Irish cuisine

[bigmacbear]

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.

Comments

[robearal.livejournal.com]

playing music one might describe as "rockabilly"

This is just music completing the circle. "Hillbilly" music, which then gave birth to Country (and Western), has its roots in Celtic (mostly Scottish, but some Irish as well) folk music, because that's where the settlers of the Hills came from.

The Hills Are Alive...

[hickbear.livejournal.com]

(mostly Scottish, but some Irish as well) folk music, because that's where the settlers of the Hills came from.

Why, yes, we did. :-}}}

Mike, whose 'roots' in Appalachia goes back well over 250 years, whose I-look-just-like-him-down-to-the-hairline maternal grandfather was half-Oirish (his own grandmothers were nee' Carnahan and Lowe), whose paternal great-grandmother was at least half-Scots (Moorehead-as-in-Agnes, natch), and who (speaking of "hillbilly" music) simply has to be related to Ricky Skaggs because everyone from Martha, KY, is related to either or both of the Sturgill and Boggs families...

Re: The Hills Are Alive...

[bigmacbear]

Oh, by the way, we did "I Am a Man of Constant Sorrow" (as popularized in O Brother, Where Art Thou?) in our last SMC concert. Lots of fun, even if a couple of the soloists had to apply their beards with spirit gum to look the part. ;-)

I'll have to ask the folks what the circumstances were about that band; I think perhaps they too were visiting from the US, and Indiana was mentioned.

[ciddyguy.livejournal.com]

WHat an interesting post Mike. I'd not ta knowed that if you hadn't told me. :-)

As for the Guinness Stout, Yummmy! and yes, I do agree, it does kinda look like coke once the head has been consumed.

[chrishansenhome.livejournal.com]

Hm...I suppose I should just stop contributing to soc.motss and blog everything. I like corned beef and cabbage, but you can't get decent corned beef here unless you pay an arm and a leg for it, so we don't have it. A New England boiled dinner with pot roast etc. is possible, but I don't think HWMBO would like it, so the closest we get is an occasional beef or chicken stew (which last we will have tomorrow night).

And, yeah, I know that I misspelled Guinness in my soc.motss post, but the grammar police over there make a big thang of it.

As for Irish cuisine, a friend of my mother's who was Irish-American went to Ireland many years ago to visit the relatives for a longish spell. After a few months they asked her whether she missed anything about America. She said, "Well, I guess I miss a nice steak dinner." "No problem," they said, "We'll cook you a steak tomorrow night." And they did. Next night they cooked her a steak. They boiled it.

[bigmacbear]

Hm...I suppose I should just stop contributing to soc.motss and blog everything.

I think several motssketeers have done pretty much exactly that, but I often find the responses kind of take on a life of their own in motss, while here on lj people don't respond in the same enthusiastic way -- unless you write something with an outrageous double-entendre or post some half-nekkid pics, which is what I meant by being a comment whore.

I think this is the first time I've actually reposted something I sent to motss on lj, primarily because I wanted to save the historical background of Mom's remarks for posteriorposterity.

There was a period when I fell out of following Usenet because I couldn't shoehorn it in with my e-mail and LJ, but now I find the volume more agreeable on both sides.

[chrishansenhome.livejournal.com]

Yes, the volume has decreased in the last few years. It's turned into a virtual love-in, now that DRS is gone, Saklad is filtered out by virtually everyone, and the spew filtered out as well. There are between 3 and 12 posts every day getting to me. I must say that the group I find most interesting is alt.obituaries nowadays. Where there's death, there's hope.