Category: Smoked Salmon

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Ballymaloe LitFest

Ballymaloe LitFest

Ummera Smoked Products Ireland

This weekend Ballymaloe House and Cookery School in East Cork plays host to an amazing gathering of food and drink lovers at the secondBallymaloe Literary Food and Wine Festival.

You will find us in The Big Shed! Look out for a large orange umbrella – we will be underneath it, tempting you to a taste!

We are very privileged to be taking part in one of the events on Sunday afternoon from 3:30pm to 4:30pm in the Drinks Theatre:

‘Smoked Salmon – with a glass of wine, or a Ball O’ Malt or artisan cider?’ – talk and tasting with Dave Broom, Whiskey Writer, Leslie Williams, Wine Writer, Daniel Emerson of Stonewell Cider and Anthony Creswell, Smoked Salmon producer – includes smoked salmon tasting with wine, whiskey and artisan cider.

For full details, click here: http://www.litfest.ie/events/smoked-salmon-glass-wine-or-ball-o-malt-or-artisan-cider

Do you have your favourite drink with smoked salmon?

If you do, please let us know what it is before this Sunday, May 18th. Whoever has the most original suggestion will  have a side of our Smoked Salmon sent to them to enjoy with their recommendation!

 Email your suggestions NOW to info@ummera.com

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Ummera – Just in time for Christmas!

The following mail has been sent around the world:

Our weather is so mild for early November, it is hard to imagine a white Christmas! But think of Christmas we must, and I am hoping that this email will focus your attention on ordering some of your Christmas fare good and early! To order right now, go to Orders

The last year for Ummera has been very exciting with an increasing number of Speciality Food outlets in Ireland and in the UK stocking our products. Please Click here for an up-to-date list.

However, the year has been tempered by the total lack of wild salmon. As you will be aware, Ummera has specialised in smoking the Wild Atlantic Salmon since the early 1970’s but we have, in the last couple of years, taken as pro-active a role as possible in trying to ensure that the stocks are not totally decimated.

In 2006 we made a decision not to buy any more wild salmon until we could be assured that they came from a sustainable fishery. In 2007, the Irish government placed a ban on the commercial drift net fishery and we have confidence that this will greatly improve the salmon stocks in our rivers. It may take four or five years before we see a sustainable harvest again.

We have been offered wild salmon from Scotland, Norway and the Pacific but we smoke Irish salmon in Ireland, and we smoke the best available Irish salmon. Currently the Irish Organic Salmon are the best available to us, so we smoke them for you.

We therefore encourage you to enjoy our Smoked Organic Salmon, not just in the interest of conservation but also for its superb quality. Earlier this year, we introduced an Organic Gravadlax, organic salmon marinated in dill, sugar salt, peppers and a splash of whisky – all organic. Traditionally served with a dill and mustard sauce, but sue very sparingly, if at all, as the flavour of the gravadlax is easily overpowered..

There is a world-wide shortage of eel, and it is under even greater threat than the wild Atlantic salmon. The EU has announced drastic measures that come into force next year and it is very unlikely that we will be smoking Silver Eel for some time to come.

Our Hot Smoked Crown of Chicken has been very successful this year and our Smoked Dry Cured Bacon is assured to make you insist on only Ummera Bacon in the future!

Our last dates for orders is December 10th and our last shipping date is expected to be December 17th (USA & Canada: December 10th).

If you have any questions when on our web site, please email us or skype us (acreswell) or even phone us and William or myself will be very happy to help.

Quick Links:
To Order: Orders
Find Stockists: Outlets
Smoked Organic Salmon: Smoked Organic Salmon
Smoked Chicken: Hot Smoked Crown of Chicken
Smoked Dry Cured Bacon: Smoked Dry Cured Bacon
News/Weblog Page: Ummera News
Main Ummera site: ummera.com

Wishing you a very Happy Christmas from us all at Ummera

 

Anthony Creswell

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Caveat Emptor – again!

Our last post was about labelling of organic salmon.

Perhaps a few words about labelling of wild salmon might be helpful.

With Wild Atlantic Salmon being so scarce this year, if you are looking for the genuine Irish Smoked Wild Atlantic Salmon this Christmas do make sure that it is what you think it is! Flying out of Dublin Airport recently, I saw Smoked Wild Salmon in the shop and if I didn’t know better, I would have assumed that it was Wild Irish Atlantic Salmon. But it wasn’t!

