Why Corned Beef & Cabbage Isn't Actually Irish; The Truth Behind the World's Favorite St. Paddy's Day Meal"

#76 NANCY - St Pats ZOOM: Hey everybody, it's Nancy and Sylvia, And we're off on

another show about St. Patrick's Day.

But before we start, we just wanna remind you to please share and like the show

and subscribe so that you don't miss another episode, or you don't miss an

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So if you can please take our survey, then we'll be able to do even more for you and.

Every meal has a story and every story is a feast, and it's all delicious.

But with that note, let's get on with St. Patrick's Day.

Sylvia, what do you think?

Oh, I think so too.

How, by the way, do you like green pancakes?

How about green bagels or anything green that isn't broccoli?

What do you think?

#76 NANCY - St Pats ZOOM: I do like broccoli, but it's not very Irish,.

Popcorn.

There's another one popcorn

with,

#76 NANCY - St Pats ZOOM: I never had green popcorn or what's

the green, like the green?

There's a green liqueur that's got a sort of a minty flavor to it,

Ah, maybe that would be okay 'cause it would be meant, but

something that's not meant to be green.

And then when I was reading about some of this, it's like the dyes that they

put in there, you know, I don't know.

I don't know about that.

So anyway, but it's fun.

And for one day, it's kind of like eating a hot dog.

They say it takes so many minutes off your life.

Per hot dog.

And I'm like, okay, how do you add in that wonderful glorious day with your

family at a family picnic and you eat a hot dog and it adds to your life, right?

#76 NANCY - St Pats ZOOM: It is.

fun.

Let me ask you the question.

So we're talking about Kitchens Across America are tour Irish,

at least just for one night.

I know my mom tried to make corn, beef, corn, beef and cabbage a couple of times

on St. Patrick's Day, and her family was English, so that wasn't very authentic,

Mm-hmm.

#76 NANCY - St Pats ZOOM: But what is authentic Irish food?

I think that's the big question

Yeah.

#76 NANCY - St Pats ZOOM: It's belonging and power, I guess, in the food, right?

That's, I mean, you're Irish, tell me.

me

oh yeah.

I come from a long line of Irish people and the whole eastern part of this state.

They came across the Appalachian chain and they settled and

they were an independent sort.

and I was telling you about the music, very mournful music because of the

history of Ireland and the potato famine.

But I think the joy of Ireland is.

It holds some kind of a strange particular place in our imagination,

and it's because of the food, but it's because of where you had the food.

Like for instance, in small villages, familiar pubs, tight communities where

people were known and noticed in food and its intersection with family, community,

and nurturing all our relationships.

It's so Irish.

food wasn't performance, it was presence

#76 NANCY - St Pats ZOOM: It seems welcoming,

It is.

#76 NANCY - St Pats ZOOM: The pubs and everything.

It's cozy, it's dark, it's comfortable.

Yeah, and I did do a little background stuff on pubs, because you

always think of Irish and pubs, right?

We've got a couple of those here in town, and it's just where you

go in and it's just an atmosphere.

It's an atmosphere of.

Belonging and shared spaces.

And it wasn't just a place to drink, it was where stories were exchanged and men

alive, do they have stories in the Irish?

Okay.

And where news traveled where sorrow softened because it wasn't carried alone.

And you know, the oldest Irish pub is in Alon, Alon, 908.

AD survived that long.

You know, I do have an interesting story about that.

I was a lobbyist for years in the Kentucky state legislature, and it

was a powerful senator from Covington, Kentucky, which is up right across

the river, Ohio River from Cincinnati.

Very urban, unlike most of Kentucky, very, very urban and.

there was a bill introduced that would've said families, children

under a certain age couldn't go to the pubs, couldn't go to the bars.

He hammered that bill to the ground.

It did never see the light of day, because that's just the thing you do.

You took your kids even as

you

drank a pint.

#76 NANCY - St Pats ZOOM: you took them to have the, the

burger and the fries and the stew

right.

So it's like German and Irish kind of traditions you took your families

and then as you had a pint, what, I don't know what they had, but

you know, they had a good time.

That was what it was all about.

You just

showed

#76 NANCY - St Pats ZOOM: not a bar.

Now it's a pub and I'm still trying to capture

what that is, what the vibe is when you walk into an Irish pub

#76 NANCY - St Pats ZOOM: Oh, it's cozy.

It's welcoming.

And

Yeah.

#76 NANCY - St Pats ZOOM: There was an, I'm not sure it was an Irish pub

or not, but it had that feeling up in Mattapoisette Massachusettes where we

had lived as kids and on Friday nights they had a, I wasn't a team, but a couple

of musicians who would always play.

