Tattie Scones

Tattie scones, or potato scones, are an essential part of the full Scottish breakfast, but I'd be willing to bet that most Americans have never even heard of them.  So if you're picturing something like a cross between that blueberry scone you got at Starbucks this morning and light, fluffy potato bread, think again.  They're also not much like the light, fluffy scones you'd see at tea time in the UK.  They're really more like a potato cake than anything else, but rolled out much thinner than other potato cakes I've made.

This is a traditional Scottish dish, probably dating from the 18th or 19th century, and as with many traditional foods, there are many different variations.  These range from very basic recipes with just potato, butter, and flour to recipes with a little baking soda to a slightly thicker version with chives and dill.  As delicious as some of these sounded, I decided as usual to go with the simplest version of the recipe I could find and got started.

The recipe I chose really only had two ingredients, if "leftover mash" counts as one ingredient.  It's just five parts cold leftover mash to one part flour, fried in hot oil.  Really, it couldn't be simpler.  They also re-heat well, fried briefly in the pan with your bacon and eggs in the morning, so don't hesitate to make a large batch.  This recipe makes about 16.

Ingredients:

• 1 1/4 cup leftover mashed potatoes*
• 1/4 cup AP flour, plus more for dusting
• 1/4 cup vegetable oil for frying

Instructions:
Mix potatoes and flour in a medium bowl.  Turn out onto a  well floured surface, roll out until about 1/4 inch thick.**  Cut into triangles 3 inches across, and set aside.

Heat the oil over medium-high heat in a medium frying pan until a small scrap of dough dropped into the pan causes the oil to bubble, rather than just sinking.  Put the scones in the pan a few at a time (I did 4 at a time in a 10-inch pan) and fry about a minute on each side until slightly golden.  Remove from the pan and place on a plate lined with paper towels to drain.

Tattie scones make a very simple addition to your breakfast or base for appetizers, and can be enjoyed in any number of ways, though my personal favorites are either hot with butter, or cold with smoked salmon, cream cheese, and dill.  Some people eat them with butter and jam like a regular scone, too, though I'm not sure how I feel about the combination of fried potato and sweet jam.

*These are a great way to use up leftover mashed potatoes (have I mentioned before that I always make too many?), but you can, of course, use a fresh batch.  Just add butter and milk like normal, and allow extra time for the potatoes to cool.

**I sometimes find it's easier to flatten the dough by hand in sections, since less of it ends up stuck to the counter and rolling pin that way.

Simple Scottish Scones

In the US, a scone is a crumbly, sweet pastry with fruit or sometimes chocolate in it.  The proper Scottish variety is nothing like that.  In fact, a true British scone is more like what we call a biscuit over here.  It's light and crumbly, but not particularly sweet.  Of course, this is remedied with liberal quantities of jam and either butter or clotted cream.  They're also very quick and easy to bake, making them the perfect treat to accompany your afternoon tea.





Ingredients:

• 1 1/2 cups AP flour
• 2 tsp baking powder
• 4 tbs butter
• 2 tbs sugar
• 2/3 cup milk

Instructions:

Preheat oven to 425F.  In a medium bowl, combine flour and baking powder.  Rub in butter by hand or using a pastry cutter until the mixture resembles sand.  Mix in the sugar, and then the milk with a fork.  This should make a slightly sticky dough.  If the mixture is too wet, just add a little flour.

Turn out onto a floured surface and roll the dough out until it's about 1/2" thick.  Cut into circles with a cookie cutter, or into squares or triangles with a butter knife.  Place on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper and bake for about 15 minutes in the preheated oven, until the scones have risen and are slightly golden.  Allow to cool slightly.

To serve: split the scones in half using a knife and spread with butter or clotted cream and jam.  Enjoy fresh from the oven with a cup of black tea for breakfast or an afternoon snack.

Makes 6-8 scones.


Brief notes on butter:

First, while butter is the traditional accompaniment to scones in Scotland (and is absolutely delicious), clotted cream is also popular. Clotted cream is close in texture to butter, but tastes more like heavy cream, and is originally from the southwest of England, particularly Devon and Cornwall.  You'll be able to find it at some specialty stores in the US, but it will be expensive.  Apparently it can be made at home, too, though I have yet to try this.  On the whole, unless you're hosting a fancy tea party, I'd recomend butter.

Second, which butter to use?  Well, as I explained in my post on Scottish shortbread, I use Kerrygold Irish butter because it and other European style butters have more fat, and therefore more flavor, than American butter.  It's more expensive than store-brand butter, but after one bite of softer, more flavorful baked goods, your taste buds will definitely thank you!  That being said, American butter will also work, if you don't want to spend the extra money.

Potato Cakes With Bacon and Cheddar

Mashed potatoes, fried with bacon and cheese.  What could
possibly go wrong?

Looking for a way to use up those leftover mashed potatoes from your St Patrick's Day feast?  While you could just make a huge batch of corned beef hash, why not do something a little more elegant?  These potato cakes with bacon, cheese, and snipped chives are perfect for brunch, lunch, or dinner, served with some greens and your favorite veggie.  They're also extremely easy to make, and are a convenient way or using up leftover mash (I always make too much).  If you don't have a lot of extra mashed potatoes sitting around, you are, of course, welcome to make a fresh batch for this recipe, but keep in mind they'll be too sticky if they don't have a chance to cool a bit before mixing in the bacon.

Ingredients:

• 2 1/2 cups leftover mashed potatoes
• 6 strips of bacon
• 1/2 cup grated white cheddar cheese (I used Dubliner)
• 2 tbs snipped fresh chives
• Flour, for dusting
• 1 tbs butter

Instructions:

First, fry the bacon in a medium or large frying pan until crispy.  Remove from the pan and place on paper towels to cool.  Reserve the fat in the pan.  While the bacon cools, grate the cheese and wash and cut the chives.  Mix them with the potatoes in a medium bowl.  When the bacon is cool, crumble it and add it to the potato mixture.

With lightly floured hands, form the mixture into six 3-inch diameter, 1 inch thick cakes.  Dust each cake lightly with flour.  Reheat the bacon fat and butter on medium heat.*  Fry the cakes in batches so they have plenty of space in the pan until golden brown, about seven minutes per side.  Serve hot.


