Skibb

Apr 6, 2022

Where to get crispy yet fluffy chips and deliciously juicy sausages? Photograph Moya Nolan      Denise O’Donoghue Derry Girls star Siobhán McSweeney says her dream dining experience involves a range of classic Cork treats, including Barry’s tea, her mam’s soda bread and butter bought from the Bandon Co-Op. McSweeney is the latest guest on the UK-based  Off Menu podcast with Ed Gamble and James Acaster and took the hosts through her ideal menu, from simple starter to the perfect cuppa. She also explains why her dream dinner can only be found in a retirement home in West Cork. Beginning her dining experience, the only choice for bread for McSweeney is her mammy’s soda bread topped with some local butter. “The bread would be Irish soda bread, it would be specifically the bread that my mother made every single morning when I was in national school. I would wake up every morning to the smell of fresh scones, fresh brown bread, and fresh apple tart,” she recalls, adding she did not appreciate it when she was a child. “I hated the smell of it. When I think back, how ungrateful I was. Kids are the worst, they really are the fucking worst. I would wake up to the smell of freshly baked scones and go ‘oh, God, not again’. Now, with the benefit of hindsight and a bit more maturity, I would kill for that brown bread again. “And, specifically, Bandon Co-Op butter. There's something about the salt quota, this butter doesn't go rock hard when you put it in the fridge. And there's something about the clarifying process: somebody explained it to me and then it got boring so I stopped listening, but it's got something to do with the clarifying process, so it actually doesn't go rock hard, and it is perfectly salted, and it's our local farmer's co-operative in Bandon.”  McSweeney as Bríd in Holding For her ideal main course, McSweeney’s thoughts return west, specifically to the retirement home she lived in while filming Holding for ITV after she had broken her leg. “I got wheeled into the Skibbereen old folks' home and plonked in a room there, and every couple of days I was wheeled out to go on set, and then at the end of the day, I would be wheeled back. It was the most hilarious and strangest time of my life,” she says. “I distinctly remember being on set, being in pain, but knowing that I was finally getting back to myself when I was going, 'Oh, I hope this is the last take, I need to get back it's sausage and chip night at Skibbereen old folks' home.' “The sausages and chips man, oh my, oh my. It was food for the soul, it was a balm, it soothed me completely. They were perfect, the chips were crunchy and fluffy, not dry. Plenty of them, but not too many because, you know, I was still recovering and I didn't have a huge appetite. The sausages were beautiful, they were very juicy on the inside, but they were sort of black and brown and they weren't soggy, they weren't baked. People had put care into these sausages, and they were beautiful pork meat. Derry Girls star Siobhan McSweeney “They had Chef ketchup, not Heinz. Chef ketchup, it's a brand in Ireland, but there's something about it that is I presume a bit more sugary than Heinz. It also has a thicker texture, it's sort of like a puree, passata, but it has to be served at room temperature. You can't have cold ketchup, it needs to be at room temperature, if not warmer. I wouldn't recommend microwaving the ketchup, but I'm not saying don't do it either. “That would be my main course. It would be served with a cup of tea and the feeling that I had done a good day's work, I was due a good night's sleep, and I wasn't in awful pain, and I was getting back to myself. And, the best food in the world makes you feel more like yourself, and that plate of chips and sausages did it.”   And for that cup of tea? Barry’s, of course, but made in a specific way. “The cup of tea is very specific. It's Barry's tea - are you taking notes? Barry's teabags, made with, I know it's a cliché but, London water is awful. It needs to be good water, soft water.”  Gamble asks where's the best water? “Cork,” she responds quickly, before describing her unique milk technique. “My aunt used to measure out the milk in spoonfuls, and she would put one in and I thought she was mad. I've tried it, she was not mad, she was a genius. One spoonful of semi-skimmed milk." While pondering her food choices, McSweeney also reflects on a staple drink in Irish life: minerals. “In Ireland, we call soft drinks minerals, those cheap minerals that we used to get and it was called TK. [It was an] awful 1980s orange, it was orange, and it tasted like chemicals.”  Siobhan McSweeney as Sister Michael in Derry Girls. McSweeney also praises a classic hotel breakfast, saying she feasted on many while filming the final series of Derry Girls as "a hearty breakfast was very much needed as we went into the very, very final because, it's sad, isn't it? The end of an era.”  She says she was emotional taking off her Sister Michael costume for the last time. "It's changed everybody's lives, everybody that it's touched. My life is completely different since playing that nun- and it was weird, taking off the costume for the last time, because we know it's the last time. There isn't any, 'Oh, maybe, maybe her and Frasier are offering some spin-off.' No, it's not going to happen. “I did want to burn that wimple by the end of it. The upshot of playing Sister Michael is that everything was loosey-goosey, no make-up. I came back in the second series. I'd been away, and I came back with a cold sore, and they were like, 'Brilliant.' I'm like, this is the best job ever. But, all the joy of that was taken away by the 47 hours we would need to put on that wimple. There were staple guns, Sellotape, Pritt Stick, we tried every glue. I don't know how actual nuns do it, I'm sure they don't have 300 pins.” Read More