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| John and me at St. Patrick's Mt. in Ireland |
For instance, lots of people in the U.S., whether of Irish ancestry or not, recognize this big day of all things Irish by going for corned beef and cabbage. I recently discovered corned beef is not a traditional Irish dish!
After the English colonized Ireland, they started raising beef...only to export it out of the country to England and beyond. For exporting, the beef was salted and pickled with peppercorns and other spices, i.e., "corned." As a result, back in the olden days, beef became too expensive for most native Irish to eat.
With the Irish potato famine, and the hundreds of thousands of Irish emigrating to America, many of them settled in U.S. cities, in immigrant neighborhoods. Irish folks found themselves living near Jewish delis and butcher shops. With many Irish getting higher wages and standard of living, they could now afford the corned beef they found in the local deli. Naturally, they prepared the beef with familiar foods from the old sod, spuds and cabbage, and a new
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| Irish Flag Food |
John's daughter Sasha likes to celebrate St. Patrick's Day in a big way...last night, she created a festive corned beef dinner with green, white and (sort of) orange to represent the flag of what country?!
Now, about those vampires...while vampires definitely have nothing to do with the patron saint of Ireland, did you know lots of vampire lore originated from Irish authors? Bram Stoker, the creator of "Dracula" was born in Dublin. While "Dracula" is pretty much the definitive vampire of literature, decades before, an Irish writer, Sheridan Le Fanu, penned "Carmilla." Featuring a female vampire, "Carmilla" is the first vampire story I ever read (I go for romantic women's fiction over horror!). But the novella's sense of dread, building suspense, and just good 'ol spookiness was utterly riveting! You can find the story in the QPB Book of Irish Literature.
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