When Fingal Ferguson was interviewed by Betsy Klein, for her book Cottage Industry, Mr Ferguson used an interesting term when he talked about the influence of Spanish agricultural and charcuterie practices on the way he worked.
“There was the honour of rearing something, killing it, and making every part of it into something”, he said. Honour. Honour amongst Charcutiers. Honour amongst Smokehouses. It’s a most unusual language to hear in Ireland, mainly because it’s so ancient – it sounds as if it belongs in a medieval Guild – and mainly because the rearing, slaughtering and processing of animals has become an industrialised practice, carried out away from the human eye, away from the honourable gaze. But Mr Ferguson’s Gubbeen Smokehouse is different. He shows the respect. He carries on a tradition, one to which he was anointed by the first person to smoke Gubbeen cheese, Chris Jepson, who handed on his mantle to Fingal when Ferguson was still a slip of a lad. The rest of the tradition, to be honest, is a living tradition which he has been creating himself for a decade now, spinning out porky sports of nature. Some of them don’t work, but the failures are few, and honourable.
The rest of the Gubbeen Smokehouse range are stellar artisan foods, kitchen essentials, menu stalwarts. Fingal Ferguson, in honouring his pigs, also honours his customers.
Photograph by John Carey http://www.john-carey.com