These are an absolutely delicious appetizer, or serve portions of 2 cakes alongside a salad of spring greens and watercress for lunch or a light dinner.

*Chef's tip: you don't want to start cooking in fat that isn't hot enough yet, because the cakes will absorb the fat, stick to the pan, and fall apart.  You can tell when it's ready by dropping a small piece of potato in the pan.  If it sinks to the bottom, the fat isn't hot enough yet.  If it doesn't sink, and the fat bubbles up around it, you can put the cakes in the pan.

Irish (American) Soda Bread, Version II

My first Irish (American) soda bread experiment was absolutely delicious, and I would definitely make it again, but the bread turned out much softer and springier than I had expected, and I felt it could do with a little more fruit.  Somehow, it just wasn't quite like the soda bread I used to buy this time of year from a local bakery.  So, naturally, I decided to give it another try, especially since I needed some bread for my St Patrick's Day breakfast anyway.

This time, I took the same simple white soda bread recipe I used last time, and added currants and a little sugar.  I hoped leaving out the egg I used last time would result in something with the texture of a basic soda bread, and the sugar and currants would add just enough sweetness to the finished product.

It turned out wonderfully!  It's just sweet enough, but still has the texture of traditional soda bread.  Perfect for breakfast, with lots of butter!


Ingredients:

• 2 cups AP flour
• 1 cup buttermilk
• 1 tbs brown sugar
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 1/3 cup dried currants

Instructions:

Preheat oven to 350F.  Flour a baking sheet.  Combine flour, sugar, and baking soda in a medium mixing bowl.  Add buttermilk and stir until just combined.  Fold in currants.  Turn dough out onto a well-floured surface and form into a round loaf.  Place loaf on the floured baking sheet, cut a deep cross in the top (at least half way through), and bake in the preheated oven 30-40 minutes, or until the loaf is golden brown and makes a hollow sound when tapped on the bottom.  Allow to cool slightly before serving.

St Patrick's Day Explained

Parades are a major part of modern St Patrick's Day celebrations,
but how traditional are they?

Today, St Patrick's Day (at least in the US) is that one day a year when everyone's Irish.  Millions of Americans, regardless of whether they have Irish blood or not, celebrate by wearing green, drinking, watching parades, and carrying on in dozens of ways that the Roman missionary we're meant to be celebrating probably would not have understood.  In Chicago, they even dye the river green, which really would have confused our ancestors.

The holy day devoted to a British saint has also managed to become a celebration of Irish nationalism, which is a cause for much confusion among those who don't know a lot of the history of this unusual holiday.  And then there are the debates as to whether it's actually appropriate to wear any orange on St Patrick's day; some say we should be wearing "St Patrick's blue" instead, and then there are those who wear Scottish kilts and insist that it's really a celebration of all things Celtic.  And then there are the food and beverage debates: corned beef and cabbage or Guinness beef stew?  Green beer, Guinness, or whiskey cocktails?  There's really no end to the confusion.

So how should one celebrate?  That really depends largely on personal preference, but I'll try to explain the origins of the more common traditions here to help everyone make more educated choices about how they spend the day.

The Basics: Who, Exactly, Are We Celebrating?

The best place to start is with a little history.  Who, exactly, are we celebrating, and was St Patrick actually English, as some claim?  The second question is simpler to answer: no.  St Patrick was likely born somewhere on the east coast of Great Britain, likely south of Hadrian's Wall (so not in Scotland*), and probably in north Wales, or near modern-day Liverpool.  However, even if he was born in what is now England, he cannot have been English because the English did not exist yet.

The Angles and Saxons, who invaded the southern part of Great Britain in the 5th century and imparted their language, religion, and genes to many subsequent generations of English men and women, had not yet arrived on the island when St Patrick was born around 385 AD.  Therefore he wasn't English.  Furthermore, his parents were either Romans (from southern continental Europe- more likely French or Italian than English), or romanized Britons (Celts, from modern-day England or Wales, and culturally and genetically closer to the modern Welsh and Bretons than to the English).

All the accounts agree that St Patrick's father was a Roman official in the late 4th century.  From there, we can infer that Patrick was from a fairly wealthy family, and that he was probably well educated.  This also tells us that Patrick was almost certainly raised as a Christian, since the emperor Constantine had declared Christianity the state religion of Rome in 380 AD, a few years before Patrick's birth.

Genteel as Patrick's upbringing likely was (by Roman standards, anyway), the late 4th century was a difficult time for the Roman Empire.  While the south had been shaken by civil wars, one of which had brought Constantine to power, the edges of the empire were beginning to crumble.  Attacks by the Germanic tribes across the Rhine were becoming common, as were raids from Scotland (Alba to the Romans) and Ireland (confusingly called Scotia by the Romans, but that's a different can of worms I won't be opening just now).

Just like the Viking raiders a few centuries later, the Irish raiders of the 4th century were after anything of value, whether it be gold, livestock, or slaves.  Patrick was captured in one such raid as a young teenager, and spent the next several years as a slave herding sheep somewhere in the north of Ireland, probably in county Armagh, Antrim, or Down.  The legend goes that durring those several years alone with a bunch of sheep, Patrick started hearing the voice of God, and that the voice helped him to escape by stowing away on a ship transporting some Wolfhounds to Britain and on to the rest of the Roman Empire, where they were highly prized.

Now in his early twenties, Patrick, made much more pious by his experiences, began studying for the priesthood, possibly in Gaul (modern France), at which point, the voices came back.  This time, Patrick believed he was being called to convert the Irish to his faith, so he rather bravely decided to become a missionary, a life choice likely to get you beheaded or burnt alive in the early 5th century.  So Patrick set out for Ireland, willingly this time, and set about converting the population with the help of the local flora and fauna.

