It is the early 1980's, and the English culinary flaneur, Keith Floyd, at the height of his massive popularity, is making a television programme at the Ballymaloe Cookery School, where he is assisted by the principal, Darina Allen. Floyd whisks up one of his usual creamy, eggy things, scrapes the contents into a dish ready for the oven, and puts the bowl aside, ready for that glass of red which is waiting somewhere. Quick as a flash, Allen slaps his wrist, tells him off for not scraping the bowl clean, and does just that with her spatula. They laugh and, in that moment, a new star is born. Floyd's time is already over: the next decade will belong to Darina Allen.
She seized her chance, and a stream of hugely successful books and television series quickly followed. Aided by a phenomenal work ethic, Mrs Allen was everywhere – there was even talk she might run for the Dail – and she built the fame of the school to unprecedented heights. She was helped by two factors: she brought the awesome energy of the O'Connell family of Cullahill to Ballymaloe, and in Ballymaloe she found a culture that allowed her to contribute her own philosophy slowly, patiently, painstakingly. She discovered things about which she could be certain: how to grow things, how to cook things, how to weave an aesthetic in a life, and how to find a politics that was not just parish pump. Her involvement with the Slow Food movement has been crucial to her later development, for it showed her that what the Ballymaloe School is about is actually an international culture, a global politics that calls for decency and fairness. She has a power, expressed most recently through her formidable large-scale cookery books, and she can galvanise people, and change their lives for the better. She can reveal things that have likely always been right under your nose, she can see how to connect.