bigmacbear | Irish cuisine

My response to a recent post by

chrishansenhome over on soc.motss, with respect to corned beef and cabbage as the quintessential Irish dish:

I was told by no less an authority on the subject than my mother (whose parents both emigrated from Ireland, in contrast to my father's side of the family who have lived in the States for a couple of generations longer) that corned beef and cabbage is Irish-American fare much more so than Irish, and that the substitution of corned beef for ham or bacon (the latter being more like the Canadian version than what one finds served with breakfast in an American diner) owes much to the influence of the Jewish community. (My surmise is this would have taken place in New York and Boston.)

She said cattle were relatively rare in the Ireland her parents left, due in large part to the scarcity of land on which to graze them, and pigs and sheep were the preferred livestock of those that kept them. Thus a true "Irish Stew" would normally involve lamb rather than beef, although Mom's modern recipe works well with either.

Of course, it's entirely possible that the culinary inventions of the Irish in America have made the trip back to the Emerald Isle. My parents were much amused that the entertainment of the day, in one of the Irish pubs they visited on a trip to Dublin and points northwest, was a band playing music one might describe as "rockabilly".

[Oh, and by the way...] Guinness Stout looks remarkably like cola once the foamy head has been consumed.

Now I suppose that last remark is just me being a comment whore, but it's so true. ;-)

I'll add here that as a child I did not much like cabbage, so my mom would often substitute green beans in the traditional boiled dinner. Now that I've grown I rather like it on occasion and will bring "Pig's Ass and Cabbage" -- as my late aunt called it -- to potlucks when an Irish or St. Patrick's Day theme is called for.

Irish cuisine

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