While Patrick did not convert the entire island overnight by banishing all the snakes (there weren't any to begin with), he was much more successful than could have been hoped.  Patrick set up a church in Armagh and managed to convert many of the local tribes.  The fact that he understood the culture and spoke the language was certainly helpful, and in this case at least, the process of conversion was quite peaceful, and tolerant of those who did not convert.  Many pagan customs were retained, including the harvest festival Samhain, which became All Hallow's Eve, or Halloween, in the Christian tradition.  These additions, plus the inherent Celtic love of learning, resulted in a distinctly Irish form of Christianity that would make the so-called Dark Ages after the fall of Rome much less dark in Ireland than elsewhere.  Patrick is known to have advocated for peace between the warring tribes and small kingdoms of Ireland, with some success, and frequently spoke out against slavery, also fairly successfully.  We also know that unlike most 5th century missionaries, St Patrick managed not to be martyred; his feast day on March 17 is said to be the date of his death (of natural causes, at a very advanced age) sometime in the mid 5th century.

So here we have an advocate for peace and champion of the oppressed who encouraged education and was very tolerant of other cultures.  It's no wonder he's such a popular saint.  He sounds like the sort of person a lot of politicians want us to think they are.

*Some sources say he was born near Dumbarton, Scotland, but most agree he was from farther south.

This Sounds Like a Religious Holiday.  Is the Drinking Really Appropriate?

Note the enormous mugs of beer.  Before John
Calvin ruined everyone's fun in the 16th
century, people partied a lot more than we do
today.

If I had a dollar for every time someone said St Patrick would probably be rolling in his grave if he knew what we do in his honor every year… But really, those who think that celebrating every conceivable holiday by getting completely hammered is a modern phenomenon have clearly never seen a Bruegel painting.  In fact, before the advent of Calvinism, the extremist Protestantism that gave us the Puritans, Methodists, and other religious groups who believed alcohol to be sinful beginning in the 16th century, almost every feast day involved outrageous amounts of drinking.

Realistically, the average medieval peasant could probably drink the average modern frat boy under the table.  The medieval calendar was full of saint's days and other feast days, all celebrated with copious amounts of alcohol.  St Patrick's Day will not have been any different in the middle ages, and late Roman era when the saint was alive will have been much the same.  Christian or no, Romans were Romans, and very capable of out-partying us today.  So feel free to drink as much as you want on the 17th.  St Patrick probably did.

So How Did A Religious Holiday Become So Nationalist?

Well, this process began in the 18th century, when Irish soldiers in the British army would organize parades on this day to express their national identity.  The predominantly Catholic and often Gaelic speaking Irish saw themselves as different from the British regiments they were serving alongside, and being Irish, they did their best to show it.  

While in Ireland, St Patrick's Day remained a minor religious observance until the mid 20th century, Irish emigrants abroad, especially in North America, continued the tradition of taking advantage of their national saint's day to celebrate their heritage.  This was partly because most 19th century emigrants felt that they had been forced out of their homes, whether by famine or poverty or religious persecution; the Gaelic word for emigrant really translates to "exile".  

The nationalism took on new dimensions in the nineteen-teens and twenties, when Irish nationalist groups started raising money in the US to fund a war against the English (which they won in 1921).  The nationalism has dropped off a bit as the holiday has become more of an excuse for anyone, Irish or not, to get very drunk, but it's still also an excuse for Irish Americans to show their pride.  

The Great Color Debate: Green or Blue?  

Around this time of year, any number of news sites will post a St Patrick's day article giving cursory explanations of a few traditions associated with the patron saint of Ireland, not unlike what you're reading right now.  Many of those will almost gleefully point out that all the revelers out in green on the 17th are doing it wrong, and that the color traditionally associated with St Patrick is blue, not green.  This confusion is likely the result of inadequate research and oversimplification.  

It's true that the Order of Saint Patrick, created by the English in the 18th century as the highest chivalric order in Ireland, essentially equivalent to the Order of the Garter in England, wears blue, and that this blue is referred to as "St Patrick's blue" in many English and Anglo-Irish accounts.  However, this tradition is of Anglo-Irish origin, and only dates from about 1780.  (For those who don't know, the Anglo-Irish were the Protestant English ruling class imposed on Ireland beginning in the Tudor era in the 16th century.)  Some 18th century accounts actually suggest that blue was chosen instead of green or orange because those colors already had the strong political associations they carry in Ireland today.  

Furthermore, we have it from a few 17th century accounts that some Irish Catholics (whose holiday this was to begin with) were already wearing shamrocks and green rosettes on St Patrick's Day then, and the practice was certainly widespread by the 19th century, when it was documented on both sides of the Atlantic.  In other words, the "wearin' o' the green" actually predates "St Patrick's Blue."  So as far as I with my Irish Catholic heritage am concerned, green is more correct than blue, especially given the nationalist dimensions of this holiday, but if you happen to know that your Irish ancestors were Anglos (unlikely- they weren't starved out during the famine), blue might be the more appropriate choice for you, but expect to spend the day explaining yourself, and probably being pinched.  Most ordinary party-goers aren't aware of the Anglo tradition, after all.   

And as to Orange…

As you may have noticed, one third of the Irish flag is orange, but some people get very touchy about those who choose to wear green on St Patrick's Day.  What is this all about?

Well, as I've discussed in much more detail elsewhere, the British Parliament deposed the last of the Stuart kings, James II, for religious reasons in 1688.  James was a Catholic, and therefore had a lot of supporters in Ireland, so he fled there after he was deposed and raised an army to try to get his crown back.  The new king of England, James's Protestant son-in-law William of Orange, responded by invading.  William was able to muster some support from the Scots-Irish, descendants of Presbyterian Scots who had been granted land in northern Ireland in an attempt at preventing future uprisings back in 1603, and who supported Protestant rule.  Irish Presbyterians have been called "Orange" or "Orangemen" ever since in reference to their support of King William III ever since.

The Orangemen have always supported English rule in Ireland.  When the nationalist movement began to gain momentum in the early 20th century, the Orangemen opposed it, and even went so far as to raise their own volunteer force to fight against the IRA during the Anglo-Irish War (1918-21).  They are represented in the Irish flag (adopted by the rebels in the Easter 1916 Rising) in an attempt at reconciliation: the green represents Gaelic tradition, orange for the Orangemen, and white for peace between them.

