course there. And then at the end of that same dilemma, so you never know in your life what's the little thing that can change the course of the rest of your life. And in my case, it was just this. So at very close to the end of the course, I met one of the senior lecturers in

corridor one day and she said to me, don't got a job yet. Everybody else in your course is a job. Because that stage, there are only 30 in my class, they'd be about 300 now. you know, they, the tutors really, lecturers really like to make sure you had a job, and that they had done their best for you. So anyway, I said, she asked, I said, well, no, because I really want to learn how to cook. And at that time, remember,

Men were chefs and women just simply couldn't get into the top kitchens. I was not interested in anything apart from the top kitchens. so anyway, she told me I was, I said, I really want to learn how to make homemade ice cream and soufflés and tureens and whatever. Sounds very exotic then. so she said to me, was too fussy. But then she said, funny, the other night I dinner with some friends of ours and they were talking about this woman down in Cork this,

farmer's wife who seems to have opened a restaurant in her own house. It's a great big old country house, farmhouse in the countryside, close to the sea down in East Cork near Ballycotten. And she writes the menu every day, depending on what's in the garden and what fish comes in from the boats in Ballycotten and all of that. that may sound very normal nowadays, but actually at that stage it was

considered to be extraordinary to write the menu every day because most chefs, when they opened a restaurant, they'd write the menu. be the same five or even 10 years later. And there was restaurant food and there was home cooking and they were very, very different. she said, ⁓ and they also apparently have, her husband has a Jersey herd and they have greenhouses and gardens and everything. they make lovely homemade ice cream from the Jersey cream. I couldn't believe my ears.

and so on and so I said, my God, that's exactly what I'm looking for. And she couldn't remember the name of the woman. And so she said, well, look, if you like, I'll go back to my friend and ask her. And she came back a couple of days later. I met her again. She had a piece of paper in her hand. She said that this is the name of that woman. Write to her. And the name on the piece of paper was Myrtle Allen, who later became my mother-in-law. So I became a member of the family by the simple expedient of marrying the boss's son. So that's how it's done.

And then I came to Ballymaloe and met this woman who taught me the opposite almost of everything I've learned at hotel school, but she really reinforced my mother's values around food. she was, as she cooked, she taught us every day. And I was the eldest in the kitchen at 19. was the only one with anything resembling training. And hotel management does not teach you how to cook, I can tell you, even though there are some cooking classes. so I...

And I was the eldest in the kitchen at 19. And at that stage, Myrtle had the top rating in food guides in the British Isles. the so people were enchanted by this, the food she was serving, you know, lovely. If there was lovely fresh mackerel came in from the boats in Ballycotton in the summer mackerel. Now you'd never see that on a restaurant menu, because at that stage, even though they're kind of almost endangered fish now, they were very plentiful and considered to be very kind of

you know, people were sort of sniffy about them. Sole or or turbot or something would be better. But if the mackerel were beautiful, she'd serve them or cabbage or carrageenan moss or whatever. And so anyway, people came from the UK, from France, Italy, etc. to this little farmhouse way out in the country in Ireland. And at that time, people just didn't open restaurants. I mean, it was the first country house hotel, which of course, starts off as a restaurant first. And then they added bedrooms. They opened some bedrooms as well.

there was quite a big house, were 16 bedrooms anyway. they, but people just didn't open restaurants in their own houses. was unheard of. You would be open a restaurant in a city or a big town or something. So Myrtle was such a pioneer and really was unaware of herself almost. She, in the end, she really had a global reputation. And she, as I said, even almost to the end, she really, I think, never quite realized the impact she'd had on

the whole food, not only the food, saying Ireland, but she was an influence all over the world, just doing what came naturally to her. And I remember when she got the top ratings in the guides in the UK, Egon Roney and what was the other guy's called? There's another guy, I forgot the name for a second. anyway, course the British papers picked up on it. And then the Irish papers picked up and the British papers, they couldn't believe their ears. This woman, know,

This woman down in Cork in the farm in the country was getting all these races. And then the panel of chefs, the real chefs with their high hats and all the rest of it said, who the hell is this woman with no training who writes the menu every day and serves everything from cabbage to to swede turnips or whatever happens to be the best in season and ⁓ or pheasant or whatever was shot on the farm.

She just and she's got top rated in the food guides They just simply didn't understand it in the beginning because she was doing. But, you know, Myrtle my God. I was so, you know, I know I know not everybody says this, but I feel I was so fortunate that our paths crossed in life. Really. And I really, really was. She was such an inspiration to me and such a support to me later. And of course, I did television and various other things. She always supported me and everything, which was so wonderful. And she was such a sharing, generous person.

