Dear Friends,
Happy Saint Patrick’s Day to you.
When it comes to food and other cultural expressions, I am conflicted on the subject of authenticity. On the one hand, it seems pejorative for someone outside of a culture to make changes to dishes and recipes and ways of eating that are not ones own (so, for example, I’d never eat a burrito wrapped in a whole wheat tortilla because no one in Mexico uses whole wheat tortillas). On the other hand, I’m not sure culinary authenticity is even real, since our diets are continually evolving and changing (for example, before the middle of the 19th century every flour tortilla in Mexico was made with whole wheat flour; white flour was extremely rare and would not have been wasted on tortillas). Which leads me to Saint Patrick’s Day by way of corned beef.
Saint Patrick’s Day is a day to celebrate all things Irish, and corned beef is the traditional and authentic meal of St. Patrick’s Day, even though the Irish themselves don’t consume a whole lot of corned beef. For a long time, Ireland produced a lot of corned beef but almost all of it was exported to British and French colonies in North America. North America is where Irish-Americans first started eating large amounts of corned beef, though most food historians believe Irish immigrants learned to eat the dish not from British exporters but from their Jewish neighbors in New York city.
All of this is to say that the authentic culinary staple for St. Patrick’s Day is a new world innovation wrought by the meeting of two immigrant cultures. The connection between corned beef and Irish American cuisine is about as old as the connection between white flour tortillas and Mexican food.
If you are looking for a way to have a Saint Patrick’s experience that is both authentic and ancient, I suggest reading St. Patrick’s Breastplate, a prayer attributed to Ireland’s patron saint. It is a wonderful example of creation-affirming Celtic spirituality, and here is a place where you can read it: https://traditionalcatholicprayers.com/2020/05/17/st-patricks-breastplate-prayer/
Otherwise, enjoy your corned beef if you eat meat, and your Guinness stout if you drink beer, wear green and know that you are enjoying an evolved tradition that is still relatively young. And feel free to add your own twist (Siracha on your cabbage perhaps?), knowing that what you add to the tradition may yet be the very essence of authenticity to generations yet unborn.
God’s Peace,
Ben