True strong Irish music.

It was the sea shanties,

you wanted to get up and do a jig and the sound of the, they

call them the Elon pipes,

it's that mournful sound that

yeah.

#76 NANCY - St Pats ZOOM: well, did you ever see the movie, the Quiet Man?

No.

#76 NANCY - St Pats ZOOM: It's John Wayne and Mary Kate Danaher, and it's Irish

all over the place, but it's basically a story of these two that get together

and the young bride loses her dowry, and the whole nine, nine nines go on.

But it's all set in this beautiful Ireland countryside, rough and hard,

and it's in black and white, but in your mind it's in color and it's Irish, it's

interesting.

Yeah.

Green.

That's what

#76 NANCY - St Pats ZOOM: Green is the color of Ireland, right?

It's a color that you always, when somebody has a color green, you think

of what country, what ethnic group.

Ireland and

Oh, I, I gotta tell you a funny story about Alltech.

Alltech's a huge company, worldwide Company 128 facilities.

They immigrated here to Kentucky because it looks so much like Homeland

Ireland, and Diedre was the only one left of the original family.

But she is just the most interesting woman.

But this is the funny story.

You'll love this.

So I always remember that Irish dance, what is it, clogging or something?

Anyway, that fancy footwork that you do

#76 NANCY - St Pats ZOOM: Oh, well, clogging is Southern, but

something like that, but it's, the feet are always in motion.

But we were at a party and Deidra is older than me now, but I asked

her, I said, Deidra, you gonna get out on the dance floor and do that?

Oh, Sylvia, I'm 60 years old, I can't do that.

#76 NANCY - St Pats ZOOM: I'm 60 years old.

I can't do that.

And I'm

#76 NANCY - St Pats ZOOM: I got, I have a little story.

Do you know what a clogging is all about?

Where you just move your feet basically and your hands, which is the Irish dance,

right?

Do you know why they don't lift their hands?

No.

Tell me.

Tell me.

Tell me.

#76 NANCY - St Pats ZOOM: It was apparently, and I hope this is

correct 'cause I didn't research it, but this is the story that's been

passed down to me over the years.

It was apparently because it was not appropriate to

dance, especially on Sundays.

So you, if you, if you saw movement in the house through the window,

you could see the bodies moving, but you couldn't see the hands going.

We

Wow.

Yeah.

And because Ireland's a very religious country too, and so

anyway, isn't that interesting?

But you know so other cultures had villages too,

didn't they?

And Italian hamlets, Greek islands farming communities.

But Ireland's story is just so interesting.

And once I went to Dublin for a chamber meeting.

for the state chamber.

And I heard an Irish lecture say that anywhere in the world he travels.

The moment he opens his mouth and that accent comes out,

someone always buys him a drink

and stuff.

No, I mean, I don't even know that we know exactly, but getting the Food

of Ireland that came to America, I don't know how we, it would take all

day to know everything that caused.

Ireland to be Ireland, but the farmers raised the beef

only descend it to England.

They kept the pigs.

Pigs were easy to keep in Ireland for salt pork cured pork, which

was, part of the staple cabbage and potatoes grew well in the climate and

again, that so resembles Kentucky.

And this bacon and cabbage became a staple.

#76 NANCY - St Pats ZOOM: Everything's better with bacon,

right?

As they say.

That's what I was told down here.

Everything's better than bacon.

We didn't know about that up north, but I certainly have learned about it here.

I gotta be careful about that because you know.

We had the potato famine in the mid 19th century.

And while immigration occurred from that from the beginning

with British rule, it became more prominent concurrent with that famine.

And I think you mentioned that potatoes were kind of, they are crop

and they were so reliant on potatoes.

Ah, So it was

#76 NANCY - St Pats ZOOM: me, what apparently first of all, when you

think of, Ireland, at least from a, food perspective, today, I think of

lamb and all the Irish butter that's so popular now in the grocery store.

I, that's the only kind of butter that I buy right now are in the rich

cheeses and whole grains Irish oatmeal, the Irish steel cut oatmeal is the

only kind of oatmeal that I like.

It takes longer to cook.

Don't get the quick cooking time.

Please, whatever you do, do not get quick cooking.

Steel cut Irish oatmeal.

Take the time to cook it and just put it on early in the morning and

just let it simmer till you're ready

I bet it is good.

. #76 NANCY - St Pats ZOOM: But apparently, first of all, the foods

that you said that were exported to the UK and we'll have to, you said

no, but I, I don't know, maybe yes.

I was told that the food that was exported to the UK was exported because they could

get more money for it, which is very creative and inventive for the Irish.

And maybe that's not true, but I like the story.