But I remember her, would, know, lots of people came to interview and write articles and so on. And we have no PR company or anything like that. It was just literally word of mouth. But word of mouth is much better. It's slower, but it's much better. People really believe word of mouth. But I remember one time she was being interviewed by some journalist or something. And I remember them saying to him, Myrtle you are such a pioneer, you know. And, you know, what was the, what are they trying to say now? And then.

you did this and did that. You were with me every day. Blah, blah. And this is long before any of those terms farm to table cooking from scratch, you know, any of that zero waste. was just the way she was. She said, well, she said, if you live long enough, they often come around to you at the end. She was so lovely. And then I've and my father-in-law often used to tell a story about on their honeymoon, they learned a lot about each other. She was only 19 when they got married. He was a little bit older.

very handsome farmer and horticulturalist and also very entrepreneurial. But anyway, so basically, he used to tell the story that they learned a lot about each other and their honeymoon, you saw a giggle at that. then he said, she used to say, she learned he played bridge a lot. And he said he learned she couldn't cook at all. So anyway, when they came home from their honeymoon, apparently, Ivan

showed Myrtle how to scramble eggs on the first evening. That was her first cooking class.

Andrew Valenti (10:38)
These are the stories that I want to hear. I absolutely love it. Because it's like a ripple effect. Because you had that chance meeting, you're so grateful for meeting her and how she changed your life. And I think there are possibly hundreds of people that could say the same about you. Being able to have you, personally, I'm so grateful that I ever met you. And just the inspiration that you've been.

Darina Allen (10:54)
I

Andrew Valenti (11:03)
It's amazing. And, that's the beauty of it because you got to have that and you really took it and you went with it. You took it for yourself. You put your own thing into it, but you had the same passion, the same drive to really create something and change people's lives. that's what we're

Darina Allen (11:20)
Wow, that's lovely to hear. I mean, wonderful to have the opportunity to pass on to the cooking school, to pass on the skills that Myrtle taught me and indeed my mother. So now I think I said earlier that Myrtle really, she was such a free spirit and everything. of course she had no, I remember somebody asking me one time, why didn't she serve the same

same food as they served in restaurants that time said well I had no idea how to cook it so I just cooked the food I knew I was familiar with and knew how to do so it's all very matter of fact you know and everything but she Myrtle traveled quite a lot and also she had well I came to Ballymaloe of course she had I came to Ballymaloe in 1968 I think and married Timmy in 1970 but she Myrtle had I remember we had Mastering the Art of French Cooking, Julia Child's

Luzette Bartholley and Simone Beck's book. had part one and two of that. had, you so she had a few very, very good cookbooks and we carefully, you know, tested the recipes out of those and we did, she, we did everything she showed us and we did everything. So this is one of the problems with chefs nowadays. They yell at people in the kitchens, but they're not messy. I now see the difference between

Of course, in Ballymaloe there's no question of any yelling or anybody raising a voice or anything. And she didn't even call herself head chef, you know, it just we all cooked together and she taught us and if something wasn't right, she would she would blame herself for not having taught us properly. Do you know what I mean? Yeah. So there was no yelling or anything like that. There was no hierarchy. And we just I was you mean I just took that for granted. Whereas nowadays, I think a lot of the chefs, they're under such pressure, at least some of them anyway.

that they just yell at somebody but they don't seem to realise that nobody wants to do something wrong. They would like to do it properly but if they're not given the information and the support to do it, well then it's no good as yelling at them really.

Andrew Valenti (13:18)
I've always been a bit perplexed by that culture of restaurant cooking. Because I also think about the energetics of food, you know, when you're happy. If you're angry making a meal, that kind of gets into the...

Darina Allen (13:20)
Yeah.

I'm probably

counterproductive to yell at somebody. But I now realize that I didn't really realize, because it's just the norm, that Myrtle, as we were cooking, she would be talking and pointing out and cooking along with us and showing us, look, taste it. And the whole thing was taste, taste, taste. Taste the beginning, taste the middle, taste the end. That helped us. We tasted what she cooked then, and that helped our taste memory.

and developed our palette and all the rest of it. So yeah, we did it exactly as she wanted it and she had a super palette.

Andrew Valenti (14:02)
And I think that the fact that she wasn't yelling probably gave her that edge too, because that energy.

