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It Ain't Irish!

A foreign exchange student once told me, “There are no Americans in America. They’re all Italian-American, GermanAmerican, French or Spanish, and IrishAmerican.” And he was correct. Americans identify with the lands of their forebears and none quite so much as Irish-Americans. It seems nearly everyone has a wee bit of Irish blood somewhere down the line. March is the Month of the Irish, where people anticipate the 17th with expectations of glee, potential drunkenness, Tullamore Dew, Guinness, and corned beef and cabbage. People wear funny little hats, speak in bad Irish accents, and pretend they’re leprechauns. Hey, even the Chicago River gets dyed green!

This St. Patrick’s Day, millions of gallons of Guinness and Harp will be quaffed, hundreds of thousands of shots of Irish whiskey will go down the gullet, and tons of corned beef and cabbage—the quintessential St. Patty’s dish—will be consumed. The irony is that corned beef and cabbage is not a traditional Irish dish. To understand why it’s so popular these days, you need a short history lesson. (DO NOT skip this section! There will be a quiz at the end!)

To be blunt, the Irish couldn’t afford to eat beef in Ireland, even though the country is teeming with cattle, especially County Cork, an important beef-producing area. Irish beef forms the biggest source of beef in Europe and is fifth in world beef production. The importance of beef to the Irish economy is centuries old, and even during The Great Potato Famine, the Irish did not eat much beef. (It is rumored that when Queen Victoria was told the Irish had no bread to eat and millions were starving, she allegedly said, “Let them eat potatoes!”)

As a result of “The Great Hunger,” millions of Irish left Ireland and settled primarily in the United States, where they were promptly seen as lower-class citizens, slightly higher than African-Americans on the racist scale but below Italian-Americans and JewishAmericans. The relationship between corned beef and the Irish and Jewish populations developed because the Irish were relegated to the poorer sections of the cities, usually next to Jewish enclaves. And in the Jewish districts, corned beef was a popular dish.

To clarify, the vegetable corn has nothing to do with corned beef unless you buck traditional fare and serve a cob or two with your St. Patrick’s Day feast. “Corned” comes from the large salt crystals—the size of kernels of corn—that were used to cure the beef. It is a cut of beef similar to the brisket and has been salt cured. (These days, salt brines are the favored method.) Corned beef is traditionally served with cabbage (another cheap product) and potatoes. It is simple in preparation as it is put in one pot and left to simmer for hours. I’ve prepared it in the oven, on top of the oven, in a slow cooker, and, yes, over a wood fire in a fireplace—a major undertaking and not worth it! In the end, the corned beef and cabbage always turned out pretty much the same.

The Irish population, forced to live in slums alongside Jewish and Italian groups, discovered corned beef in Jewish delicatessens and lunch carts. They also got a taste of pastrami in the Italian section, and they noticed a similarity in taste to Irish bacon in both forms of the brisket. Ta-daaa! Corned beef and cabbage became a staple in Irish-American households, and the rest is history.

If you desire a recipe for corned beef and cabbage (C B ‘n C - I wish I’d thought of that earlier), just hit up the old internet and you will find hundreds of options. To make the repast complete, don’t forget the Irish Soda Bread. And about that quiz? I prevaricated.