From Togher Community Garden, a cookbook for all ages
Togher Community Garden triumphs with "From the Garden," a just-published community-created cookbook.
The corner of Clashduv Park, where only a year ago Togher Community Garden set up an allotment, might just be one of the most productive and innovative green spaces in Cork City.
In just a year, the local community, working with Maria Young from Green Spaces for Health, has built nearly a dozen raised beds, constructed a polytunnel, planted more a hedgegrow of 350 native trees, and most recently dug a pond by hand.
For their latest endeavour, they’ve published a cookbook full of recipes inspired by the plants and vegetables grown in the garden.
At the launch of "From the Garden" today, standing in front of the polytunnel and addressing students from Togher Girls National School and Glasheen Boys National School, with tables laden with healthy snacks, Maria Young explained that the idea for the cookbook was, well, organic.
"Last summer, around August, we had loads of produce, and it was all ripe, and we were deciding what we would do with it," Maria said.
The answer was an on-site cooking course designed specifically for kids between the ages of 8 to 12 and run by Mandie Rekaby, a local chef.
In the four-week course held at the community garden, the young cooks made use of two camping stoves and a specially modified bicycle that powers a food processor. The cooks had hands-on experience in cooking with the ingredients they sourced quite literally at their feet.
But the cooking didn't stop there. As Maria said, "Some of the children's parents started sending us pictures of their cooking endeavors at home. So we thought, wouldn't it be a great idea to create something for the children who didn't make it to the cooking course?"
Hence, a cookery book for the entire community.
The recipes were put together by Mandie Rekaby, with input from Maria Medio, a Neapolitan living in Cork who contributed recipes for the cookery course as well as the cookbook.
A small team of local children contributed drawings, and it was woven together by Spanish-German artist Luna Fox, a volunteer gardener with Togher Community Garden. Caroline Williams, a librarian from MTU, pitched in with proofreading and helped with publishing, while Denise Cahill from Cork Healthy Cities helped secure funding for 600 copies of the new cookbook, which will be distributed to all schools in Cork City as well as the City Libraries.
So, what's in "From the Garden"?
For starters, it's beautifully illustrated by Luna Fox with images of all the utensils needed as well as a glossary of cooking terms.
As for the recipes, there’s Maria’s Naples Style Pizza, Vietnamese Spring Roll, egg omlette and “the mighty tomato and vegetable pasta sauce”. There’s also a spread of smoothie recipes including the Clashduv blackberry classic smoothie and lunch box ideas for little cooks.
“This is your garden,” Maria told the audience before handing over the microphone to Denise Cahill from Cork Healthy Cities.
"We have a climate crisis and a biodiversity crisis, and all of you young people are more aware of this than us old fogies," Denise told the primary school students drawn from the two local schools.
"This is an example of how we have food sovereignty, how we grow our own food, how we prepare our own food, and how we consume our own food," she said, adding that she was absolutely thrilled with the cookbook, saying it was "a community production."
"The community in Togher created this."
And with that, Denise cut the ribbons on the boxes containing the books, and "From the Garden" made its entrance into the world.
Who knows, future Michelin-starred chefs could get their start with the cookery book that grew out of Togher Community Garden.
Togher Community Garden is one of 27 community gardens and allotments in Cork city.
It was established in December 2021 with a mission to “show how easy and joyful it is to grow food from seed”. To volunteer or learn more about Togher Community Garden, you can follow them on their social media feeds or email toghercommunitygarden@gmail.com. They meet regularly to dig, plant, harvest and maintain the gardens.
What an inspiring initiative. Well done to all.