Darina Allen (14:07)
We'd

do anything for her, you know, and we felt so fortunate. And I was the eldest in the kitchen at 19 and all of the others, know, if Myrtle needed little more help. She sent a word out into the into the neighbourhoods, the parish, to say, anybody want to come and help me in the kitchen? You know, but we had 15, 16 year olds, whatever, who came up and for them, lot of them, would have been a huge culture shock to come up to the big house, you know what mean, to cook and everything. In the beginning,

I'm sure they would have felt a bit intimidated, but she made everybody feel at ease and all that. And from when I came in the beginning from Calgary Institute, I was immediately welcomed into the family, eating with the family and everything, which was lovely for me actually.

Andrew Valenti (14:51)
Now, so you were working with her, cooking with her. And the last time I came to visit, I was talking with Tim and he told me the story of how you guys had a little bit of money left and he was, maybe you had no money, whatever you did have, there was a cooking school or a course in Italy.

Darina Allen (15:04)
We have no

⁓ Marcella

Andrew Valenti (15:14)
⁓ And this was before you started the cooking school. I'd love to hear that story.

Darina Allen (15:17)
Yes.

That was Marcella Hazan actually. were, God, we were totally a penniless married couple. We were very fortunate. We inherited a beautiful house, Regency house and a farm with 100 acres and about five acres of greenhouse because Timmy was a horticulturalist from my parents in law. had absolutely no money. In other words, if we were hungry, we'd go to Ballymaloe

which is two, Ballymaloe House, which is two and half miles from here, where Timmy was born, of course, and brought up his family home. We'd go over and have lunch over there or supper or something. So, and nobody felt sorry for us. But anyway, I loved to cook and Timmy was growing all this lovely produce and growing tomatoes, cucumbers, sweet acres, green house and everything. And so I always had lovely produce and I cooked and cooked and cooked. And I had absolutely no intention of, you know, having any kind of career or anything like that. I just loved

cooking for him and then cooking for the children. And we'd have friends around to supper and everything, cook very simple food with whatever, you know, whatever ingredients we had. so I had no intention, no ambition to be, I had no ambition whatsoever to be any kind of career woman. But I now see that I was actually, I had never heard the word entrepreneur. And I remember one time.

Again, some journalist asking me after I'd started the school and I'd done various things, where did this entrepreneurial streak come from? And I said, what does entrepreneurial mean? I actually didn't know the word. They said, well, you're doing all these various things. Because I also had started out of desperation. Everything I did is out of desperation. And I started a farm shop in one of the farm buildings out in the yard to sell some of the

surplus produce in the farm gardens. That was the first farm shop in Ireland. And then I did various other things and then started the school in 19, whatever that was, 1983 wasn't it? And so she asked me, I wondered and then I remembered of course as a child, I would run in and out of the shop and the pub at home, the post office or out into the farmyard or whatever. And I would just, at that stage you just did whatever needed to be done. So I would

you know, long before you were born again, but tea would come in tea chests, sugar would come in great big sacks and you'd weigh up the tea and sugar into little bags and all that sort of thing, biscuits came loose. so I just saw what needed to be done. If somebody came into the bar and wanted a pint or something, well, I'd pour a pint. I mean, that was totally illegal now. You'd be arrested for having a child pulling pints in a bar. But on the other hand, I was learning all these skills. If somebody wanted to came...

There were petrol pumps too. So somebody wanted to their car filled with petrol. I went out and filled the petrol. know, that's when I was, mean, I obviously was at school as well, but just in the evening or the morning. So this is, this is where entrepreneurial skills, I think, come from, looking and seeing an opportunity and doing it. think, look, I'll have a go. And also my father-in-law, my father was very,

supportive man. father and mother adored each other actually, so I was really lucky to be brought up in that. My father died when I was 14. And I never remember, I was 14, I was at boarding school at that time. And I never remember a cross word between them. And I was 14, so I would have known. And he never left the house without giving her a hug and a kiss. And I thought that was my norm. know, that's what I thought was normal. And so I was very lucky to have that kind of upbringing as well.

Yeah. My father was also very supportive and my father-in-law was always very supportive at that time when women, if they had an idea, would be told, for goodness sake, you know, you're a woman. This is Ireland, you're a woman. But daddy was never like that and neither was my father-in-law. He would say, well, that sounds like have a go or whatever with a little farm shop with various other things. Anyway, you've asked me a question about Marcella

And I went off and a huge tangent about something else. So anyway, I love to cook. I used to cook every day. And also at that time, used to get, we always used to get Gourmet magazine. My mother-in-law would get Gourmet magazine from America. I don't know whether you, you probably do not know the magazine. was taken, once they were taken over by Condé Nast. Condé Nast, I think made the huge mistake of closing them down. was a travel and cooking magazine. And so we used to get this every month and pour over it. And at one stage,

there was recipe for making homemade pasta. so I made this, got the semolina flour, which we had to go get in Dublin, and I made the pasta and then I would painstakingly roll it out and I used to then cut it and I'd hang it on the front bar of the aga, you don't know what an aga is, it's a new fashion. do you? Yeah, and to dry out. I remember one day I spent hours doing this.