It was wild pacific salmon, shipped half way round the world, smoked in Ireland and sold as Smoked Wild Salmon. Technically correct, but I don’t think that’s the point.

It is highly misleading. And how did I know that it was from the pacific? Under labelling regulations, we have to put on the label one of several options for describing the origin of the fish. In this specific case, you can either put the “Caught in FAO Area 67” or “Caught in North West Pacific”. In this case the smokers preferred to hide the origins under the code so that unsuspecting shoppers wouldn’t know that it wasn’t Irish.

Is it Smoked Irish Salmon or Irish Smoked Salmon? Caveat Emptor!

[tags] wild salmon, wild atlantic salmon, smoked salmon, Dublin Airport, labelling regulations[/tags]

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Speciality & Fine Food Fair Olympia – Stand 638

This is the third visit of Ummera Smoked Products to the Speciality and Fine Food Fair. It is irresistible!
Ummera is a tiny company, employing four people (and not all fulltime!), but somehow their name and reputation has spread to many places far from their home in West Cork, Ireland.
In this year’s Bridgestone Irish Food Guide, written by John and Sally McKenna, they say of Ummera “….seems to pick up culinary awards as often as the rest of us have hot dinners.” They go on to say, “It’s no surprise that his smoked foods should be so garlanded, for they have a delicacy, a subtlety, that shows the smoking process being used at its zenith.
In March 2007, Ummera were honoured with the Irish Guild of Food Writers Award for their Smoked Silver Eel. Sadly, the eel stocks are in great difficulty so this is almost a posthumous award.
In August, the Irish Food and Wine Magazine had their annual Restaurant of the Year Awards in Dublin. A new Award was introduced this year for Best Artisan Supplier; Ummera was one of the nominees for the award and received a Highly Commended.
Ummera’s new product for 2007 is an Organic Gravadlax. Launched quietly early this year, Ummera has been delighted with the response to this simple marinated salmon.
By using the very finest of ingredients in the marinade, Ummera has lifted the simple to a complex. The organic salmon are sourced from the west coast of Ireland; the salt comes from traditional saltpans at Tavira, on the Algarve, Portugal. The dill and peppercorns are organic and Ummera uses a raw cane sugar organically grown in Costa Rica; the last international element to their Gravadlax comes from the London & Scottish Distillery in London, an organic whisky.
[tags]Olympia, Speciality and Fine Food Fair, Bridgestone Irish Food Guide, Food and Wine Magazine, Gravadlax, Organic Whisky, Tavira, saltpans[/tags]

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“Lift the drift net ban” says ex Fisheries Minister

I don’t believe it! This morning on RTE Raidió na Gaeltachta, Pat “the Cope” Gallagher says that islanders should be exempt from fishing restrictions, in particular in realtion to the banning of drift nets for wild salmon.

If it wasn’t for the intransigence of Pat the Cope in ignoring the scientific advice given to him whilst he was Minister of Fisheries, we might still have a commercial fishery, and we might still be smoking wild salmon.

The text from RTE is as follows:

Call for end to islander fishing restrictions

Thursday, 30 August 2007 10:47

Fishing communities based on islands off the coast of Ireland, ought to be exempt from fishing restrictions, according to Minister for State, Pat ‘the Cope’ Gallagher.

Speaking on RTÉ Raidió na Gaeltachta this morning, Minister Gallagher said that the abolition of drift net salmon fishing, should be appealed.

He said that the amount of salmon caught by island fishermen, is very little, and hardly impacts on salmon conservation.

Minister Gallagher added that he will be recommending that island fishermen be allowed fish for salmon, as employment opportunities are a huge challenge for islanders.

[tags] salmon, drift nets, Pat “the Cope” Gallagher, wild samon[/tags]

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The price of fish……

The UK Daily Telegraph’s Magazine section today carried an article by Rose Prince about Ummera and our position on the wild salmon situation this year. If you missed it, then it can be read here , although the online version is missing some of the photos (including one of me, headless!!).

As with any article, there is the odd howler! Rose writes about Jonathan “butchering” the salmon when clearly he is filleting them!

[tags]Daily Telegraph, wild salmon, Rose Prince, Argideen[/tags]