Certain events signal a new epoch in food: the opening of Ballymaloe; the invention of Milleens Cheese; the first Eurotoques dinner in Trinity College; Food On The Edge.
Evan Doyle's Zero Km, 1 dinner, 1 night, 100 people, at the Brook Lodge Inn, belongs in this exalted list of culinary game changers.
Each element of the fifteen courses was culled from within 1km of Macreddin village, in South County Wicklow. Evan Doyle and his team spent 20 months growing and preparing the feast. In reality however Mr Doyle began this journey right at the end of 1989, when he first presented the first Provenance Menu in his Strawberry Tree restaurant, in Killarney. In that sense this meal was truly a vocation because it encapsulated one man's lifelong world view.
From the rapeseed oil, to the flour for the bread, to the luscious blush wine, to the grappa, to the selection of dried vegetable condiments used as a substitute for salt, everything was grown and processed in the village, and, in the process, the meal reinvented the idea of locavore eating.
The dinner ended with Freda Wolfe's dazzling dandelion root coffee and herbal teas.
The 100 diners gave the Brook Lodge crew and their advisers a standing ovation for this extraordinary act of culinary creativity and determination.
