Day in the Life – Rory O’Connell, chef

Savour Festival favourite Rory O’Connell will be back on the Savour mainstage this October Bank Holiday weekend. Rory is part of one of Ireland’s great food families and co-founder of the famous Ballymaloe Cookery School alongside sister Darina Allen. A classically trained chef he has trained in some of the top kitchens around the world.

Rory began his training at Ballymaloe House with Myrtle Allen, the grand dame of Irish country house cooking. He later became head chef of Ballymaloe House for ten years, and he was twice awarded the prestigious title of Ireland’s Chef of the Year. Rory has several cookbooks as well as the television series ‘How to Cook Well’, on RTÉ television.

These days he can be found back at Ballymaloe Cookery School where sustainability is one of the guiding principles in their commitment to producing as much of their ingredients on their organic farm as possible. 

Here is a glimpse into Rory’s savoury world…

This is your 13th year at Savour Kilkenny, you are part of the furniture now!

As soon as the leaves change colour, I automatically think of my annual trip to Savour Kilkenny.  I'II will be back again this year giving a cookery demonstration with lovely seasonal food and delicious dishes. I really can’t wait.  

This year more of the family are coming. Rachel and Darina Allen will also be joining us on the Savour stage. Darina has her new book coming out soon. It’s a bread book and I’ve seen an advance copy of it, it's very good. So, she is very busy.

Kilkenny's Tracie Daly in action with Rory O'Connell

You also work very closely with a Kilkenny lady Tracie Daly. She is a ball of energy.

Tracie used to work in the Ballymaloe Cookery School, which I ran with Darina. She was one of our senior teachers there and assisted me with demonstrations. Now she runs her own business as a food business coach, which is great. Recently she helps me with my TV shows; she assists me in setting up the trays of food and getting everything organised for filming as well as doing some of the cooking.

Tracie is really amazing and as you say she has a never-ending amount of energy with such enthusiasm. I love working with her, she is great.

Chefs Rory O'Connell & Edward Hayden enjoying another Savour Kilkenny

This year you are celebrating 40 years of Ballymaloe cookery school, and you have a new TV show coming out.

On my new TV show I will be referencing the fact that I have been teaching people how to cook one way or another for over 40 years. So, in each of the programmes we are visiting somebody I’ve taught how to cook or have been involved in that process.

Kilkenny’s Tracie Daly is one of those people so she will be appearing on one of the new shows on RTÉ One this autumn.

Cooking and teaching weren’t always on the menu for you; in fact, you started off your career studying law.

When I finished secondary school, the expectation was that I should do something academic. To be perfectly honest I had no idea what I wanted to do, so I decided I would try to become a solicitor!

I was very young going to university and I didn’t really study, so as a result I didn’t get my exams. Which was probably a blessing in a way because I am not sure in the heel of the hunt that law would have been right for me.

Then I thought I might like to be a fine art auctioneer until I discovered there was law involved in that, so I got out of that really fast! 

Then I fell into cooking by mistake as I had a summer job at Ballymaloe House working on the reception. Darina was married and living in Ballymaloe and was part of the whole organisation.

The expectation from my mother was that by the end of the summer I would have figured out what I wanted to do with my life and that I might have another go at academia, but I didn’t!

At the end of the summer, I asked Myrtle Allen if I could go into the kitchen for a few weeks. My mother was a fabulous cook when we were growing up and she fed nine of us three times a day but there were certain things that we ate in Ballymaloe that I wanted to learn how to cook. I was purely motivated by greed!

Within a very short time I realized that I loved to cook as well as being fortunate that I was able to cook. I felt very comfortable in the kitchen straight away and I liked the process. I like the fact that when you start in the morning, you have achieved something tangible by lunchtime, which was very different from the things I was previously doing. I just loved it and haven’t stopped cooking since!

What was Mrs Myrtle Allen like to work with?

She was amazing. She was also very determined and assertive about what she was doing. It was all about the quality of the ingredients for her and doing them justice. She was also very respectful of the produce by using very different cooking techniques, be it classical or recipes from around the world to show off what we had in East Cork.

Her way of thinking was so precedential, she could see that our food was in trouble and that the quality of the ingredients that we took for granted was something that might not necessarily continue. She was very much motivated by that. The quality and the freshness of everything that came into the kitchen as well as respect for the people who produced it was part of her ethos.

In truth I believe she was a genius.

You have also continued her great legacy. When you are not cooking or teaching you are an ambassador for the slow food movement and promoting organic food. Was that instilled in you in Ballymaloe?

Definitely in Ballymaloe, but at home in Cullohill, Co Laois we had a very good garden, and we had a cow. We also ate local food growing up.

My mother was always passionately interested in food, and she loved cooking as well as being a really good cook. We were always looking forward to the next meal because it was always good. We talked about food and that was there from the very beginning. There wasn’t a question at all that something from our garden would be delicious, it just made complete sense to us.

As I grew older and realised that I loved cooking, then I started thinking more about where the food came from, how it's produced and the mystery of how one can put a seed head into the ground and get a squash at the end of it. To me it's still magical.

That’s part of my motivation, I find food magical, spiritual, emotional and God giving, whoever God is.

I read before some advice you would give an 18-year-old self. Does it still stand?  

If I remember correctly, I said 'to loosen up, wear whatever I want, hold hands with another guy in public and travel more'. It's still pretty solid advice!

When I was growing up holding hands with a guy wasn’t possible and it is nowadays. Despite the pressures that are on younger people today that we didn’t have back then, like mobile phones, social media etc. wonderful things did happen for us and are happening. Particularly things that we wouldn’t have thought possible growing up.

Sometimes when you hear there’s so much bad news in the world on a regular basis, stop and look back at 30 to 40 years ago and know that lots of good stuff is going on now.

See Rory O’Connell, Darina Allen and Rachel Allen for free as they bring Ballymaloe to Kilkenny this October Bank Holiday Weekend. For the full schedule of events, including dining event tickets, please visit www.savourkilkenny.com or follow us on Instagram @savourkilkenny for updates.