Kate Ryan is a multi-award-winning food writer and founder of Flavour.ie, a platform dedicated to championing Irish food and food culture.

Originally from Bristol in South West England, a city famed for its restaurants and 18^th Century covered market, I moved to Ireland in 2005 and quickly recognised Cork as my hometown’s gastronomic equal with its exceptional restaurants, famous covered English Market and historic trading links to Bristol for exotic foods, spices and butter.

I began writing about Irish food in 2011 as a way of boasting about my very good fortune to find myself living in the food capital of the food island of Ireland, and I have been championing the people, places, culture and heritage of Irish food ever since.

AWARDS

• 2024 – Local Ireland Media Awards: Sustainability Journalist of the Year
• 2023 – Blas na hEireann: Irish Food Producers’ Champion
• 2023 – Listowel Food Fair: Food Storyteller of the Year (inaugural award)
• 2022 – Irish Food Writing Awards: Food Writing (judged by Colman Andrews, Saveur)

ACADEMIA

• 2024 – MA Irish Food Studies and Irish Foodways (First Class Honours) (first in Ireland to receive this qualification)
• 2023 – Oxford Symposium on Food & Cookery – presented paper on the social and culutral history of blood as food in Ireland. This paper was subsequently selected for inclusion in the Proceedings published in 2024.
• 2021 – Postgraduate Diploma in Irish Food Culture (First Class Honours)
• 2016 – Postgraduate Certificate in Creative Writing (Food Writing) (Distinction)

BOOKS

• 2024 – Cook, by Graham Herterich. Contributing chapter author – “Sticky Fingers and Jelly-Smacked Lips”.
• 2023 – Proceedings of the Oxford Symposium on Food and Cookery, 2023 – Food Rules & Rituals. Contributing author – “Perfectly Civilised and Proper – the social and cultural history of blood as food in Ireland.”
• 2023 – Scoop “What is Irish Food” (edition 1). Contributing author – “The Evolution of Corn in Irish Food Culture – from famine relief to tortillas.”
• 2017 – Artisan Food Guide to West Cork – from Bandon to Beara.

PROFESSIONAL BIO

I am a freelance food writer specialising in long form food features. My articles regularly appear in print and online for The Echo, BBC, Irish Examiner and Business Post’s Food & Wine Magazine (Ireland). Her writing has also appeared in Scoop Food Magazine, Vittles, TheTaste.ie, Taste Talks, Irish Foodie Magazine, Headstuff.org, The Opinion Magazine, TheJournal.ie and a variety of online platforms focusing on the food and travel space. She has been featured in the Irish Times, Irish Independent and The Guardian.

In 2023, I delivered a paper at the prestigious Oxford Food Symposium entitled, “Perfectly Civilised and Proper”: The Social and Cultural History of Blood as Food in Ireland subsequently selected for publication in its annual proceedings of the symposium, published in 2024.

I was honoured to be commissioned by A Taste of West Cork Food Festival to author the “Artisan Food Guide” published in June 2017, described as the bible of West Cork Food.

My blog, The Flavour Files, began in 2012 always with a focus on great local produce, seasonality, wild and foraged food and craft drinks of all kinds. My recipes are created to illustrate how artisan foods are as at home in our kitchens as they are on a restaurant menu.

This is still very much at the core of The Flavour Files, but it has also expanded to include other writing, sometimes about food and sometimes about things that aren’t food. Today, I use my blog to explore long-form writing as a way to expand my skill and craft of food writing, unbound by word-count or commercial interest, and aim to be an alternative voice for Irish food writing. This writing can be supported by you through Ko-fi and all support is appreciated.

I have been a Member of the Irish Food Writers Guild since 2019, and have held positions on the Executive Committee since 2020, first as Secretary (2020-2023), then as Treasurer (2023-2026). The Irish Food Writers’ Guild was formed in 1990 to promote high professional standards of knowledge and practice among writers about food, nutrition, food history and other allied matters and to assist in the forging of links and networks between professionals in the food industry.

I am also a member of Writing.ie, Slow Food Ireland, and Talamh Beo, the Irish chapter of the international movement working for agroecology, regenerative farming and food sovereignty.

I am proud to be a judge of many years standing with Blas na hEireann, Irish Quality Food Awards, Food & Wine Magazine’s Restaurant of the Year Awards, Great Taste Awards, and National Dairy Awards.

When I’m not writing, I am busy growing my own food! I am a third generation GIYer and wanna-be market gardener, and I have always believed you can only truly know food if you grow food. In 2023, my husband and I became excitable owners of a patch of wild land a stones’ throw from our home. At just under an acre, this south-facing sloping plot with the River Caol running along its southern boundary, had been left wild for at least three decades. We have been slowly transforming the land into a regenerative small-scale market garden that feeds us and our local community with chemical-free grown vegetables, herbs and soon, fruits, as well as wild forage. We work with nature and the land to create a biodiverse environment with the intention that around half the land will be left in its natural, wild state or improved upon with additional trees, hedgerows, wild flowers and meadow grasses to protect and increase biodiversity. We call this project The Haggart @ Flavour HQ, and you can follow along with our adventures on Instagram!