Dance as if no one were watching.
Sing as if no one was listening.
Live every day as if it were your last…Irish Proverb
Before you all go out and buy corned beef and cabbage, you should know that the Irish do not actually eat that very much…and especially not on St. Patrick’s Day. They’re more apt to have shepherd’s pie or lamb stew and Irish soda bread…and of course a pint of Guinness! Here’s a little history I found on the subject….(excerpt from this article on Salon.com)
“My grandmother was perplexed that Americans associate corned beef with being Irish. In Ireland, most people ate pig. Lots of bacon, lots of sausage (lots of trichinosis).
…Corned beef was made popular in New York bars at lunchtime. The bars offered a ‘free lunch’ to the Irish construction workers who were building NYC in the early part of the 20th century. But there’s no such thing as a free lunch. You had to buy a couple of beers or shots of whiskey to get that free lunch. And that’s how corned beef became known as an ‘Irish’ food. My grandmother hated the stuff and wouldn’t allow it in her home. I myself first tasted corned beef when I was in my thirties at some non-Irish-American person’s ‘St. Paddy’s Day’ party.”
Dismayed, I sent that letter to a friend from Dublin. “Every word of that post is pure gospel,” she wrote back. “We NEVER eat corned beef and cabbage. We mock Americans and their bizarre love of that ‘meat’.”
So, there you have it! Eat bacon, it’s much better than corned beef any day!
Happy St. Patrick’s Day
You cannot direct the wind, but you can adjust the sails!
Haha, that’s too funny. Maggie made corned beef and cabbage for Sunday dinner last night. It was delicious. I vote for keeping the American version of the tradition.
Started the day with bacon and soda bread, then sent the girls to school with loaves of soda bread and Irish butter. Tried not to be a “know it all” when the history teacher talked about his corned beef cooking in the crock pot. Made beef stew for dinner, served with more soda bread, and finished off with cake decorated for St. Patrick’s Day. It was $21 but they sold it to me for $8 ’cause the day was almost over. The Irish are frugal, yes? And awesome.
Sounds like the perfect meal choices to me!