And I'd run out to the garden to get something and I came back in and there was our little dog called Wowie jumping up to get to pull down strings of tell you tell you whatever. Oh, it was heartbroken. Anyway, it's a sad point. But I put all this effort into it. But and then I was people were talking about Italian food. Now, this may sound ridiculous to you at this stage, but they were just being to talk about Italian food and and how wonderful it was. And so like Italian food was sort of.

wonderful mysterious thing in my mind and I didn't realize that stage that Italian food is really about just beautiful ingredients simply cooked and of course all the lovely pasta and everything so was dying to learn more about Italian food how would I learn more about it and so anyway as a luck would have it the editor of Gourmet magazine that I spoke about came to stay in Ballymaloe her name was Jane Montong and she and Myrtle actually really got on well together but anyway

And Myrtle said, look, my daughter, Darina really would love to know more about, learn more about Italian cooking. And she'd love to be able to make really good pasta and everything like that. And Jane Monton said, well, there's only one person, it's Marcella Hazan. So when she went back, of course, it was all snail mail at that stage. She wrote back and said, is the of the woman to contact. This is her contact details. So I wrote to Marcella Hazan.

And again, a week passed and we got back a little. Well, she said she also does courses, week long courses in Italy Now, again, the margin, its mother does week long courses in Italy and France, everywhere else. at that stage, Marcella was, I think, the first person ever to do this kind of week cooking and visiting vineyards and balsamic vinegar and, you know, markets and all of that. Anyway, wrote to her, she a little.

very simple little brochure, gosh, I wonder how I still got it. It came back about the week long course and I can't remember that. Oh, God, it something astronomical in my terms at that time, in terms of money. And it was hundreds of pounds, would have been that size, or no, not pounds, lira or whatever. Anyway, doesn't matter. So it was kind of asked the question, I read it and read it and read it again. Oh my.

God, I was desperate too, but it was just out of our thing. So anyway, Timmy, and at that stage I'd been doing the farm shop and work very, I'd been working very hard as well as having many children at that stage. And Timmy, anyway, realized how much I was longing to do this, but I didn't even say can I, because basically I thought it was out of the question. But anyway, he went into the bank and I don't know what he did, how he managed to get out whatever number of hundred euros it was.

and a little money to get there by plane and everything. And I booked into the course and went there. Oh my God. was my first time initially, of course. And he always said afterwards that it was the best investment he ever made. I remember him saying, that's the very last penny in the bank now, but you you've worked so hard and I know you'd love it and blah, blah, blah. And off I went. And I remember him saying afterwards, the best money he ever spent.

Because when I went there, several things happened actually when I went to Italy. First of all, there were only about nine or maybe 11 people on the course. I think that was full as far as that's all she wanted to take. But I was the only Irish person, needless to say, on the course. All of the rest of them were really well-heeled Americans. then I also remember Italian food was this amazing thing in my mind. And we had delicious food. But then we went to the markets and everything.

And at that stage in Ireland, even though we had very good produce, the word local was still a derogatory term. so in our little village in Cullahill, in the shop, if somebody brought some eggs or apples, know, surface apples from their farm or garden to be sold in the local shop, you'd expect to get them for less money because they were local. So local was a derogatory term. Anyway.

This is another little story now. anyway, Marcella during the week, she took us to the markets, beautiful markets. The original course, think, was in Bologna and then they were also later they were in Venice. anyway, so we went along to the market and I noticed all these stalls piled high with beautiful projects and everything. My eyes were out of stocks. And then after a bit, I noticed that

on several of the, it might be two lots of peaches, two lots of tomatoes or something like that. And one lot always seemed to be more expensive than the other. And the ones that were more expensive and looked more beautiful had nastrana or nostrale Now you're Italian, aren't you? So you know exactly what this is. But anyway, and I thought, where is this amazing place called nastrana or nostrale

because everything that comes from there looks as though it's better and it's more expensive. So I kept trying to ask the stall holders, you know, where is Nostrale? Where is Nastrana? And you know, they get so impatient, you bloody tourists, you know, asking questions, not buying anything. And eventually I got somebody and he said, Nastrali, not a place. It's not a place, it's a ⁓ local. It's in the lagoon. And this must be in Venice. And then I said, well,

Why is it more expensive? He said, because it's fresh, it's local. It's from the lagoon. Of course, of course it's more expensive. And I thought, ⁓ my God, how about that? Because it's fresher and better and it's season, it's more expensive rather than less expensive. So that was a real moment for me. And I suddenly realized what Mertle said all the time was that our ingredients in Ireland were so good, such good quality, because she had traveled much more.