That peace has been elusive, and the religious division has politically divided the island.  The vast majority of Irish Presbyterians are still in the northeast, the bit of the island still under English rule, where they account for slightly more than half the population.  Yet less than one quarter of the population of the entire island is Presbyterian, and in the independent Republic of Ireland, they are less than 6% of the total, while 87% are Catholic and the majority of Protestants are Anglican.

Realistically, there aren't very many "Orange" Irish, and they certainly wouldn't want to be represented on an Irish nationalist holiday- generations of Orangemen have fought against Irish nationalism.  So if the orange in question is on, say, a Guinness t-shirt or an Irish flag scarf, by all means, wear it.  If, however, you're trying to decide whether it's more appropriate to wear your orange shoes or your black ones, wear the black.  We wear green on St Patrick's Day to support Irish nationalism, so the orange of the flag is fine, but if it's in just about any other form, it's the color of the opposition.  It's a bit like wearing blue to the Republican national convention, only with a lot more beer.

And What's With the Kilts and Bagpipes?  I Thought They Were Scottish.

Pipers in the New York St Patrick's Day parade.

If you thought the kilt and the pipes were Scottish, you were absolutely right.  They are.  What you see above are pipers marching in the New York City St Patrick's Day parade.  Note the bearskin (funny hat), fly plaid (piece that goes across the chest and over the shoulder), sporran (fluffy purse thing in front), and kilt.  The uniform of this and most other pipe bands is actually borrowed from 18th and 19th century military uniforms, worn by the Highland regiments of the British army.  And those uniforms were essentially a formalized form of traditional Highland dress (furry hats aside).  All in all, that's rather an odd sight to see marching down a street in New York in honor of Ireland's patron saint, isn't it?  Shouldn't they be wearing tweed jackets and Wellies?

The confusion here seems to date from the around the turn of the 20th century.  At that time, the Gaelic League and other Irish nationalist groups set about trying to revive traditions that had been banned by the English centuries before.  They learned the Irish language, used Gaelic spellings of names, and wrote down ancient myths and fairy tales.  Some also started wearing kilts, on the assumption that what was traditional in (Gaelic) Scotland must also have been traditional in Gaelic Ireland.  And while traditional dress was well-documented in Scotland, having only been banned from 1747-82, while it had been illegal in Ireland since the 16th century, and therefore less was known.  What we do know about Gaelic dress in Ireland before the ban is that it generally involved a long linen tunic and some sort of cloak or blanket, often in checkered material.  It's thought that late 19th and early 20th century readers confused this with the Scottish kilt and plaid, though in fact those evolved in Scotland out of a similar tunic-and-blanket sometime after the ban on Gaelic dress in Ireland.  Whatever its origins, the tradition stuck in the US, and kilts are now everywhere on St Patrick's Day, and at Irish festivals all over the country.  

So if you have a kilt, and you're dying to wear it, don't let the fact that it's not really Irish stop you.  At worst, you're showing solidarity with your fellow Celts, and I promise the girls will love it.  However, you really needn't spend the money (they're bloody expensive!) to show off your Irish heritage.  

 Bagpipes are another matter entirely.  While the Great Highland pipes most modern pipe bands carry are the Scottish variety, bagpipes date at least to ancient Egypt, and have been common in Ireland for a few thousand years.  what you usually see in Ireland, though, are the smaller uilleann pipes.  They're not nearly as loud as the Highland pipes, and therefore more suited to playing indoors to an audience than they are to using on the battlefield.  If you manage to find a properly traditional musical performance this weekend, chances are excellent you'll see someone play the uilleann pipes.

Enough About Fashion.  Isn't This A Food Blog?  What Should I Eat?

Pictured: Not Actually Irish

Well, the traditional St Patrick's Day meal is corned beef and cabbage, usually accompanied by potatoes.  If you're interested enough to have sifted through my rants about color, you probably already knew that.  What you might not have known, though, is that this dish, like most of the other common St Patrick's Day traditions in the US, originated in North America, probably in the 19th century.  It's almost nonexistent in Ireland, where the closest equivalent is bacon and cabbage, though that has no particular association with this holiday.  This holiday is traditionally celebrated with a family meal on both sides of the Atlantic, so just pick something something Irish, and enjoy!  My personal favorites are beef and Guinness stew and Dublin coddle, one of which I'll try to post before the 17th.  Bangers and mash is also a good option, if a little less distinctly Irish.  At the very least, I'd recommend toasting a slice of Irish soda bread (or the Irish American version) with your eggs and bacon that morning, before going out to the pub.  You'll need something to absorb all the beer, after all!

And Speaking of Beer…

Pictured: Even Less Irish

Well, I should hope that drinking the horrifying green watery stuff isn't on your agenda, for starters.  Granted, most of the American light beers that's made with could benefit from a little color, but I'd much rather it came from a darker malt, not from artificial coloring.  Green beer is one tradition that's purely American, with no Irish roots at all.  The beers used are almost always lagers, since they're light in color, which are German in origin, and only became popular in the US after prohibition.  

If you do plan on making your own green beer at home, there is an Irish lager available in the US- Harp- though it's a bit more expensive than, say, Coors light.  You could also go for a craft lager, which will also be more expensive than Coors or Bud.  Just remember as you hand over the credit card that your taste buds will thank you later.  Assuming you do go with a tastier beer, though, I wouldn't even bother with the food coloring.  Just show off your good taste, instead.  If you really prefer lagers, that is.  

For the last generation or two, the best selling beers in America have been lagers, but this was partly due to a lack of much of anything else on the American market.  From the end of prohibition until the 1980's or so, Guinness, Bass, and a few other Irish and British imports were among the very few ales available in the US, and they could be difficult to find.  But as craft breweries began to spring up all over the country, and particularly in the west, America's palate began to change.  In the last few decades, lagers have dropped in popularity while ales- defined as anything made with top-fermenting yeast, therefore ranging from pale ales to imperial stouts- have gained a much stronger following.  