So that's, that's from my, from my british roots.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I'm Ireland versus you.

#76 NANCY - St Pats ZOOM: that's right.

I'm right.

I'm, I'm British,

Ah, you beat up on us.

Ah.

#76 NANCY - St Pats ZOOM: We're, taking care of you all.

Like Irish people we're just buying it for more, but apparently at during

the potato famine, the Irish became so reliant on potatoes, and now you

didn't have any potatoes that when the government supplanted the need for.

Starch or, other kind of foods.

they gave a kind of millet, which was, I'm drawing the,

I'm blank on the name of it.

But anyway, it was, it was a type of millet that was a grain to use for

bread and cooking, and the Irish didn't know how to do this almost the entire.

Process of cooking bread had disappeared because you had the potato.

You didn't need it from a sort of a starch.

And so that's kind of how Irish soda Bread started in the whole process

of how to do that without yeast.

But it Fascinating background.

Who would've thought right.

Yeah, that's true and we're gonna talk about that in

some detail here in a little bit.

But when they came to America, I think it's interesting that, the

whole melting pot idea, they salt pork, cured pork was affordable in

Ireland along with plentiful cabbage.

And that's how you know we came up with bacon and cabbage.

But once in America, the Irish learned from their Jewish neighbors.

Beef or brisket Yes, was plentiful.

Abundance, corns of salt were added and thus we have corn, beef, and cabbage,

a take on bacon and cabbage, and that's a common serving on and restaurants on

March 17th, which I think this year's on a Tuesday, along with green beer, right?

#76 NANCY - St Pats ZOOM: And , when I think of Ireland and Lamb, and

I don't know where we get the beef thing, but, or even pork.

I don't even think of pork and Irish, but I guess maybe pork sausage.

But I love the fact that now we have these two cultures who were

living together in major cities.

Sharing and learning from one another we're, I think today there's too much

of a divide not to be political about things, but we try to be so separate

without understanding and learning and leveraging from one another.

And there's so much richness and heritage that we can, we

can benefit from on our plates.

Oh, I agree.

I agree.

And, you know, in, the Irish American kitchens also thought this was inter.

Are all about hearty food, and that goes with the Irish thing.

Now that does not help in Eastern, and I'm picking on Eastern Kentucky, aren't I?

I'm from there.

Okay.

I can do that.

And I know if I look at a potato, I'll put on five pounds.

I mean, I struggle with weight and I really believe.

In my Irish theory of nourishment, why you see so many people with

that metabolic thing, you know, where you're big in the middle,

and that's where I have my trouble.

I just think that the starvation that occurred as a result of the potato

famine, for whatever reasons that caused many of them to flea and come

over here as indentured servants and then they went over the mountain chain

and grew their own independent sort of people, but always hardy food.

I think that's another thing about St. Patrick's Day, we drink and we are merry

and we eat far more than we should.

#76 NANCY - St Pats ZOOM: I think the whole thing of eating hearty

food, no matter what your holiday is kind of a, a thing, right?

It doesn't, matter what it is.

But, potatoes.

So you know, potato, eat lots of butter, right?

And sour cream.

Oh, yeah.

Oh

yeah.

#76 NANCY - St Pats ZOOM: you know, what I've been doing lately with the

potato instead of butter and sour cream.

Tzatziki talk about that for a change.

And Tzatziki is Greek.

It's like a yogurt and cucumber and you put that on top of your potato instead.

Tzatziki there's actually a restaurant chain

here in town called Tzatziki's.

#76 NANCY - St Pats ZOOM: Oh, you should go ask about Tzatziki.

It's delicious.

Need to develop anything else.

I try not to stay away from new foods because I just,

I love food.

#76 NANCY - St Pats ZOOM: I think it's a little more dietetic.

It's not really dietetic, but it's, it's got a little sour cream in it too.

Hey, but what about soda Bread?

Why don't you talk to us about soda bread?

#76 NANCY - St Pats ZOOM: Soda bread.

Talk about soda bread at the melting pot of history.

Soda bread did not actually originate in Ireland.

Surprise, surprise, surprise.

But although we have some of it there, It was the Native

Americans who used pearl Ash.

Think of, the wood ash in a cooking fire that acted as a natural leveaning

agent that made baking soda kind of, you know, it's part of your baking soda.

I guess it wasn't baking soda, right?

What did the same kind of

Well, actually it making soda as an item was actually

introduced in the mid 19th century.

I didn't know that.

#76 NANCY - St Pats ZOOM: I didn't know that

Yeah, like you have in your cupboard is not exactly

what it looked like, but the Irish actually started using that.

Isn't that interesting?