And so she knew when she was away, had in Ireland at that time, we had overall as a country and as a people, we had an incredible inferiority complex. We thought that everything they had in Britain or the UK or certainly in Italy had to be much more delicious or sophisticated than we had in Ireland. We definitely had an inferiority complex which lasted for a very long time. But anyway, so I suddenly realized what Myrtle had said, that our produce is so good in Ireland was true. I heard her saying it.

But I didn't really believe it because I hadn't tasted it. mean, seeing is believing or tasting is believing. And so that was one thing. And then there was another thing at the end of that week, then there was a big build up to we were having our kind of farewell dinner in Marcella's hometown in Sessinatico on the Adriatic. And it's and she was talking about this amazing fish they have there and shellfish and all of that. And so anyway, I remember walking, I can still see walking down along by the side of

the water, I wonder what sort of kind of canal or something, it's asinatical. And I remember amazingly, I remember the name of the restaurant, something like Gambara, does that mean the shrimp or something? Yeah, Gambara. Gambara, yes. And it was right out, this restaurant was right out, I think I sort of seem to remember it was kind of almost on stilts right on the edge of the ocean. anyway, I was sitting, we were having dinner and everything had led up to this dinner and we were all very excited about it.

And so I was sitting beside Victor. Actually, this is the other funny thing, because they couldn't understand how they'd managed to get an Irish farmer's wife on the course, because all of the others were rich Americans, I said to you. And they were convinced that I was something incognito, that I was a journalist or something incognito. And so I would often be asked to sit beside Marcella or Victor. I think they were trying to get to the bottom of it.

And I was sort of like the teacher's pet as far as the others were concerned. I remember sitting beside Victor and we had a lovely meal. I remember we had whatever al vongole, know, spaghetti al vongole or whatever, and some other things and all delicious. And the fish was very good and fresh, of course, and lovely. But suddenly I realized that the fish coming in, lovely fresh fish coming in from the boats in Ballycotton was every bit as good, if not better. And so that was another incredible

incredibly, what's the word when you suddenly real penny drops. But anyway, another moment when I suddenly realized, my God, that solution to everything is underneath our feet at home. And you know, I'm living in the middle of a farm. This is actually it was after this that I thought about doing the cooking school. We're living in the middle of a farm with all this beautiful produce and vegetables and fresh herbs and fruit. And we're right beside Ballycotton So we have this lovely fresh fish and everything.

And ⁓ so then I came home and I said to Timmy, the solution, because we were desperately trying to think of some way to earn a living, a proper living, where we could really educate our children and maybe have a holiday. And we were desperately trying to think of some way, something that would be a real career. And then I said to me, the solution is underneath our feet. And I started to give little cooking classes then.

Myrtle had been giving some cooking classes in the winter in Ballymaloe to try to help to fill the bedrooms during the winter, you know, and I was helper and the hand of things and everything. And then she went off. I come from a long line of mad women. There's no doubt about it. She went off then and opened a restaurant in Paris from as well as running Ballymaloe It was called a Fermier Londez to showcase Irish food in Paris because she could see that when Parisian, when French

guests came to Ballymaloe they loved the Irish food, they loved our apple tarts and our lovely poached salmon with hollandaise sauce and our potatoes and everything. So she went off and opened a restaurant in Place de Marche in Santonore, right in the centre of lovely, glamorous Paris. she, anyway, that's a whole other amazing story. But basically, so I was at home, were at that and we were still in desperation thinking

thinking of something substantial to earn a living because the prices, the cheap food policy had kicked in in Ireland and costs were going up and prices were coming down. so anyway, and people kept, Myrtle had gone to Paris to open this restaurant, then people kept, the following winter, people kept ringing and asking, any more cooking classes? And Myrtle said she was too busy, needless to say.

And she said, why don't you do it? said, well, nobody's come to see me because, know, that's your name that's known because Ballymaloe at that stage is quite known. Her name was at that stage beginning to be well recognized. but we were in desperation. So I thought, well, look, I'll give it a go. And so I started giving a little cooking class on a Saturday morning in the kitchen of the White Cottage, one of the little cottage we had here in our outbuildings. And I remember we'd hide our rusty Renault 4L around the back.

