Tim McCarthy

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Like all the good butchers, Tim McCarthy is also a purist, and a philosopher. Put a megaphone into his hand and he could command a crowd with a stirring oration about the ills of food imports, and our preposterous global food systems, and our lack of pride in being proud of what we can do well in Ireland.
The thing is, Tim McCarthy knows what we can do well, and he knows what he can do well. He is a fifth generation butcher in Kanturk in north County Cork, working alongside his dad, Jack, who is the fourth generation of the family to salute the traditions of the boar's head. But Tim has something special about him, for he is a superlative communicator: he walks it and, boy oh boy, but he talks it. As he leads his class through the Pig in a Day class – from Nose to Toes – he maintains a running commentary on what he is doing, why he is doing it, and the difference it makes if you do it the way he does it. If you charged us tomorrow with the business of representing Irish beef and Irish meats to the world, we would snap Mr McCarthy up in a flash. Give him fifteen minutes in front of an audience and he'd have them hanging on his every word, whilst sipping pig's blood from pint glasses as he explains how to make the black pudding that was served to the Queen of England, and which won for McCarthy's a gold medal from La Confrérie des Chavaliers du Goute Boudin.
Hang on. You mean the French gave a gold medal for boudin noir to a father and son team from north Cork! And the Queen of England ate it also!
Yeah, that's the thing about the McCarthys: they're full of surprises.
His knife skills are balletic, and his work ethic is pretty exhausting. He's well on his way to being the most famous butcher in Ireland.