New book for cheese lovers to be flavour of the month

Lifestyle – Judy Murphy meets two Galway brothers whose book will have the critics drooling

Here’s a word of warning to cheese lovers. Before you start reading Counter Culture – The Sheridans Guide to Cheese, make sure you have a lump of Parmesan, Gouda or some cheesy nibble close by.

This new book by cheesemongers Kevin and Seamus Sheridan, written in conjunction with The Irish Times food critic Catherine Cleary, will have you drooling. Beautifully produced, with a range of colour and black and white photos, it’s a love letter to artisan and farmhouse cheese as the brothers share their vast knowledge of and passion for their subject.

And if you think that cheese is a limited subject, think again. The pair, whose business began in Galway, describe all kinds of cheeses and how they are made, as well as visiting farmers and cheesemakers throughout Ireland and abroad to give a fascinating insight into this business, which is also a way of life.

Fresh Cheeses, Bloomy Rinds, Washed Rinds, Pressed Cooked Cheeses, Pressed Uncooked Cheeses and ‘The Blues’ are the cheese varieties examined in different chapters. Best of all, the brothers include recipes for each type, as well as matching different cheeses with suitable food and drink – alcoholic and non-alcoholic.

For Seamus Sheridan, the older of the two brothers, the best part of it all is that their cheesemongers started here in Galway 20 years ago with a tiny stall at the city’s market.  Now they have a shop and wine-bar in Galway, and it’s in the wine-bar we meet on a Saturday morning, above the shop which is thronged with customers.

Sheridans also have an outlet in Waterford, a shop in Dublin’s South Anne Street, and one in Meath, in a converted old railway station which is also home to the company’s warehouses and headquarters. Seamus’s brother, Kevin and his family live in the station house which they restored.

In the past two decades, the brothers also have branched into new areas. Five years ago, realising that there were no quality Irish crackers to serve with their cheeses, they contacted baker Richard Graham Lee in Clonakilty Co Cork, and tasked him with creating a selection. The brothers and Richard worked together and now their range of crackers is sold in Selfridges, Neal’s Yard and Wholefoods in the UK, and Murrays in New York.

More recently Marks & Spencer started stocking them as part of an artisan range, and the brothers have done a deal with Dunnes which means the crackers can be found as part of the Dunnes Simply Better range.

Sheridans also make a range of chutneys in conjunction with Janet Drew in Co Wicklow. And their duck confit which Sheridans chef, David Gumbleton first created in Galway in 2002, has been produced commercially in Monaghan since 2008, using their recipe.

Their main chef in 2008 was Enda McEvoy, who amended the duck confit recipe to ensure that the quality would remain constant. Enda won a Michelin star this year for his restaurant, Loam, in Galway City, something Seamus is very proud of. David Gumbleton, meanwhile, passed away in 2005 and for the two brothers this product is inextricably linked with him.

After two decades in business, Kevin and Seamus have many stories to tell, and some are shared in the book. But Seamus is adamant that it’s less about them than the farmers and cheese-makers who produce the goods sold in their shops.

However, the story of how two brothers from Dublin City came to become central to Ireland’s growing artisan food revolution is a fascinating one. Their background is not posh – their mother Maura was a homemaker, while their father, Seamus, worked in a car-assembly factory in Dublin that first produced Morris Minors. It later became Datsun and then Nissan.

Maura’s childhood home of Donegal was where the four Sheridan children spent childhood summers, while the family also had a garden and allotment in Dublin where they grew fruit and vegetables. And Seamus Senior, a Dubliner through and through, was an avid hillwalker who shared his love of nature with his children and taught them to respect the farmers’ land on which they trekked.

For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.