In this crazy time period—everybody changing their daily lives to fit around the spread of the corona viru- I felt that Saint Patrick’s Day was washed away. Usually, Irish pubs are packed, families are coming over to celebrate, bagpipes play off in the distance, and parades crowd the streets yet this year was different. Americans instead stayed at home with very little interaction with the outside world. However, the one thing that could remain the same during this chaos was the food. Just like a usual Saint Patrick’s day, I woke up to a sight of the leprechaun coming and Irish soda bread. Irish soda bread is one of my favorites, and my grandma always has a good time making it. Although it was a rough day with very little interaction, at least I had my soda bread.
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Best Irish food today that actually tastes good would be a side of atlantic salmon, seasoned with salt and pepper, and poached in the oven at 180c for half an hour in olive oil, vine tomaoes and dill. Serve with buttery mashed potatoes. Simple, easy to make, and delicious.
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If you want to try a snack food that is really Irish for St Patrick's Day you should try a Tayto Crisp Sandwich with a glass of ice cold milk....not very traditional, but definitely very popular here and definitely very Irish!!
.....eating lamb stew here, Irish whiskey....
blessings...
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Imitation is the greatest form of flattery and if America wants to embrace the Irish and really go all out to celebrate the day what difference does it make if it is served in Ireland or not. Just celebrate being Irish or wanting to be Irish and do it whatever way you want.
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The Buena Vista saloon in the Fisherman’s Wharf district of San Francisco boasts of first serving Irish Coffee in America, in 1952. Great bar. Great coffee.
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Eons ago (alright many decades ago) the NYT published Herb McCarthy's Irish Soda Bread recipe. We tried it and loved it. Over the years it passed from yellowing and crumbling newsprint, to a hand-written index card, and, in its final iteration, to a typed version, which we laminated to ensure its survival. We have used it faithfully every year (and in between), and it has never failed us. pi day, 301 pm
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Add raisins to an Irish soda bread and it's a Tea Cake. Traditional Irish Soda Bread has four ingredients: Flour (soft if you can get it), baking soda, salt, and Buttermilk (Sour Milk). For history and Traditional recipes go to http://www.sodabread.info
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I can't believe I have to pay extra to see the recipes linked in this article. What a scam...
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never knew why it was called soda bread! That was somewhat mind blowing.
Erin go bragh!
The photo is prettier than what I grew up with in Boston on St. Patrick's day every year, but it is essentially the same meal (my mother used white potatoes, and also added turnips and parsnips). After more than half a century, it's what will still be on my table on March 17.
Apologies to my grandmother, but I make Julia Child's soda bread, which is similar to Melissa Clark's but has more buttermilk. It is delicious and perfect every time. I make two, one plain and one with currants.
The brown bread with raisins in it that I grew up with was really brown, made with molasses. It came in a can from B&M. I still have it but no one in the house but me likes it. We never had it on St. P's day, but had it about once a week with baked beans and ham or hot dogs. It was always served hot, steamed, and was much easier to heat up once the microwave came into our lives. Now that Durgin Park is gone I don't know where people could get it fresh. It was nice with Indian Pudding for dessert.
I lived in the UK for many years and never saw anything like what I had as a kid in Boston. On St. Patrick's Day, I had to buy a weird meat called salt beef brisket that was a pale substitution for my very Irish American corned beef and cabbage dinner. It was not the same.
PS: one thing from the past that you can't purchase any more is 'mustard pickle,' that my parents liked with this meal. It had watermelon rind in it. Piccalilli is not the same. The British version is not the same. RIP.
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@Penny
I haven't been to Boston in a long time, but have fond memories of Durgin Park. I went there by myself once and was seared at a long empty table. When another woman solo diner came in, they seated her directly across from me which I thought was rude of them. However, we started chatting as we ate our meals (I had the yankee pot roast) and we had a lovely time.
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I grew up near Worcester,MA and every Saturday night we had hot dogs, baked beans, and that weird brown bread in a can...that we loved.
I can still smell that sweet molasses scent it gave off when it was heated up. As kids,would drench it in butter. Thanks for the memories!
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I also grew up in New England. Nearly every home had beans, hot dogs and brown bread on Saturday night.
It's a mystery to me why Americans seem to think there's an Irish dish called "corned beef and cabbage". I have never come across this in Ireland, nor heard of anyone here eating it.
