The monk who is in charge of the kitchen at Glenstal Abbey in County Limerick, Brother John hurt, has just published a book of his recipes. Brother Anselm Hurt hopes his work will achieve the same success as previous publications of books of prayers from Glenstal, which is Ireland’s only male Benedictine community.
Brother Hurt has been in Glenstal for thirteen years and for twelve of them, has been responsible for feeding his forty or so colleagues who make up the community at Glenstal. As a result, he has built up a large and very varied range of recipes and has included some 65 of his favourites in this book, introducing and explaining each one.
The recipes are arranged under the usual headings - soups, fish, main courses, curries, pasta, eggs, potatoes, vegetables, desserts and a final section of miscellaneous recipes. Some recipes are designed for catering for a small number of people, while others are aimed at people contemplating a larger party, either for entertaining or for family use. His very favourite dish is a Cassoulet Gascoigne, a French dish made from beans, pork, sausage and garlic.
“I’ve been running the kitchen for twelve years and we have a cook but I cook the supper myself most days and some of those recipes are in the book,” he said. “I first got interested in cooking when I had to cook for my own family in times gone by,” he recalls.
“I only repeated a dish every eight weeks back then, except for Sundays, of course – there weren’t eight types of meat available for roasting,” he adds.
Before he joined Glenstal, Brother Anselm, who is English and was a late vocation, had been looking at a number of monasteries in the UK but visited Glenstal when a friend of his moved to live in County Clare. “The very minute I arrived here I just got the feeling that this was it.”
Brother Hurt’s cuisine has been sampled by guests staying in the Abbey guesthouse and many of them have asked him for recipes for particular dishes. “Then lots of people were telling me to go and bring out a cookery book,” he added.
The book is published by Columba Press and its foreword is written by Brother Hurt’s brother - actor John Hurt.
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