What part of the cow does the corned beef come from

[dianeduane]

We've had about twenty queries about this today. We always get these this time of year.

(sigh) I surrender.

Corned beef comes from the brisket and silverside (just under the topside) of the cow. Both of these are tough cuts requiring either long, slow cooking, or pickling in brine, or both -- hence their use in corned beef. See this article for lots more information.

And I don't know anyone in my part of Ireland who will be eating it tomorrow. It's usually seen as poor people's food. It's a pain to cook properly, and most people don't have the time or inclination, these days. The above article will tell you more about that, too. (Once again I checked the supermarket to see if I was possibly mistaken about this. And once again I found the usual result: three packages of corned beef, eighty packages of assorted pork and boiling bacon.)

To all those of you about to go Drown The Shamrock: Yes, yes, for tomorrow you're all Irish. Enjoy. (But be warned: when you get over here, no matter how many Irish ancestors you have, even this one, twenty years won't be anything like enough to make you really Irish. And don't think an Irish passport will matter: the neighbors won't be fooled. ..But you knew the job was dangerous when you took it.)

Enjoy anyway. And don't dye the beer green. That's one of the things really Irish people really don't need to do. The green is either in your heart, or it's not. Putting it in your liver won't matter a bit. :)

Tags: corned beef, Irish, Ireland, St. Patrick's Day, St. Paddy's Day, St. Patty's Day, who the heck is Patty, Patrick, Irish food, what do people eat on Saint Patrick's Day, what part of the cow does the corned beef come from

Comments

[keristor.livejournal.com]

My sister and I have just been working out that we're 1/8 Irish -- but we won't be "doing the day" (neither of us drink beer anyway, whatever the colour). But I do like corned beef, it's one of the foods I remember as a child (when we probably did have it because it was cheap, but unlike Spam it tastes good).

[bellinghman.livejournal.com]

Go back a little bit, and I think I'm actually more than half Irish.

But I'm English. Sorry. I may have cousins in Co. Louth (never met them, though clanwilliam's mother knew them), but Irish though my family may have been, I don't consider that to last for ever.

(At one point, my family had both a Free State Senator and an English MP, simultaneously. We now only have the MP.)

[keristor.livejournal.com]

Unless someone with clout objects (like the passport people), I'm Cornish. If pushed I put 'British'. OK, it's my mother's side which is mostly Cornish/Breton (and that side has the Irish as well), but my father's side is just "generically English", and to the Cornish I'm a 'cousin' (they only have two groups, 'cousin' and 'furriner') so they get my allegiance.

It's interesting how some cultures keep the family connection through as many generations as can be traced whereas others seem to want to disavow any connections apart from those still living.

[bellinghman.livejournal.com]

It's an interesting point, yes. When you live in a community, do you belong to it to the exclusion of all else, or do you term yourself an exile from some other community?

One extreme case of the latter is the stereotypical Irish American, the one who has a single great grandparent who emigrated from Killarney sometime in the late 19th century. The one who has never been to Ireland, nor either parent, nor any grandparent, but who is nonetheless Irish, and who will donate money to the cause of the ejection of British troops from Dublin, and so on.

(I think we should have a Tom Lehrer song here.)

What I do find most irritating in such cases is actually not the claim to be Irish, but the inherent denial of whatever other heritage they have.