Food on the Edge 2016 is just a few weeks away so we are taking a closer look at some of this year's speakers - Cliodhna Prendergast.

The first chef under the microscope is Cliodhna Prendergast, she's the founder of website Breaking Eggs which aims to get kids into the kitchen both cooking and playing with food from as young as possible. This is quite fitting when the topic of discussion at Food on the Edge is the future of food. The Staff Canteen caught up with Cliodhna to find out more about her website and why she thinks it's so important for people to understand where their food comes from.

As a speaker at Food on the Edge 2016, Cliodhna’s vision for the future of food is to start with the children and the rest will follow.

“It’s the future of food but it’s really about starting in the past,” she explained. “It’s the whole cycle of food which needs to be highlighted to parents. We have to start living in a society where we support farmers, support butchers, support growers – rather than buying everything in the supermarket. You need to bring your children out and introduce them to the butcher – without this there is no connection and no community.”

She added: “So, yes it’s about supporting from the ground up with the children but it’s also about supporting the community and showing everyone that these suppliers are a vital part of our society.”

Looking at this year’s Food on the Edge chef line up, which includes Massimo Bottura, Pierre Koffman and Claude Bosi to name a few, Cliodhna’s concept appears very unique to her peers and understandably she does feel a little intimidated when looking at the names she will be joining.

>>> See the full line up here

She believes hers is a unique perspective but she was also keen to be a part of the symposium because she’s excited to see it in the west of Ireland.

“It’s fantastic to see this happening in the west,” she said. “There’s lots of things going on in Dublin all the time so it’s amazing that all these chefs from all over the world are coming to Galway.

“People need to talk about these things and be educated. It’s also important that it’s not just people from the food industry, it’s interesting for everybody - we all eat!

Cliodhna’s website Breaking Eggs is aimed children and parents but she is a trained chef first despite confessing she did not want to be in the industry as she had spent her childhood growing up in a country house hotel.

She said: “I used to hang out in the kitchen with the female chef we had at the time. I was eight and she said ‘you’re not hanging around in the kitchen unless you are doing something’. She taught me how to make ice cream and because I could do that they thought I was fantastic and never let me out of the kitchen again!”

She spent several summers in the kitchen after that, it was during this time she was introduced to foraging which as she says ‘in the 80s was not very common’. She explained: “I got totally into that! I really enjoyed being able to go out and pick things then cook them. So, I think my interest in cooking developed through that.

“We had a sea trout fishery so I used to fish and when the shooting season came around in winter we plucked, cleaned, cooked and ate woodcock and snipe and wild duck.

“I also remember my first real field mushroom, I can taste it to this day. My aunt and uncle have a farm in Mayo where I was shipped off for a week of my summer holidays. We got up at 6am to pick mushrooms in the fields, brought them home and fried them in butter for breakfast. Nothing like it. The smell lingers in my memory, and this I think is what a lot