Fare and fowl

A food treasure in the heart of Cork city, the English market is a must for food lovers and visitors to the city. By Darina Allen

I wrote off my car on my way to a wild mushroom hunt at Rathsallagh House in county Wicklow a few years ago. I was probably driving a little bit fast, trying to make it in time to taste Kay O'Flynn's legendary breakfast. A sudden slamming of brakes around a very sharp bend resulted in the car aquaplaning – the net result of which was a serious altercation with a block wall. The car was a write-off, but fortunately I had a miraculous escape. After the initial impact it seemed like everything had stood still – there was dead silence, except for the CD playing. It took me a few seconds to register what had happened and then I sat there in shock listening to Diarmuid O'Drisceoil describing the Ríobún and Grainseachán that his grandmother used to make for him on Cape Clear as a small child. His lilting Irish voice soothed me until a passerby opened the car door to inquire after my well-being.

I had recorded the tape a few weeks earlier as part of the research for my traditional food book. Both Diarmuid and his brother Donal are food historians. Donal lectures in history at UCC and is joint author of Saothar, the Irish labour history journal. He is the author of at least four publications including The Murphy's Story – the History of the Lady's Well Brewery, Cork, which he co-wrote with Diarmuid. The latter has a background in archaeology and local history and is the author of many articles on aspects of early Irish cooking practices.

Their latest book, Serving a City – the story of Cork's English Market, is thrilling for me. I love that market to bits and am inordinately proud that Cork has a market which is the envy of every food lover in these islands. I don't get in there nearly enough and I'm so jealous of people who can amble through every day, stopping now and then to exchange a little banter, buying something here and there. The joy of sipping a cup of coffee or a sublime hot chocolate at Mary Rose's Stall or lingering over a plate of Irish Stew at the Farmgate upstairs – the best place for a spot of people watching.

The English Market is tucked in between Patrick St and Oliver Plunkett Street, with grand entrances from Princes Street and the Mall. There are virtually no signs to let outsiders know about this throbbing heart of Cork City. I myself was living in Co Cork for about ten years – and was baffled that there were so few butchers or food shops in evidence in the main streets – until eventually I accidentally strayed into the market and was enchanted by the labyrinth of little passages and lanes lined with stalls. Second and third generation traders rub shoulders with new age traders. Tripe and drisheen, offal, bones and bodices, skirts and kidneys, pigs head and spiced beef, and corned tongues and pigs' trotters sell side by side with artisan cheese, a selection of olives, spices, harissa, fresh and smoked fish and patés and terrines...

But its charm is the eclectic mix of food, flowers, puzzles and jokes, clothes – there's even a key cutter who once told me off for blocking up the aisle with my eager cookery school students on their "school tour".

Cork's English Market, serving the city since its establishment in 1788, has stubbornly survived revolution and war, fire and famine, depression and boom, changing tastes – not to mention a rapidly developing retail scene. It is unique in Ireland and has been recognised as one of the top ten markets in Europe.

Though the products on sale may now be more cosmopolitan than those of yesteryear, the energy, essence and spirit of the market remain the same. Diarmuid and Donal O'Drisceoil trace the history and development of the market from its origins to the present day in the context of the development of Cork City and changes in its retail and food environment.

The book – based on extensive research using Cork Corporation minute books, newspaper archives, valuation and insurance maps, trade directories, interviews and observations – presents the evolution of the market, in words and pictures, over the last two centuries.

The story of the English Market is, in many ways, the story of Cork. Its history, society and culture are bound to the city. Accompanied by historic and recent photographs, architectural plans, reproductions of paintings and other illustrations, this is a comprehensive account of a unique cultural and culinary institution.

The evocative photos from the past, interspersed with moody portraits, combined with the O'Drisceoil brothers' combination of scholarly text and anecdotal passages make this one of my books of the year.

Certainly a present guaranteed to tug at the heartstrings of anyone with a drop of Cork blood in their veins, or the emerging generations of passionate food lovers who trawl the Cork market for ingredients.