#76 NANCY - St Pats ZOOM: so became a leavening agent in

the bread without the yeast.

I, you know, I'm kind of thinking like my sourdough starter, although

that's a natural yeast, you know, you can dry out sour sourdough starter

and then ship it to your friends.

So I could dry out my sourdough starter Sophia, and ship it to you

if you decided to be so adventurous.

But

Have to wait and see.

#76 NANCY - St Pats ZOOM: we'll have to wait on that.

Anyway, so the Irish developed their own version that was especially

important during the famine in the 1830s, know, which is a short time

after the, famine actually happened.

Irish soda bread is made from wheat, a soft flour versus a hard grainier

flour, which was what the UK had.

And it was flour.

Baking soda and a sour milk.

Something like a buttermilk and salt,

that was it.

Yeah.

#76 NANCY - St Pats ZOOM: And then it

was

baked on a griddle or in an iron skillet and over a fire, which gave it that

crusty outer edge and kind of sweet too.

They must add sugar to it.

Now.

It's the only thing I can think of

' Sylvia Lovely: yeah.

And, they combined that sour milk with baking soda, and that's how

they came up with the yeast agent.

#76 NANCY - St Pats ZOOM: Ah, so it was the milk and the baking

soda that creates the leavening.

I got it.

Yes.

But it was also something that was used as a religious symbol because

you had the cross on the top to scare away the fairies, as I understand.

Yeah, not exactly religious, but fairies were almost a

religion in Ireland, cause they had a whole myth thing about fairies and.

the farmers would carry food out into the woods and leave it in strategic places

so the ferries would not come after them.

And so ferries were scary in Ireland,

you know,

#76 NANCY - St Pats ZOOM: that come about?

I don't know.

Ireland is ancient and they were, they've talked about how.

Its Ancientness kind of comes through in just unusual happenings, fog.

You can see it in movies.

The fog that

settles, it rolls over and, and it just kinda is a mysterious place.

And I think fairies rose up as kind of god-like creatures in their pagan

era, which by the way, St. Patrick turned that around and turned those,

turned away from fairies, turned people more toward religion, in a more stable

kind of more stable kind of way.

#76 NANCY - St Pats ZOOM: But, know what we did a show on icons.

You know the iconic brands, you know the brand.

Dentine more beefs.

Stew like the Dint Moores do.

I always thought that was Irish.

It's not

It sounds Irish,

#76 NANCY - St Pats ZOOM: it sounds Irish.

It apparently was created by a restaurant in New York back,

I don't know, a long time ago.

But anyway, that created a lot of American Irish.

Foods, but true Irish Stew uses lamb not beef

Yeah,

#76 NANCY - St Pats ZOOM: and mutton, which I didn't know, but we're gonna

take a quick break because there's a lot more about St. Patrick's.

We're driving out the snakes and bringing in the Irish soda bread,

let me, ask a quick question

though.

What does DTI more, isn't it a stew.

dent?

It's DNI more stew?

That's another thing to add.

Stews became more beefy in America and thicker with the addition

of flour, and we introduced butter as an American tradition.

Yay.

#76 NANCY - St Pats ZOOM: Butter,

break.

#76 NANCY - St Pats ZOOM: you had me and butter.

We're gonna take a break.

We'll be right back.

So we're back, Sylvia.

It's, it's the Brits, my side versus the Irish, your side.

In fact, my mom parents and two, I think it was two of her brothers immigrated

from the UK around just before the World War II outbreak in the United States to

get away from what was happening over.

Hopefully not have their boys involved in the war, which they did because

they fought for the Americans.

so we be, we became very Americanized very quickly in our family.

We are a lawless bunch.

#76 NANCY - St Pats ZOOM: You're a

we're, yeah, we're kinda like, you don't you come near

my still, I'm gonna do this moonshine.

And it really is a lawless bunch of kind of, that's the last bunch that

came over the Appalachian chain.

They wanna be around other people.

They wanted to just be, and they were very self-sufficient.

Found things in the, in the woods.

And even my grandmother, you know, who lived next to a wooded area.

Hillsides, they would go into the hillsides and, and pick up, grasses and

things that they knew, sassafras and

all

#76 NANCY - St Pats ZOOM: I think of the Hatfield and the McCoys.

the, famous battle, were they Irish?

I don't know, in Kentucky.

Yeah.

I mean, there's a lot of history there that we could go into if we wanted to.

#76 NANCY - St Pats ZOOM: But anyway, the Irish was seen by the Brits is stupid and

immoral, and today the Irish culture is rising and we can't forget the fairies.

We talked about the fairies a little earlier.

I have, I have a quick story about fairies.