So that all the lovely glamorous ladies from Cork, from Montenotty and so on, Montenotty Marys as they used to call them, would park their BMWs and whatever around the front. Anyway, I started giving cook class. I remember being terrified on the first day. then, but once you do something for the first time and you manage to do it, it gives you confidence. And you thought, oh, well, maybe I can do that. And then I did a series of eight courses and then I do some night classes and so on.

And so that got me started. And then in the late 70s, early 80s, we got married in 1970, Tim and I, he was only 20 and I was 21. We were like babes in the woods, know. But anyway, but as I said, we were very fortunate that Ivan and Myrtle, you know, gifted us the house and the farm.

Andrew Valenti (31:19)
I think your school is extra special because you have the farm. Now talk a bit about that and how important that plays into the teaching and the connection with the farm and the food.

Darina Allen (31:23)
Yeah.

Yeah. So as I was explaining there, the school was born out of desperation, out of that situation in the late 70s. it was so we started school in September 1983. And we had like nine students and then 11. But the thing that made the school unique, and I didn't really realize it for quite a long time, is the fact that the school is in the middle of a hundred acre farm with the horticultural unit as well. And

at that stage and it has now been farmed organically for nearly 30 years. so certainly this is one of the main attractions when students come literally from all over the world. think within two years we had our first American student. And remember we had no money for PR or anything. It was just gradual, the word getting out. Well, actually I was lucky because when you see when people, journalists and many

food writers came to Ballymaloe to write about Ballymaloe, about this restaurant in the middle of a farm in Ireland. It was definitely a sort of story. When they came to Ballymaloe, my father-in-law, was really, well, the mother-in-law were desperate for us to find some way to earn a proper living. And so he would tell them about his daughter-in-law who had opened a restaurant over, his daughter-in-law had opened a little cooking school over in Converted Farm Buildings over in Shanagary about two miles away, he'd drive them over.

And so, and of course the food writers were curious about it. So we were lucky then that we were able to piggyback on the, all of the publicity that Ballymaloe was getting. So that was one of the reasons why the word got out quite early on. And that's why within two years, as I said, we had this first international student. And I always remember I changed my little very simple brochure from Ballymaloe.

Cookies School to Ballymaloe International Cooking School. And I remember what Austin's her name was. remember her well, but anyway, says me now, I can't get her name for a second, but I remember her looking at it and saying, am I the I in international? said, Anyway, the school started and within 10 years we were totally oversubscribed. So we doubled the size and now we take 66 students.

and we have one teacher with every six students. We operate the whole year round, literally back to back, apart from the short break at Christmas and at Easter. students, of course, when they come to the farm, can go down, the gardeners in the morning, down and harvest the vegetables, chat to the gardeners about sowing seeds and all of that. And if they want to, there's lots of extracurricular stuff like they can get up earlier and learn how to milk the cows. have a small little Jersey herd. We make our own butter.

and we have wonderful raw milk and cream and yoghurt and buttermilk and cheese and all that. And then they so they can learn and there's a fermentation shed, a small bread shed bakery where we make, you know, 100 % natural sourdough minimum 48 hours fermentation. So they they love all of this. And definitely it's we're so fortunate that we can provide these facilities as well as the

the cooking, because that means people have much deeper understanding of how really good food is produced and where it comes from. And we're all about food that tastes terrific, but is really nutrient dense as well. nutrient density and flavor go hand in hand. If something tastes really good, it's likely to be also very good for you or vice versa. So yeah, and I mean, over and over again, it's just so lovely people.

say, you know, the experience changed my life. And I remember just as late as last weekend, there was a lot of the past students come back and some might, you to visit was might be 10, 15, 20 years, schools been operating over 40 years now. Anyway, last weekend, I got a text from a student who hadn't been here for maybe 30 years or something. And she, I remember her for some reason I remember, I don't remember every single student. but

And I remember her mother trying to get her out of the back of the car. She was a British girl, her name was Tiffany. And she absolutely had hated the idea of being sent to a cooking school in Ireland for 12 weeks, 12 weeks on a farm in Ireland. So she had to drag her practically out of the car. then, so she came, she absolutely loved it. And she practically had to be.

pushed back into the car to leave again. So she came back with her husband and another friend who'd been to last weekend. so anyway, and we have, as I said, students from all over the world. know we've had students from, ⁓ I don't know, 65, 70 different countries. So it's very, you know, it's very cosmopolitan. On this 12-week course, there are 12 students, 12 nationalities. We have one teacher with every six students and all of us have had. So it's a very high teacher-student ratio.

because it's very full on. It's like a custom boot camp actually. But they love it. People love learning, you And then of course we do half days, days, weekends, weeks. And my most recent project is the Ballymaloe Organic Farm School. Now this came about because I'm 77, I should have more sense, but anyway. I suppose when I must have been, I suppose when I was about 70 or something, the word retirement was mentioned, if you don't mind.

