COUNTY CORK, Ireland -- The bounty of a morning's chopping, kneading and steaming have been cleared from the round table that serves as a buffet: soups (cannelini and chorizo, and a brothy vegetable), a hearty chicken pie, zuchinni served al dente, greens with walnuts, poached fish, crusty breads, local artisanal cheeses. Students, a few guests and family -- there's always a table for whatever family is around -- clear plates from the porch of the old farmhouse.

"Students, we're going off today to Shanagarry to gather periwinkles, " announces the whirl that is author-chef Darina Allen, her gray-white bob swinging against red-framed glasses. "Bring your Wellies and a jacket, and be ready by 2 o'clock."

Two dozen-plus burgeoning chefs dash off to the out-buildings for their gear. Past the red-and-black hens that provide fresh eggs. Beyond the pen where the pigs are fattening, the fields where the cows graze and the organic garden where the last of the season's squashes are still on the vine. At Allen's Ballymaloe Cookery School, all ingredients are so fresh you can almost taste the ground they've come from.

"My food is very simple, " Allen says. "It all starts with the good earth."

BEYOND POTATOES

If your idea of Ireland's culinary tradition is based on potatoes, you're missing out on some of the tastiest food on the planet.

Yes, you can still end up in a behind-the-times pub gnawing on overcooked beef and a greasy baked potato. But for the most part, meals during a recent visit were deft preparations crafted from local mussels, halibut, pheasant, beef and produce.

"What makes Irish food special is this, our ingredients, " says TV chef Kevin Dundon, as he snaps an apple from the tree at his hotel and restaurant, Dunbrody House, and crunches into a tangy crispness. "Without the ingredients, my food doesn't work."

Ireland's temperate south coast is farm land, pure and simple. A shimmering green blazes even through a cranky mist -- faerie's fields of tomatoes, lettuce, pumpkins and grasses dotted with cattle, sheep and swift-footed thoroughbreds. Every town of size boasts a butcher and on weekends, a local farmer's market.

The promise of this fertile crescent drew Dundon -- already then a noted chef -- and his wife, Catherine, from Dublin a decade ago. Here they transformed a 200-year-old manor home into a stylish hotel, spa and cooking school. The surrounding 200 acres are planted with organic corn, pumpkins, parsley, rhubarb and artichokes that invariably find their way onto the hotel's acclaimed menus. For his 40th birthday last year, Dundon received an orchard of hazelnut trees with truffle spurs in the roots from his wife, and from his friends, a pig named Dielago, who is in training to root for the prized underground fungus.

If you haven't heard of Dunbrody yet, just wait. His menus have won raves at the popular Raglan Roads pub at Disney World, and he will soon open restaurants in Kansas City and at Disneyland. Dunbrody Sausages will arrive in Whole Foods next year.

Both Dundon and Allen credit southern Ireland's thriving food culture to the roaring "Celtic Tiger" -- the economic boom of recent years that has encouraged a taste for fine dining and exploration abroad.

Food guru John McKenna, author of the Irish Food Guide, credits the essential Irish nature as well. "The Irish are a Mediterranean people who just happen to live up with the Anglo Saxons. This is just a geographical accident -- they actually belong farther south. Once the shackles of the church were slipped off they were ready to rediscover the pleasures of food."

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