"The mountain is like the sea, Max. She gives you life, but she can also take it," explained cheesemaker Catherine Richard through a wrinkled grin, as she hung up her cheese cloths to dry outside her remote stone chalet, 2000m high in the shadow of an Alpine glacier. It’s a phrase that has stuck with me, and eventually led me to a tiny fish smokery in Ireland, amongst the hills and standing stones of the West Cork coastline.
There is a sense of normality and purpose in the lives of true artisans of food, people who have learned how to engage with their environment to feed themselves.