And I had this is kind of came like a bolt out of nowhere. And to me, I'd never even thought of retiring. So I just thought I would gradually, you know, slow down a little bit and everything. But we've a really good team here at the school. And so the suggestion was made that I might retire and put my feet up and paint my nails and all the rest of my God, what would you be doing? But anyway, I don't play golf or anything. And so anyway, I and I have a very good team here, of course, can run everything. And anyway, so I thought, well, look, this is my opportunity.

I've noticed, see, as the students came over the years, they were becoming more more interested in what was happening on the farm and gardens, as well as it's principally a cooking school, know, full on cooking, practically cooking. And I noticed they were becoming more and more asking more and more questions about what was going on behind the scenes, how things were grown, et cetera, et cetera. And I suddenly thought, well, when they talked about retirement, that this is my opportunity to start my revenge project.

the Ballymaloe Organic Farm School to pass on skills from the farm and the gardens and the greenhouses. And you know, it's unbelievable. There's, there's such a deep craving to relearn forgotten skills and to take back. There's so many people who really now are sick of the rat race and they just want to take back control over their lives. They want to take back control over their

Andrew Valenti (38:13)
Yes, there's that desire for people to get out there, but there's such a need for farmers to have skilled help. It is such a need. And that's one of the top three challenges from farmers that I speak to that they have, is the skilled labor. And so you're providing that.

Darina Allen (38:31)
Yeah, well, and also the other thing is for it to be looked on as cool for young people, although there are a lot of young people in America, have that wonderful young agrarian movement called the Greenhorns and so on. But for it to be looked on as something wonderful, exciting, thoroughly worthwhile and really cool as well. that's another thing. So, yeah, I'm just delighted.

to if I can do anything to excite people about growing foods and all of that. And then of course when they taste it, yeah, anyway, you're quite right.

Andrew Valenti (39:04)
It's a bit of the which came first, the chicken or the egg. me, was the farming that led me to wanting to be a good cook. And then sometimes you have the people who just love food and cooking and so that lead them to the farming.

Darina Allen (39:11)
Good cook, yes.

That's right exactly, it doesn't matter what way it happens as long as it happens really.

This is a worldwide phenomenon. mean, it's got a very funny kind of name in the US. It's called homesteading. And where people, you know, they just get sick and tired of it. say, that's it. They're sick of the commute, sick of everything. Often they're making quite a lot of money. Very often they're in tech or finance or whatever. could be anything. generally there's sort of variations on this story. I often say to people, why did you come? I mean, somebody flew from Sydney a couple of weeks ago to come to

week long homesteading course, people from America, from the Nordic Peninsula, from the Netherlands, all over the place. I don't know many nationalities, we've had some farmers. And I said, why did you come this far? I mean, the irony of this and climate change times isn't lost on me, but anyway, from Sydney for a week long course and homesteading course, and we do all kinds of other things too. anyway, and they saw its variations on this story. You know, I was

driving into work again, stuck in traffic jam, yet another day was raining and I was late for work and I was in this very important deal, blah, blah, all the rest of it. And I suddenly had this moment of clarity. It was like a eureka moment and I suddenly saw my life stretching out ahead of me doing this and I thought my one and only life. And went home, chatted to their partner very often and decided that's it.

⁓ I'm just not prepared to do this any longer. And so often they either buy a little land or find some land or start to grow something or whatever. And then where do you find how to do it? How do you find how to keep a few hens? How do you find how to make bread again? How to make cheese? to sow seeds, grow vegetables to help? People are desperate for a hands-on experience. They're making a ton of money, looking at screen all day, but basically they just

Andrew Valenti (40:56)
hands-on experience to do that.

Darina Allen (41:05)
the satisfaction of doing something with their hands, even making a loaf of bread again. I mean, I never forget one day there was a CEO of one of the top companies in Ireland here. we do short courses, weeks or whatever as well. And we do lots of things sometimes for corporate things. Anyway, he made a loaf of bread and he'd be making five times what I make in a year. anyway, he was making his first loaf of bread and he put it in the oven and baked it. And he took out this loaf of bread out of the oven.

Oh my God. The expression on his face. He was so thrilled with what he'd done. And he had got such that he said to me, it's better than pulling off any deal, you know? And I mean, I've seen that over and over and over again. And anyway, can be a life changing experience. So basically we'd hoped that the, we'd take smaller numbers. I'd take maximum 20 people and we do a whole variety of different things.