So if you think you don't like beer, but your only point of reference is the Miller Lite your dad buys or the PBR your roommate brought to parties in college, you may want to consider giving Guinness a try. You may find, like a lot of people have, that you just don't like lager.  Or if Guinness is too dark for you, there are Irish red ales like Smithwick's and Kilkenny.  They're less intensely flavored than stout, but they're more traditional, having been brewed since the 17th century, when stout emerged in the 18th.  

Don't like ales either?  Gluten-free?  Allergic to hops?  Well, there is one last option: cider.  It's made from apples, so there's no gluten, naturally, without sacrificing any flavor.  It's also native to the British isles- it's been brewed in Ireland for thousands of years- and it's associated with St Patrick, who some say planted apple trees in Ireland.  It's sweet and refreshing, and comes in pints, which make it a perfect alternative to beer, especially for wine drinkers.  

For more on Irish beers, as well as food pairings, click here.

Last But Not Least: Spirits And Cocktails.

If you think think this
is traditional, you
haven't been paying
attention.  

You know all those green cocktails you see everywhere this time of year?  Well, this will come as no surprise if you've read this far, but none of those are actually Irish.  While cocktails have been around since the mid 19th century or so, mixed drinks have only just begun to catch on in Europe.  They're certainly nowhere near as popular over there as they are in the US.  This is a legacy of prohibition; while alcohol was illegal in the US, high quality spirits were difficult to come by, so mixing was a way of covering up the unpleasant taste of bathtub gin.  Cocktails maintained their popularity after prohibition ended, and many Americans still prefer them to beer or wine.  Therefore a cocktail has been devised for every occasion, and St Patrick's Day is no different.  Green drinks abound, and while many of them undoubtedly taste better than green beer, they're no more authentic.  

Of course, there are genuinely Irish spirits, if that's your preference.  Whiskey was invented in Ireland in the early middle ages (by monks, of course), and Ireland still produces some of the best whiskeys in the world.  Irish whiskey has the double advantage of being less expensive and more approachable than Scotch, tending toward smoother, more vanilla-y flavors, though if you're used to Bourbon, Irish whiskey won't be as sweet.  Traditionally, whiskey was drunk neat, or with a little water, though you'll find it in lots of mixed drinks today.

That's just a basic overview of some of the major St Patrick's Day traditions here in the US.  There are plenty of others, but if I explained all of them in detail, you'd be reading this all weekend, which would defeat the entire purpose of this article.  The whole point is to enable you to enjoy the holiday, however you choose to celebrate (and maybe impress your friends with some trivia).  As the festivities kick off tonight and continue through Tuesday, I hope you enjoy pleasant weather for outdoor activities, good company and (of course!) good food and drink.  Have fun, and be safe!  Slainte!

Irish (American) Soda Bread

With one week to go until St Patrick's Day, Irish soda bread is beginning to appear in bakeries and even grocery stores across the US.  It's a slightly sweet quick bread, made with raisins, dried currants, and sometimes caraway seeds, and is absolutely delicious buttered.  It's a St Patrick's Day treat that I look forward to every year.

But like many American St Patrick's Day traditions, this bread actually originated on this side of the Atlantic.  It probably evolved from the simple soda breads made in Ireland; it's essentially a basic white soda bread with sugar and dried fruit added.  These additions, as well as the use of more finely milled white flour made it a more expensive loaf than the brown soda bread it evolved from, an indulgence made possible by the increasing prosperity of Irish Americans in the late 19th century.

If you're looking for a nice sweet bread to smear with butter for your St Patrick's Day breakfast, look no further.  If, however, you're after a traditional addition to your supper, or a more savory slice of toast, you may want to try brown soda bread or traditional white soda bread.  All are delicious, so it's really just a matter of preference.

Ingredients:

• 2- 3 cups all-purpose flour

• 1 cup buttermilk

• 1 1/2 tsp baking soda 

•  1 large egg 

•  2 tbs sugar 

•  1/3 cups dried currants or rasins

• pinch of salt 

Instructions:

Preheat oven to 350 and sprinkle a cookie sheet with flour. Combine dry ingredients except fruit in a medium mixing bowl. Beat together egg and buttermilk until combined.  Add buttermilk mixture to dry ingredients a little at a time, mixing with a wooden spoon after each addition. Add  more flour as needed.  When the mixture forms a crumbly dough, fold in fruit, and form into a ball. Place the dough on the prepared cookie sheet and cut a deep cross in the top (at least half way through the dough).  Bake in the preheated oven 30-35 minutes, or until the outside is golden brown, the loaf has at least doubled in size, and the bread makes a hollow sound when tapped on the bottom. Allow to cool for a few minutes before serving.

To make this American version of soda bread, I just took my basic white soda bread recipe and added some sugar, an egg, and a little fruit.  The egg and sugar completely transform the bread; this is a much softer loaf.  It's still extremely quick and easy to make, which it the whole point of using baking soda rather than yeast, and means you can easily bake a loaf while you're preparing the rest of your St Patrick's Day brunch.  This is excellent news, as this bread really is best still a little warm from the oven.  If you don't want to get up early enough to bake, though, it will keep overnight.

Bangers and Mash

My next post was going to be smoked salmon pate.  Then I went to Trader Joe's and found "Irish Bangers" in the spot where the salmon usually is.  Obviously, my dinner plans changed.  How could I not buy them?  (And yes, I do realize it's a bit weird that I freaked out a little over sausages.  In public.  In front of all the Trader Joe's hippies.)  So instead of salmon pate, which will probably be coming later, I'm making a very simple British dish with a vaguely dirty sounding name.

Many Americans reading this may well be wondering "what, exactly, are 'bangers and mash'?" right about now.  "And why would I want to eat them?" is also probably a pertinent question.  As you have probably gathered from the above photo, "bangers" is a weird British term for sausages.  Specifically, savory pork sausages similar to bratwurst.  Why?  Because they "bang," or pop, when heated too quickly.  Also, the English are a wee bit crazy.  Mash, of course, is short for mashed potatoes.

