Irish Pastrami: The History of Corned Beef & Why We Eat it on St. Patrick’s Day
How did the leprechaun’s favorite meal, Corned Beef and Cabbage, become a staple for St. Patrick’s Day? What if I told you the most Irish of meals had more in common with Columbus and NYC Jewish Delis, than anything Irish. More on that later. Let’s just start with the basics.
What is Corned Beef?
Corned beef is traditionally a braising cut of beef, most commonly brisket, sometimes eye or bottom round that is cured for several days in a wet brine of salt, sugar, garlic, and other spices. It’s really a meat pickle. Called by many other names: salt beef, pickled beef, mess beef, hung beef, Pocoke beef; corned beef most likely gets its name from the Old English word for the large wholegrain salt crystals (“cornes,” or “corns”), used in the curing process.
Beef on the Brain
Ireland is a country with beef on the brain. Home to some of the earliest archaeological evidence of cattle domestication in Europe, The country is littered with cattle references. Even the Gaelic word for road comes from the word for cow. Medieval Irish poems and songs are chock full of references to cow goddesses, cattle rustling, and wealth measured in beef. The animals were raised as dairy cows or to plow the island nation’s steep, rocky slopes. Processed for their meat only when milk production lagged, or the animals were too old to work the fields, beef most eaten by the wealthy, or sold for export to England and Europe.
Irish Entrepreneurialism
The concept of curing beef didn’t originate with the Irish, but they did perfect it and learn to mass produce it. Ireland’s plentiful pastures, cheap salt taxes, and history of entrepreneurism meant it had the recipe for making the perfect product. All they needed was the demand. Enter Christopher Columbus.
The discovery of the New World (you know that whole “1492 Columbus Sailed the Ocean Blue”) sparked a 400-year period of exploration, colonization and subjugation across North and South America. For the Irish, this meant a growing number of hungry sailors who needed a cheap, consistent, shelf-stable protein for the long voyages to the West Indies. By the early 1600s, Irish Salt Beef became so relied upon on the high seas, that the England allowed French ships to stock up in the corned beef capital of Cork, even during war time. For hundreds of years, Ireland was the place to fill your hull with corned beef.
Corned Beef and St. Patrick’s Day
I hate to break it to you, but corned beef hasn’t always been an Irish dish, or a St. Patrick’s Day meal. Bacon and cabbage were the more likely combination. Beef was simply too expensive, and more often reserved for the export market.
Corned Beef doesn’t really become associated with St. Patrick’s Day until the Irish start showing up on America’s shores. The great famines of the 19th Century sent millions of Irish packing across the Atlantic to US cities hungry for fresh labor. The first St. Patrick’s Day Parade in New York City was in 1762. It’s seems that soon after, Irish Americans started choosing beef instead of pork because it was much cheaper in America—and was a luxury back home. This affordable splurge really took off, and by 1861, even newly elected Abraham Lincoln was seeing green with Corned Beef at the top of his inauguration dinner.
A Gaelic/Jewish Invention
Here’s where things get interesting. As Irish immigrants moved into US, their corner butchers were predominantly Jewish deli men, (for another great meat story, read about the grandfather of all deli men, Asher Levy). Jewish butchers had a product similar to Irish corned beef already in the case—pastrami. This Eastern European brined beef, finished with a touch of smoke, probably reminded folks of their County Cork Corned Beef . The substitution seems even more likely considering most mainland Irish prefer leaner hind quarter corned beef, but the best pastramis are made from brisket. Today, Irish-American corned beef is almost always associated with brisket.
So, we might have Levy and other Jewish butchers to thank for the advent of the Corned Beef Brisket, than we do the Isle of Eire. Add in some potatoes, cabbage, and a little American marketing, and you’ve got a Global tradition celebrated by millions across the Globe.
What food do you celebrate with on St. Patrick’s Day? If you plan to make corned beef part of your holiday, make sure to order your Electric City Butcher corned beef in advance. We always sell out. We’re also be offering Irish Bangers, Black Pudding, and Beef Stew Kits.