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@poc, It's not an Irish dish, and most Americans know that. It is an Irish-American dish. Irish immigrants were often poor, and they could best afford less expensive cuts of meat, such as beef brisket. A boiled dinner with corned beef brisket, potatoes, cabbage, parsnips, and beets became traditional for St. Patrick's Day. I think that the best part of this is having corned beef hash as leftovers. Corned beef and cabbage is one of those dishes, such as chop suey, hard-shell tacos, and spaghetti & meatballs, which is associated with immigrants but not with the country that the immigrants came from.
It's not clear to me why the Times has included Irish Soda Bread here. It's a good bread, but it's not really part of an Irish-American St. Patrick's Day.
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@Bruce: Every St. Patrick’s Day our German-American Mom made corned beef and cabbage for dinner. Our Irish-American Dad, son of emigrants from Clare, hated it, but never let on. He would smile, thank her, and eat it with the pretense of delight - but never ask for seconds. The one dish he remembered his mother making was champ - a mixture of mashed potatoes, buttermilk or cream, butter and “something green” - he thought it was spinach, but many recipes call for green onions (vegetables were not high on his list of preferred foods). Corned beef and cabbage? Never ever, in his thoroughly Irish childhood.
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@poc You're right! It's an Irish-American thing!
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Can I just say that the lead photo with this article is the blandest I've ever seen in a food article. It does not entice me to make the dish, desire to eat the dish or pay extra for a section of the paper that should be included in the base price.
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@Calimom: In the years before you could find very good, creative cooking all over Ireland (in both the cities and many small towns, making the country a great destination for foodies) there was a saying: “An Irish cook? If you can boil water, you’re over-qualified.” That wholly unappetizing-looking plate is a remnant of those times that should be forgotten.
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Sorry, but in almost four decades of traveling to Ireland, I have never had brown bread with raisins in it - nor have I seen (until recently) “Irish soda bread” in bakeries, and then in only one in north Dublin. As tasty as this is, it seems to be an entirely American invention, as is Irish Coffee (which, I understand, was concocted first at the Irish Pavilion at the 1965 New York World’s Fair).
Freshly baked homemade brown bread is the only thing I crave straight off the plane, and I have it with every meal while I’m over. When I bake it at home, it never tastes the same; I gave up trying years ago. Right now I’m on a train from Cork to Dublin, looking forward to my next warm, thick, grainy slice. Without raisins.
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@Olenska I agree with your comment on raisins in brown bread I never have seen that in Ireland as well. But the Irish coffee I believe was originated in an Irish bar in San Francisco and before 1965.
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@Inspector: Thanks!
@Olenska Well, I can't comment on raisins in brown bread, but both my Dublin-born grandmothers made it at least once a month. My maternal grandmother put caraway seeds in hers. Both had their recipes from their mothers, also life long Dubs.
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Where’s the recipe for boxty (sp)? My recollection is, that it was made by grating potatoes into a mash and then draining off the fluid. Flour, eggs, and buttermilk were added to make a pancake-type mixture, which was cooked on a hot skillet with plenty of butter. Cinnamon, jam, or syrup topped it off.
Memory plays tricks and I may not have the correct ingredients except the potatoes. I have not had boxty in over 70 years but when I get home from Florida I’m going to make some for myself and my grandchildren.
Anyone have a different recipe?
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@Thomas Gilhooley This is the recipe I've used for years:
1.5 cups raw grated potato
1 cup mashed potato
1 cup flour
1 egg
splash of milk or cream
salt & pepper to taste
Combine all and from there cook in butter (or bacon fat if you've got it) just like pancakes. Flip it over and cook the other side as well.And don't forget to say:
Boxty in the griddle
Boxty in the pan
If you can't make boxty
You'll never get a man.
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This may be cheating but, every St. Patrick’s Day, we bypass the middlemen, and head directly for the corned beef hash, inspired by James Beard’s “marvelous corned beef hash” recipe. Prepare the corned beef as you normally would. Sauté some combination of red onions, leeks, yellow onions in a cast iron skillet, add a similar amount of waxy potatoes, like Yukon Gold, that have been steamed and softened. Gradually add an equal amount of the corned beef, and chop everything until the skillet is roughly half full, and press it down, so that you have a kind of Swiss Rösti with corned beef. Add a bit of heavy cream to accelerate the browning, and work the hash, turning it as the bottom browns. When the mixture forms a crust, and the moisture has evaporated, serve with a drizzle of ketchup. Once the corned beef has been prepared, this process should take about 30-40 minutes. Simple, but heavenly!
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@Steve Griffith
You are missing only one thing. The poached eggs on top.
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