This dish seems to have originated in England (though this is unclear), but is now common throughout Britain, Ireland, Australia, and New Zealand.  We certainly see the first references to this dish as a pub favourite in Britain during World War I, but it seems likely that this dish has existed since the eighteenth or nineteenth century, when Britain adopted the potato to feed its growing industrial working class (see A Brief History of the Potato for more information).  Regardless, it has long been a pub staple in Britain and Ireland because it's relatively cheap and easy to prepare in large quantities.  It's also filling and absolutely delicious with a pint of your favourite ale, stout, or porter, which makes it a good alternative to corned beef and cabbage for your upcoming St. Patrick's Day celebrations, possible English origin or no.  It could, after all, have originated in Ireland, where the potato was a dietary staple much earlier, and been brought to Britain by immigrants during the industrial revolution.

 There are three components to this recipe: sausages, mashed potatoes, and onion gravy.  I generally start the potatoes and sausages at the same time, and make the gravy last, so the directions are listed accordingly.  If you want to make the gravy while everything else is cooking, you can make it in a separate pan.  I'm just too lazy to wash the extra dishes.

Ingredients:

• 6 pork sausages

For the mash:

• 5 medium red potatoes
• 1 stick butter
• Approx. 3 tbs milk
• Salt and pepper, to taste

For the onion gravy:

• 1 small yellow onion, chopped fine
• 2 tbs butter
• 1 14 oz can beef broth
• 1 tbs corn starch

Directions:

Start the mash first.  Clean the potatoes, removing any eyes and peeling if desired (I usually leave the skins on about half, since it contains a lot of the potato's nutrients).  1/4 to 1/2 inch slice the potatoes and place them in a large stock pot.  Fill with cold water so that the potatoes are just covered and boil for approximately 25 minutes, until they break easily when poked with a fork or spatula.  Drain, and return to the pot.  Add butter and mash until smooth.  While mashing, add milk as desired and season to taste with salt and pepper.  Set aside.

While the potatoes are boiling, start the sausages.  Simply place them in a medium to large frying pan on medium heat and prick with a fork to prevent "banging".  Turn the sausages occasionally.  When they begin to turn golden brown, remove from heat, allow them to cool slightly, and split them in half legnthwise with a sharp knife.  Return to pan, cut side down, and continue frying until browned and cooked all the way through.  Set aside.

While your sausages are cooking, prep your gravy.  Chop the onion fine and assemble and measure the other ingredients.  Once the sausages are done, remove them from the pan, but leave any juices.  Melt the butter, and then add the onion.  Cook on medium heat for about 5 minutes, until the onion is translucent, but not browned.  Salt and pepper to taste, keeping in mind that you can always add more later, then add the broth.  Turn up the heat and bring the broth to a boil.  Once the volume is slightly reduced, add the corn starch ad continue cooking, stirring constantly, until the mixture begins to thicken, 2-3 minutes.  Taste, season as desired, and pour a generous amount over each serving of potatoes and sausages.



A brief note on sausages: Traditionally, bangers are savory pork sausages not unlike bratwurst.  This can mean any of several regional sausages (such as Cumberland sausage) made in Britain, and not easily available in the US.  My local Trader Joe's had Irish-style bangers for St Patrick's day, but doesn't carry them year-round.  Some specialty food stores might have British sausages all year, especially on the east coast.  However, if you don't live in an area where these are easy to find, you can just as easily substitute any high-quality pork sausage.  I usually use bratwurst because it's not too strongly flavoured (spicy Italian sausage, for example, wouldn't go with the onion gravy.)

A Concise Guide to Irish Beer

Not all of these are actually Irish, but at least the Irish beers listed below are all here.

With St Patrick's Day coming up in just two weeks, you may very well think your whole menu is planned out already: corned beef and cabbage, with a pint of Guinness.  How else would you celebrate than with this very Irish feast?  Except that corned beef and cabbage is actually an Irish-American dish, almost never featured on a menu in Ireland.  That's right, corned beef and cabbage is as American as green beer!  Who would have guessed?

This remarkable realization definitely expands your culinary options for an authentic St Patrick's Day feast; Everything from elegant salmon poached in cider to warming beef and Guinness stew, to the simple-but-delicious bangers and mash is now a possibility.  Those who don't like cabbage can breathe a sigh of relief.

There is one small drawback, however: which beer do you serve with your much more traditional but less common feast?  Well, as with wine, you want to pick a beer that compliments the flavors of the meal.  Luckily, Irish beers are widely varied, so you will be able to find one to go with whatever you serve, and many are available in American supermarkets and liquor stores.  I've written up brief tasting notes and food pairing suggestions for a variety of the most readily available ones, along with American craft alternatives when possible for those unable to find the Irish beer they want in their area.

Guinness  

Brewed in Dublin since the late 18th century, this popular stout is probably the first thing you think of when Irish beer is mentioned.  It's known for its black color and dense, creamy head (the foam on top of a pint).  Guinness stout has a wonderful bitter, chocolatey or coffee like flavor, and pairs beautifully with roasted meats, especially beef.  If you're eating beef and Guinness stew, roast beef, beef pies, or even burgers, Guinness is probably the best beer for you.  It also pairs well with bangers and mash, especially if you replace some of the beef stock in the gravy with Guinness.  And best of all, the espresso notes in Guinness mean it pairs beautifully with chocolate.  That's why you'll often see Guinness chocolate cakes and brownies on pub desert menus: including a little Guinness in the recipe really brings out chocolate flavor and counteracts some of the sweetness in your baked goods.  

Alternatives:

I doubt you'll have any trouble finding Guinness, unless you wait until the last minute and the stores have sold out.  Still, Murphy's Irish Stout is a goos substitute (made in Cork, slightly less intense flavor).  Deschutes Obsidian Stout is similar, and Left Hand Nitro would also work, though it's an (English-style) milk stout, and therefore a little sweeter.  Even a good, more bitter porter, like Deschutes Black Butte is an option.  

Smithwicks

An Irish red ale, brewed in Kilkenny since the early 18th century.  This beer has a lighter body than Guinness, and a fruitier flavor.  It pairs well with a variety of pork and chicken dishes, milder beef dishes like cottage pie (usually shepherd's pie in the US), and is also a good choice with fish and chips, though it will overpower many other fish dishes; I definitely would not recommend it with, say, poached salmon.  Over all, it's a very nice, balanced beer, and quite versatile.  It will work with any but the lightest and most flavorful dishes you might serve for St Patrick's Day.  