Andrew Valenti (41:48)
Be a life changing. ⁓

Darina Allen (42:00)
Anyway, I'd hoped it would be success, but my God, I had no concept of the overwhelming response we would have to it. Everything, virtually everything is full and most of the things are oversubscribed. just put up yesterday, we put up the dates for the home steading course and for the six week sustainable food production course and some other half days and days for 2026 and already bookings are coming in. So it's this craving.

you put your finger on it when you say people are desperate for a different kind of experience for doing something with their hands. It's really, really meaningful. I mean, we even we're also added ⁓ some forgotten skills courses to our thing. also doing wellness courses. You know, there are also so many opportunities and people they we'd hope as I said,

We're astonished at the response to it, but delighted. I don't want to make it any bigger because we have 66 students on the 12 week course and that's another 20 students and we live here. I don't want to get, on my watch, the school will not get any bigger because if it's bigger, we lose the magic basically of the experience of being able to come to a good school in the middle of farm and gardens and greenhouses and all of that.

I love what I'm doing. So I so many more plans for things to do. mean, when I'm about the wellness course, think what would you do on that in a farm school? two weeks ago, we had this couple, two doctors from America, from the UK, Dr. David Anman and his wife, Jen. And they were doing a course on their specialty really is type 2 diabetes, which as you know, is practically epidemic now.

and even in small children. so they were in their practice, what they do is to give people the option of either staying on lifelong medication or else changing their diet completely. They have incredible success with it. And that was completely oversubscribed as well. So there's that one. And then we had another one with Matt Somerville. He's like this wonderful man. I say this with the greatest affection. He's kind of half man, half bee. And he loves wild bees. And he comes at beekeeping from

the point of view of the environment more than just producing honey. And he came over and we started off by going into the local timber merchant and buying big chunks of, chunks of trees and hollowed out the center of those. Cause years ago, of course, before beehives, the bees would have found holes in trees and so on. And then started to make the honey in there. so gouged out the center of these chunks of trees and then made these beehives.

I want to

Andrew Valenti (44:39)
They're beautiful. follow. I was following that. They're beautiful.

Darina Allen (44:41)
Have you seen it on Instagram? God.

But again, you know, we only took, I think we took like six people, eight people on that because, you know, they had to each one of them are doing a thing. And that was the number of people who could manage. But I can't tell you how many people we have on a waiting list for that. So it can be anything. And last Tuesday, was homeopathic medicine for animals, you know, and vets, government vets on it as well as something. So anyway, I'm having the best time ever.

And, you know, and there's so many things you can do, how to make butter, cheese, yogurt, how to keep house cow, how to keep pigs, how to keep chickens. People are it's like, love it. The response is fantastic. And the great thing is to be to be teaching something and passing on skills that people really want to learn. And then they pay you for it as well, which is lovely. It's a roof over our heads. So as I say, the school was originally born out of desperation, but what joy to be doing something.

that you love doing yourself and it can bring so much joy to other people.

Andrew Valenti (45:44)
What is one of your favorite food memories?

Darina Allen (45:49)
⁓

have several indeed. But maybe an earliest one would be my Auntie Florence. My mother had just one sister and she used to she lived in the next village to us, which is about seven miles away. And I remember life before electricity. Can you imagine that? And I remember it was seven or eight when electricity came to village. It's a great advantage, actually, because you suddenly.

realised with all the paranoia about food nowadays. There were no fridges or freezers or anything. Anyway, we had no fridges or freezers in Colhill at that time, no electricity. So my Auntie Florence used to get on her bike in Johnstown in County Kilkenny and she would buy, I don't know whether you remember, ice cream used to come in blocks and you'd have wafers, they cut it in slices, do little wafers, and she would buy this in the shop and wrap it up in wet newspaper and a towel and then put it in her little

basket and she'd cycle the whole way down to Tulloch Hill. I'd watch my nose pressed to the front gate. I could see her coming down over the hill and then she'd come and we'd have this lovely ice cream and so on. And ⁓ you can't imagine, we thought we'd died in onto heaven. And then after that, she often would stay maybe for a few hours or overnight. And she used to often cook with me. She showed me how to make little raspberry buns. I think it must have been the first.

cooking lesson I ever had had and we'd make this little dough, I must look up the recipe again, and then make little balls with it and then push it on the table and with my, press my thumb down into it and we put a spoonful of raspberry jam into it and then bake it. I think you, do you call those something else? Do you call them thumbprint biscuits or something? I don't know. Anyway, we call them raspberry buns. And so then we'd have little tea party with the raspberry buns afterwards. And I, that's one of my

That's one of my happiest or one of my earliest childhood memories around food anyway.