The corned beef stops here
Honoring a tradition you’ve never liked
Waking up to “top o’ the morning to you” in a slightly-better-than-mediocre Irish accent was just one part of our St. Patrick’s Day traditions growing up. Getting the correct reply (“and the balance of the day to you”) was always a bit of a struggle when you’re groggy and accent work has never been a forte of yours. However, St. Paddy’s Day was always something we celebrated — thanks largely to my mother being 100% Irish.
While that never translated to my appearance (beyond a paleness that lacked freckles and was regularly called “pasty” by my aunts) or a chance to join an Irish step team, there was something comforting in doing something deliberate to honor my mom’s family and their roots. I can only imagine she, the daughter of a Kelly and a Kilpatrick, felt even more warmly about it.
Beyond the morning greeting and the pressure to wear green, the primary tradition observed was the making of corned beef and cabbage. I say “making of” because I can’t include “eating of” since I despise corned beef and cabbage. On my list of top hated foods/flavors where bluefish pâté takes the pole position, corned beef is pretty high. Boiled cabbage a bit lower, penalized far more for the smell of it than the taste or texture. In fact, the smell is a huge part of the dread factor. Four hours of corned beef and potatoes and cabbage boiling on the stove has that certain “je ne sais quoi” that to me translates to “middle school locker room.”
Granny, my mom’s mom, introduced me to a variation of colcannon – where we mashed the cabbage, carrots, and potatoes together with a little butter and some “s and p” on the plate. It was the only edible part of the meal for me. Four hours of dread only to end up eating a plate of mashed potatoes doesn’t necessarily bring back the fondest memories and certainly didn’t compare to holidays that included candy. Theoretically, in the Philadelphia area at least, you could say there is a candy component in the form of “Irish Potatoes” but there’s a reason they haven’t made it big and spread outside of the area. Or rather two reasons: taste and appearance.
Add to that the fact that St. Paddy’s Day has been so wildly co-opted by drunken chaos, it’s hard to even know what you’re celebrating. This past weekend, unfortunately, the only way to get to the Philadelphia Orchestra from the restaurant where we had dinner was past a Fadó. I hadn’t recently rethought my definition of hell, but it turns out a Fadó in Center City Philadelphia on the Saturday before St. Patrick’s Day comes close. Green attire is made easy by Eagles jerseys but I doubt any of the people I saw could find Ireland on a map, even when sober.
I know that falsely claiming heritage as an excuse to celebrate has been around for decades, although surely St. Paddy’s Day and Cinco de Mayo are the two biggest victims of complete bastardization. Having not been near a Fadó after 6 PM in quite some time, I’m not in the best position to judge whether it’s gotten worse or whether my tolerance for tomfoolery has declined — likely some of both.
The accepted standards for cultural appropriation were certainly lower before but there was a 2003 trend that highlighted peak absurdity: Urban Outfitters baby t-shirts that proudly proclaimed “Everyone loves a [insert nationality here] girl” in small letters across the chest of a way too tight shirt inviting people to both stare harder and make an uncomfortable comment leaning into stereotypes. The ultimately discontinued “Everyone loves a Jewish girl” featured shopping bags and dollar signs in the design. Others were less offensive — “Everyone loves an Irish girl” came in green with a smattering of shamrocks, and an unattractive brown “Everyone loves a German girl” with beer steins.
Somewhere between the Eagles jerseys and the shamrock baby tees, I decided I’d rather co-opt with intention. My practice has been to use holidays as an excuse for a theme meal with regionally inspired cuisine. Having no French blood whatsoever hasn’t stopped me from doing an annual Bastille Day celebration. Other celebrations have included: Derby Day, (haggis-free) Burns Night, Greek Orthodox Easter, and throughout the Men’s & Women’s World Cup cooking the cuisine of whichever countries were playing.
With that in mind, I did realize a few years ago that there were ways to celebrate St. Patrick’s Day beyond my abhorred corned beef. Unlike other shifted traditions that adapted after my mom died, I made the decision while she was alive to make St. Paddy’s my own in a way that didn’t involve the smell of cabbage filling my house for days on end.
Each year I’ve used it as an excuse to revisit other Irish recipes. Colcannon is delicious but with other meats. I still think soda bread is unpleasantly dry but after making multiple recipes can honestly say I’ve given it a good go. I’ve attempted to recreate my grandmother’s lamb stew (close to impossible because the recipe was apparently written on two cards and I’ve only got the second one…)
We’ve done variations on bangers and mash and obviously both shepherd’s and cottage pies. One constant over the years has been Nigella Lawson’s Chocolate Guinness Cake which, holidays aside, is my go-to chocolate cake recipe. The recipe was originally in Nigella’s “Feast” cookbook which largely reinforces my overall celebratory premise: that there’s no reason not to cook for all the holidays. This year, we’re doubling down on Guinness and having Guinness Pie as our main and roasted cabbage on the side.
If we’re lucky, life is long and, mostly, ordinary. So it’s still worth celebrating and making each day worth as much as it can be. Now “top of the morning to you” starts accent-free over text with my brothers. My husband cannot, for the life of him, learn the correct response but laughing at him over it is yet another way I’ve found joy.
When in doubt, there’s really good cake.
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