Alternatives:

Smithwicks is available in most American supermarkets, which is fortunate, because I have yet to find a really good craft equivalent.  Killian's Irish Red is to actual Irish ales as Redd's Apple Ale is to hard cider, which is to say it's just not the same thing at all, and most American pale ales, like Sierra Nevada and Deschutes Mirror Pond, are too hoppy to really compare.  Occasionally I've found similar beers at brew pubs, but you'll probably have an easier time finding Smithwicks.  In a pinch, a less hoppy English pale ale like Samuel Smith's or Bass can work, but that's really not appropriate for St Patrick's Day.  

Kilkenny

A cream ale, also brewed in Kilkenny (obviously).  It's really another red ale, similar to Smithwicks, but it's a bit creamier and smoother.  It also has a milder hoppy flavor than Smithwicks, so will not overpower more flavorful fish dishes.  It's a very versatile beer, and one of my personal favorites.  Like Guinness (and most good beers, really) it's best if you can find it on draft (many good Irish pubs over here have it), but bottled is great, too.  

Alternatives:

Unfortunately, Kilkenny is harder to find than Smithwicks, and there really isn't a good American alternative that I'm aware of (if you know one, please comment and enlighten me!).  Still, most stores with a reasonably large imported beer selection do carry Kilkenny, and fewer consumers are aware of it, so it's less likely to sell out than Guinness or Smithwicks, in my experience.  

Harp

Irish lager.  Which is an oddity, as lager is a Czech and German style of beer, brought to the US by immigrants in the nineteenth century, and only popularized with the rest of the world after the first World War.  Lager is far from traditional, and therefore really doesn't go well with most Irish food.  Its light flavor tends to be overwhelmed by the rich stews and roasts, but will work with some chicken and fish dishes.  However, if you must add green food coloring to lager, you may as well use the only Irish one you're likely to find.  

Alternatives:

This is probably the easiest beer on this list to find an alternative to, since it's essentially the Irish version of Heineken, Carlsberg, or even Coors.  I'm not much of a lager drinker, in case you hadn't guessed, so I don't have many to recommend, but there are lots of good craft lagers out there, if that's your style (I know Deschutes makes one, and no, they're not paying me to write this), or Heineken is always a good choice.  

Magner's

Magner's cider is a great choice for those who don't really like beer, or who need something gluten free.  It's made from apples, so it (sort of) counts as a serving of fruit, and it's delicious and refreshing.  Unlike some American ciders I've tasted, it's quite dry, though it is sweeter than most beers.  It would be my first choice to pair with many of the dishes lagers work with, since it's neither too hoppy nor overwhelmingly sweet.  It won't overwhelm even the mildest poached fish, and it's absolutely perfect with pork.  It also pairs very well with fruitier desserts, especially the apple tarts and cakes common in Ireland.  It's also a much more traditional choice than lager for those who really don't like the dark stuff, as cider has likely been made in Ireland for the last few thousand years.  

Alternatives:

Magner's is appallingly difficult to find in the western US.  Even some of the Irish pubs serve an English cider instead, and if you do happen to find it at a specialty store, it will be expensive.  Fortunately, cider has become more popular thanks to the recent gluten-free craze, so there are excellent alternatives that your supermarket probably carries for the same price as the average craft six-pack.  My personal favorite is Woodchuck Amber, a dry cider made in Vermont, but Strongbow (from England) is also good, if a bit more highly carbonated than I usually like, and Angry Orchard Traditional Dry, made in Washington State, is sweeter but good.  

Whether you'll be preparing a home-made feast, dining out at your favorite Irish pub or restaurant, or simply enjoying a few (or a few too many) beers this St Patrick's Day, I hope this very short guide is at least a little helpful.  Feel free to ask any beer or pairing questions in the comments below, and I'll gladly answer them.  Slainte!

Just for fun: an old Guinness poster, because nothing sells beer like flocks of  toucans.

A Brief History of the Potato

The humble potato is probably the first thing most people think of when Irish food is mentioned.  It's a staple in both Great Britain and Ireland, and if there's one thing Americans learned about Irish history in school, it's that a lot of people came to this country because of the "Irish Potato Famine".  What some may not realize is that the potato's importance in the Irish and British diet is actually quite a recent development.

The potato, like peanuts, corn, bananas, and many other foods now widely available in Europe, is native to the western hemisphere.  Spanish Conquistadors (or, according to some, either Sir Francis Drake or Sir Walter Raleigh) brought it back to Europe from Peru in the mid 16th century.  The exact origin of the potato as a food crop in Europe is unclear, but there are records of potatoes being cultivated in the Canary Islands (Spanish territory) from 1562, and they had been cultivated in England by 1600.  Records also indicate that potatoes were first planted in Ireland in the 1580's or '90's, possibly  introduced by Sir Walter Raleigh, who planted them on his estate in Munster, or (more likely) as a result of frequent trade with Spain.

William of Orange.
This man is likely the
reason your Irish
ancestors emigrated.

It wasn't until a little later, however, that the potato began to replace oats and barley a dietary staple in the British Isles.  The reason it did so is largely political.  In the 16th and 17th centuries, the potato was merely a supplemental vegetable, eaten in small quantities by all classes of society.  Then, in 1689, the Protestant English Parliament deposed the Catholic King, James II, and replaced him with his Protestant son-in-law, William of Orange.  Naturally, Irish Catholics took issue with this; they'd been hoping for greater religious freedom than they'd had since Henry VIII had decided to create his own religion so he could have a divorce.  King James knew this, and rallied his supporters in Ireland.  There was a brief war which culminated in James's defeat by the Orangemen at the Battle of the Boyne in 1691, and the King and many prominent nobles fled to Rome to get the Pope's support for a future invasion of England.  (Obviously, this strategy failed rather spectacularly, but more on that later.)

