Hot Flavours: Our Tastes and Tipples of the Fortnight

The Electric Picnic has confirmed the Saturday September 2 staging of the first communal People’s Picnic, which courtesy of Periscope will be linking up with the People’s Feast in Aarhus, central Denmark.

Kicking off at 4.30pm in the Theatre of Food, participants will get a hamper filled with such tasty treats as Mezze Waterford Dips, Dollops and Spreads; Aran Island’s Goats Cheese; Sheridan’s Crackers and Chutney; Pig On The Back Paté; Burren Smokehouse Salmon; Black Castle Sodas and – perhaps most importantly – some prosecco!

To which we say an emphatic, “Yum!”

Tickets priced €20pp are available from eventgen.ie/the-people-s-picnic with proceeds going to Jigsaw, the National Centre for Youth Mental Health in Ireland.

Hot Flavours positively binged last week on The Hungry Empire: How Britain’s Quest For Food Shaped The Modern World, the latest tome from Lizzie Collingham who explains how slavery and the opium trade were both driven by a nation’s appetite for exotic foodstuffs.

They mightn’t sound very appetising but are the Bannock & Prune Pie, Iguana Curry and Hashed Mutton any worse than the Chlorine-Washed Chicken that might soon be, ahem, winging its way to Britain as part of the Brexiteers’ new US trade deal?

Three of West Cork’s finest independent cafés – Clonakilty’s Lettercollum Kitchen Project, Bandon’s Urru Culinary Store and The Stuffed Olive from Bantry – travel into the city on August 19 for a Cork Character Cafés pop-up in Nano Nagle Place, a newly refurbed community hub off Douglas Street.

Kick-off is 12.45pm with tickets priced €20 available from urru.ie. Whilst it hasn’t gone down at all well with David Quinn and the Iona Institute – “Now, let’s also open the pubs on Christmas Day. Can’t have religion imposing upon other people then either,” he tweeted with what we suspect was a soupcon of sarcasm – Team Hot Press is thrilled that the Seanad has passed the law, which will overturn the 90-year-old Good Friday drink ban. The Catholic Church holding sway over any part of our lives aside, it’ll be worth an extra €36 million to businesses, many of whom are finding the going out there tough.

Tipple of the Fortnight

Elbow Lane 5% Arrow Weisse

This being our Cork issue, it’s only right and proper that our recommended beverage is of the Leeside persuasion.

Loitering with considerable intent at the end of Oliver Plunkett Street, Elbow Lane is famed locally for both its tasty smoke house fare – you have to try the Brisket Roll with Rojak Sauce – and also its nano-brewery, which currently produces five signature beers.

The pick of a very fine bunch is their Bavarian-style Arrow Weisse, which picked up a Wheat Beer Gold Medal at the Killarney Beerfest a couple of years back.

With its toasted malt, clove and lemon notes, you won’t find a finer summer thirst-quencher.