IN SEARCH OF A CORNED BEEF AND CABBAGE DINNER … OR ST. PADDY WAS A PHONEY !
Today Ireland and the United States celebrate the death not birth of Patrick, the once and never saint who happens to be the by-product of hundreds of years of exaggerated storytelling and drunken revelry. The real man known as Patrick was born in 387 to prominent Roman citizens living in Kilpatrick, Scotland; and as for the rest of his life it’s hard to separate fact from fiction.
A lot of his fable-filled life was created by Irish immigrants to the United States who were trying to compete with the Jews, Poles, Italian and other sundry huddled masses. Other parts of his fantasy life were created by Patrick himself in his writings. Hey, we all exaggerate a little when we write. And while he might have gone to Ireland to save the pagans living there, he might also have left Scotland to avoid becoming a tax collector. Preacher to the pagans … tax collector for the Romans … neither one was at the top of the job list back in the early fifth century. To make matters worse, there were never any snakes in Ireland for him to drive out. Also, the stories about the shamrock and why he invented the shillelagh are highly suspect, too. That brings us to corned beef and cabbage a dish which happens to be very popular in both Poland and Germany, but which everyone thinks is the national dish of Ireland. Now Patrick never ate corned beef and cabbage, since mutton, pork and Pagan Irish Stew were all the rage back in 410 A.D. Besides the Irish didn’t discover Corned Beef and Cabbage until they immigrated to the US.
Now my grandmothers were Polish and German, and they both made damn good versions of corned beef and cabbage. One added apples and sometimes raisins to the dish. The other added caraway seeds to it. It was also good, hearty and cheap food for the large families of their day. So I’m quite fond of the dish and I used to make it all the time myself. But, it’s not a dish you fix for yourself when you’re cooking for one. So when I was shopping at one of my local stupidmarkets Friday, I was tempted by some of their store kitchen prepared corn beef and cabbage dinners.
Since the entire dinner was only $7.98, I gave into my temptation and purchased one for my evening meal tonight. Let’s just say it wasn’t my grandmothers’ or even my corned beef and cabbage . The cabbage, carrots and potatoes were all under cooked. They’re not supposed to be soggy, but they’re not supposed to be crunchy either. They’re supposed to be fork tender. The corned beef was tough and had no taste whatever. It looked and tasted like the corned beef they sell sliced in the deli-meat counter. The creamed horseradish was quite good though. Overall my dinner was a total failure that left me craving for a real home cooked corned beef and cabbage dinner.
A lot of his fable-filled life was created by Irish immigrants to the United States who were trying to compete with the Jews, Poles, Italian and other sundry huddled masses. Other parts of his fantasy life were created by Patrick himself in his writings. Hey, we all exaggerate a little when we write. And while he might have gone to Ireland to save the pagans living there, he might also have left Scotland to avoid becoming a tax collector. Preacher to the pagans … tax collector for the Romans … neither one was at the top of the job list back in the early fifth century. To make matters worse, there were never any snakes in Ireland for him to drive out. Also, the stories about the shamrock and why he invented the shillelagh are highly suspect, too. That brings us to corned beef and cabbage a dish which happens to be very popular in both Poland and Germany, but which everyone thinks is the national dish of Ireland. Now Patrick never ate corned beef and cabbage, since mutton, pork and Pagan Irish Stew were all the rage back in 410 A.D. Besides the Irish didn’t discover Corned Beef and Cabbage until they immigrated to the US.
Now my grandmothers were Polish and German, and they both made damn good versions of corned beef and cabbage. One added apples and sometimes raisins to the dish. The other added caraway seeds to it. It was also good, hearty and cheap food for the large families of their day. So I’m quite fond of the dish and I used to make it all the time myself. But, it’s not a dish you fix for yourself when you’re cooking for one. So when I was shopping at one of my local stupidmarkets Friday, I was tempted by some of their store kitchen prepared corn beef and cabbage dinners.
Since the entire dinner was only $7.98, I gave into my temptation and purchased one for my evening meal tonight. Let’s just say it wasn’t my grandmothers’ or even my corned beef and cabbage . The cabbage, carrots and potatoes were all under cooked. They’re not supposed to be soggy, but they’re not supposed to be crunchy either. They’re supposed to be fork tender. The corned beef was tough and had no taste whatever. It looked and tasted like the corned beef they sell sliced in the deli-meat counter. The creamed horseradish was quite good though. Overall my dinner was a total failure that left me craving for a real home cooked corned beef and cabbage dinner.