In retribution for this rebellion, William of Orange and Parliament passed what were called the Penal Laws, essentially depriving Catholics of many civil rights, such as the right to hold public office or a military commission, or the right to own property over a certain value.  The most important for our purposes regards inheritance.  If all of a family's children were Catholic, the property had to be divided amongst them, rather than passed down to the eldest son (if one child was Protestant, they could inherit the entire farm, thus depriving their siblings of a livelihood).  The result was that by the time the laws were repealed in the 19th century, Ireland's rural poor were trying to feed their families by farming as little as an acre (sometimes less) of land.

Rooster potato, the most common variety
in Ireland.  It looks like a red potato, but is
actually starchy, like a russet. 

Enter the potato.  It's really an amazing crop.  It has excellent nutritional value; a steady diet of potatoes supplemented with a little milk will keep you reasonably healthy for months at a time, and it's more filling than a lot of other foods.  It requires significantly less acreage to produce the same yield as grain crops.  It thrives in even poor soil, and because it's a root, it's less vulnerable to pests, disease, and weather than grains are.  For all these reasons, the potato became a very popular crop all over Europe in the 18th and 19th centuries, but nowhere so much as in Ireland, where it allowed poor families to survive on tiny plots of land.

That is, until a bight caused the crop to rot before it was ready to harvest every few years from 1835 to the mid 1850's, and nearly every year from 1845-'55.  By 1860, about a quarter of the Irish population had either emigrated or died, and the southwest had been particularly devastated.  What went wrong?  The answer is quite simple: there were only a few varieties of potato cultivated in Ireland at the time, so almost all the plants were susceptible to the bight.  The problem was solved by introducing new, more resistant varieties, and the potato has remained a major dietary staple in Ireland despite the disaster.

Scotland adopted the potato a bit later than Ireland did.  It seems to have spread north from England rather slowly, possibly because the English were reluctant to eat the same thing their barbaric, papist neighbors across the Irish Sea, at least until the growing urban population in 18th century England needed a cheap source of food.  Regardless, potatoes were certainly planted in the Scottish Lowlands by the early 18th century, had made their way as far  north as Stirling by 1739, and are believed to have been first introduced to the Highlands by the MacDonald of Clanranald in 1743.

Potato Flower.  In the mid-18th century, the potato
became very popular at the French court, and Marie
Antoinette wore these in her hair.  

The series of events through which the potato replaced traditional crops in the Highlands was actually eerily similar to what had happened in Ireland a few decades earlier, and we return now to our friend King James II.  When last seen, His Ex-Majesty was in Rome, begging the Pope for money.  There were several half-hearted attempts at restoring the House of Stewart to the British throne, none of which went very far, before one was successful enough to seriously worry the House of Hanover.  In 1745, the late King James's grandson, Charles Edward Stewart, landed in the Highlands with a little money and a few advisers from France, Spain, and Rome.

Bonnie Prince Charlie,
still managing to look
Italian in a tartan suit.
I blame the wig.

The bulk of Bonnie Prince Charlie's support, however, came from the Highlands, where many of the clans supported the Stuart claims to the throne.  Regiments raised by the chiefs of these clans formed the bulk of Charles Stuart's army, and while they did have some early success, lack of funding caused the rising to end after less than one year with the disastrous defeat at Culloden (April 1746).

Prince Charles and a few of the Jacobite lords may have been able to escape the devastation that followed, but the highlanders were not.  In the aftermath of the battle, the English commander, the Duke of Cumberland, began a scorched earth campaign intended to punish the highlanders for the rebellion.  Crops were burnt, landlords and small farmers alike were driven off their land, and the clan system was destroyed.  Things did stabilize again, with new, often English landlords replacing Jacobite chiefs, but these landlords did not see the relationship between laird and tenant the way their predecessors had, so they replaced family farms with more profitable sheep, driving the highlanders onto small plots of poor farmland, as the Irish had been.  The humble potato, originally looked on with suspicion, became a staple out of necessity, just like it had in Ireland, and when a bight destroyed the Irish crops in the 1840's, the same thing happened in the Highlands, also resulting in famine and mass emigration.  Still more moved into the rapidly growing industrial cities further south, like Glasgow.

Victorian London: industry fueled by potatoes.

Things started to stabilize again when the crops stopped failing in the 1850's.  By that time, potatoes were becoming a major food source for city dwellers as well as Irish and Highland farmers, since they took up less space than grains- a boon in crowded Victorian cities- and had a much lower spoilage rate, as well as better nutritional value.  By the 20th century, potatoes had been so thoroughly adopted into the diet of the British Isles that they were beginning to be considered traditional, and are usually one of the two veg you see on any given British dinner plate today.

Bread and Butter Pudding

So I found this little gem at the Tattered Cover this week:

 This excellent discovery (combined with several more inches of snow) means it's time for some wonderful, warm Irish comfort food.  I had some cinnamon raisin bread in the fridge, and adapted the recipe accordingly (read: left out the raisins), but otherwise, this is right from the new cookbook.  It's also one of the simplest recipes for bread pudding I've ever tried, and uses only ingredients you've probably already got on hand.

While bread pudding isn't exactly a fancy dessert, as it evolved as a way of using up stale bread, it's one of my favorites, and absolutely perfect for a cold winter evening.  (It's also great for breakfast with a strong cup of tea.)



Ingredients:

• 8 Slices cinnamon raisin bread
• 2 tbs butter
• 3 large eggs
• 2 cups milk (preferably whole)
• 1/3 cup sugar
• 2 tsp vanilla extract

Instructions:

Butter the bread on both sides, cut them in half, and lay them out, overlapping, pointed ends up, in a glass baking pan.  In a medium bowl, beat the eggs well, then beat in the milk, sugar, and vanilla.  Pour the mixture over the bread, and let sit for 10-15 minutes so the bread can absorb the wet ingredients.

Pre-heat oven to 350F.  Sprinkle the top with sugar, and bake the pudding aproximately 35 minutes, until slightly puffy and browned.  Serve warm.



Many bread pudding recipes I've come across include some sort of sauce for drizzling over, but you really don't need it.  The pudding is moist and sweet enough just as-is, but if you feel inclined to top it with hard sauce or even just a drizzle of caramel or melted chocolate, who am I to stop you?  Enjoy!