Sally Barnes

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“Sally is a law unto herself”, Richard Corrigan once remarked of Sally Barnes, creator of Castletownshend’s Woodcock Smokery. Mr Corrigan was quite right, but Sally’s Law is an unusual one. Instead of being written on unalterable tablets of stone, Sally’s Law is an improvisation, a mix of common law, precedent, argument, dialectic, common sense, sensibility. Since she established the smokehouse in 1981, every piece of fish she smokes – salmon, albacore tuna, mackerel, haddock; pollock; kippers – is treated according to its needs. The fish are hand-filleted, salted according to the fish smoker’s judgement, the balance of beech and oak wood and the duration of the smoking measured according to the humidity, the air temperature, and with each fish assessed according to its weight, its fat content.

If all these things conspire to create the perfection Sally is chasing, then certain fish will be aged for a further three months before being offered for sale: Ms Barnes isn’t just a fish smoker, she is also a fish affineur. The impact of all this obsessive care was best shown back in 2006, when Woodcock smoked salmon won the Supreme Champion Award at the Great Taste Awards, chosen by the judges as the best food from 4,500 artisan competitors. “All we add are salt, smoke, skill, care, and lots of time”, says Ms Barnes. That’s the secret of Sally’s Law.

Gortbrack, Castletownshend, County Cork
+353 28 36232
www.woodcocksmokery.com