by Chris Lucas
Guest Column
The Keating Files – March 7, 2021
March is here, and for many that means the month of green - from flowers and trees just beginning to blossom to Saint Patrick’s Day and everything associated with it.
One of the things people think of immediately with Saint Patrick’s Day is the hearty traditional meal of corned beef and cabbage.
Did you know that, in Ireland itself, corned beef isn’t really a delicacy or traditional? Bacon or lamb is their meal of choice on Saint Patrick’s Day.
So why corned beef? Immigration.
People have been making corned beef since the Middle Ages. It’s a way to preserve meat using grains of rock salt (which was often called corn in Europe) and potassium nitrate (Salt Peter), which turns the meat bright pink. In some areas they skip the nitrate, and the beef turns gray (sometimes known as New England Corned Beef or Boiled Beef.)
Cattle was plentiful in Ireland in the 1600s and 1700s, and corned beef was produced and exported in mass quantities. The problem was that the British were shipping all of the food out of the country and not leaving any for their poor Irish tenant farmers, who relied on potatoes and root vegetables as staple meals, along with pork, which the British disdained.
The famine and blight in Ireland in the mid 1800s wiped out the potato crop, causing The Great Hunger. The Irish were denied education, left with scraps and forced to work long hours doing manual labor for bits of food.
That caused a massive Irish migration to the United States, mostly to big cities on the East Coast, like New York, Boston, Philadelphia, Baltimore and Savannah. Some even went west, to places like Pittsburgh, Cleveland and Chicago.
It was in those cities that the Irish-Americans thrived. Their children were given free educations, and the hope was that they wouldn’t have to work at manual labor jobs causing their shoulders to grow large and their lives to be cut short. This new generation was called “Narrow Backs.”
It was that group who began to mingle with the Italian and Eastern European immigrants who populated the same crowded neighborhoods and tenements. They spoke each other’s languages and ate each other’s food. That’s where corned beef comes in.
Jewish immigrants from Europe discovered that beef in the United States was plentiful and cheap, offering a culinary option other than pork. They cured and pickled the beef in brine, creating New York style corned beef and pastrami.
The Irish fell in love with corned beef, which they were denied back home. It was a cheap meal that they could throw in a pot with vegetables and cabbage to feed their family for days.
Since New York invented the Saint Patrick’s Day parade in 1762, gatherings after the event became popular. Corned beef and cabbage was the go-to dish. It became so associated with March and the Irish that Abraham Lincoln had it served at the banquet to celebrate his inauguration in March, 1861.
One last corned beef innovation came in 1914 when a Broadway star wandered into Arnold Reuben’s New York restaurant late at night after a show. She demanded a new dish, so he whipped together corned beef, Swiss cheese, sauerkraut, and Russian Dressing, heating and melting it all on Rye.
Thus was born the non-Kosher - mixing dairy and meat is a no-no - Reuben Sandwich. (A hotel in Omaha, Nebraska, also claims to be the birthplace, but New York is more likely.)
Today, some of the best corned beef in the world can still be found in Jewish delicatessens and Irish Pubs.
You can enjoy it on rye (and only on rye, preferably with mustard. As Buddy Hackett once said “Any time a gentile orders corned beef on white bread with mayo, a Jew faints somewhere.”) with an ice cold Coke or with a green beer.
When you do, be sure to say a quiet thank you to all of the immigrants who made corned beef an American staple.
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Chris Lucas is the author of Top Disney: 100 Top Ten Lists of the Best of Disney, from the Man to the Mouse and Beyond.
On the PRESS CLUB C Podcast, enjoy Ray’s discussion with Chris Lucas about his career as an actor, author and Disney expert. Tune in right here!
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