So I put a note out to some of the folks around here to find out if they had any

interesting Irish stories around food.

Annette Tolbert had actually been a grammar school teacher in her day,

and she shared how on March 1st her classroom turned into everything green.

There was mayhem, there was chaos, there was all sorts of crazy things going on.

And one of the things that she had on her desk something left by the ferries.

It was a bowl of milk that you had to add something else to, and

the kids had to stir it up, and the bowl of milk turned green.

And the joke was, do we eat it or do we just toss it out?

But the ferries, were always trying to help them find the four leaf

clover, which brought them to the end of the rainbow and the pot of gold.

We have amazing rainbows here in Florida.

I have seen the end of the rainbow.

I'll, I'll, I'll grant you that one.

Okay.

#76 NANCY - St Pats ZOOM: The end of the rainbow I think is a safe way.

Oh yeah.

And then we can't forget St. Patrick.

We gotta remember again, bears repeating.

He was a revolutionary for his time.

He translated pagan beliefs into Christian ones seasons, land,

storytelling, and that shamrock.

Was the Trinity and Saints replaced spirits, so you had food,

blessings, feast, days, and fasting.

and that kind of translated into what we do eating is a spiritual act

and not necessarily in a religious, but that's what St. Patrick did.

He, drove the Irish toward more religious beliefs than the of pagan,

you know, people will find a way to have beliefs bigger than themselves.

You know, and and that's weird in some cases, and in some cases it's, it's okay.

#76 NANCY - St Pats ZOOM: But I think it's, I think that's good because

food helps bring out that sense of, everything's bigger than you.

It's bigger than what's on your plate.

It's about community.

It's about storytelling.

Bringing everybody together for the purpose of sustaining family

and, the people that you care about and love and life in general.

Yeah.

and of course we can't forget that, we lose those loved ones along the way.

So keeping that memory and, keeping them.

With us is how that happens.

And I think the Irish culture is just magical in that it does

allow us to believe in things we can't behold in person and in

our sight, except in our stories.

And you tell those stories over and over.

We've shared stories about our parents and their parents

and that's how people live on.

And that's the bigger belief that I think is at play that makes us

so attracted to the Irish culture.

#76 NANCY - St Pats ZOOM: I don't think there's any culture that's more magical

It is magical, I think with fairies and leprechauns everywhere.

The Keebler cookies and you know,

the butter.

#76 NANCY - St Pats ZOOM: LER cookies.

I love the Keebler cookies and the little leprechaun.

And then as you mentioned, the cheese.

I can't remember the brand name of that cheese.

And the butter too.

#76 NANCY - St Pats ZOOM: there are a variety.

of, brands, and we can't forget the cereal Lucky Charms, because

they're magically delicious.

Although I don't think that's very Irish.

I mean, the Lucky Charms cereal,

, Sylvia Lovely: Yeah.

#76 NANCY - St Pats ZOOM: So St. Patrick's Day isn't about getting it right.

It is a celebration of everything that matters.

and your history and your heritage, which is what we're all about here,

Sylvia, right at Family Tree Food and Stories because it's a meaning

of feeling and place and belonging, like belonging in that pub.

So on one day at least try to eat some corned

beef and just pay homage to the fact that it wasn't always that.

Although if you wanna be really authentic, there's plenty of

pork belly around, Soda bread.

And something Cabbage.

And I love cooked cabbage, by the way.

That is

something.

I absolutely love it.

And my chef made it the other night and it was so good.

#76 NANCY - St Pats ZOOM: You can make cabbage steaks too on the grill, which

are an interesting kind of thing.

You it's, anyway, It's very good.

It's kind of like cauliflower steaks,

but you kind of have to cook it down a little bit because

otherwise it's too hard.

That's one of his options for or the restaurant

occasionally cabbage or cauliflower.

Steak.

Yay.

There's all kinds of good stuff out there.

#76 NANCY - St Pats ZOOM: So enjoy, welcome in the Irish and something

green because it's all about comfort living and keeping a story alive.

Those tall tales can be actually short ones or continue on for

generations to come because.

Every meal has a story and every story is a feast, and we'd like you to please

one more time, share like subscribe.

Every Thursday we come out and help us with our survey and that

information will be in the episode notes and happy St. Patrick's Day or

as we'd like to say, go and error lob.

I think that's go Air lo.

I think that's the correct way of saying it, which means good luck.

And top of the morning.

#76 NANCY - St Pats ZOOM: Top of the morning to you

you do this,

#76 NANCY - St Pats ZOOM: We release first thing, top of the morning to you last.

all

#76 NANCY - St Pats ZOOM: care.

Be well

and we'll see you soon.

Bye-bye.