[Sca-cooks] Spices and the Irish Common folk

[Johnna Holloway]

The best books now on Irish foods are Brid Mahon's Land of Milk and 
Honey and
Cowan and  Sexton's Ireland's Traditional Foods which came out in 1997
as part of the Euroterroirs project to identify regional foods.
The latter book says that the traditional ingredients are beef, salt,
and saltpetre. Modern additions include sodium ascorbate.

History wise, the dish goes back to the 11th century where it is
mentioned in the Aislinge meic Conglinne. Mahon also relates this,
calling the work The Vision of Mac Conglinne.
There is a spiced beef which is a corned beef with additional spices 
dates back to
at least the 14th century. [Cowan and Sexton say that spices
were imported to Ireland in greater quanities following the Anglo-Norman
invasions of the 12th century.] This is something traditionally made at 
home and served at
Christmas. http://www.irelandforvisitors.com/recipes/blbeef.htm
Corned Beef was a major product in the 18th and later centuries where 
any beef
not consumed fresh was salted down for later consumption. Cork for 
several centuries
was a source of corned beef and ships bound for the Americas and Europe 
carried
the product from Ireland. Cork also produced the corned beef that fed the
British Armies during the Napoleonic Wars.

Among the best recipes for home corning that I have found are those 
found in Grace Firth's Stillroom Cookery.

Hope this helps.

Johnnae llyn Lewis

Helen Schultz wrote:

>I've been having a discussion with my father (a self-proclaimed authority on almost anything <grin>) about the types of spices the common Irish folk might have had.  This was sparked by a neighbor taking him to dinner for St. Patrick's Day and he felt the corned beef & cabbage wasn't fixed correctly <sigh>.  
>
>I did find him a fairly good recipe for it on Martha Stewart.com, but he has come back to me with the idea that the common Irish folk who invented this dish (?? did they, I don't know that, myself) just didn't have the spices necessary for making corned beef.  I told him I could show him 14th century recipes in England that used most of these spices, but he countered that the common folk wouldn't have had them.
>
>Anyway, what I need is some help finding out the real story behind not only the way corned beef came about, but also some info on the spices normally used to make corned beef.  Martha Stewart corned her beef with water, pickling salt, dry mustard, pickling spices, garlic, and ground pepper.  Now, pickling salt would be just good old sea salt, I'm sure.  Mustard is no problem, neither is garlic... but what about pickling spices?  I don't pickle, so I don't know what they are a mixture of.  Pepper might have been a slight problem for a common Irishman, but was it totally un-used by them??
>
>Any help would be welcome.
>
>~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
>Meisterin Katarina Helene von Schönborn, OL
>Shire of Narrental (Peru, Indiana)  http://narrental.home.comcast.net
>Middle Kingdom
>http://meisterin.katarina.home.comcast.net 
>
>"A room without books is like a body without a soul." -- Cicero
>
>"The danger in life is not that we aim too high and miss.
>The problem is that we aim too low and hit the mark."  -- Michaelangelo
>
>~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
>_______________________________________________
>Sca-cooks mailing list
>Sca-cooks at ansteorra.org
>http://www.ansteorra.org/mailman/listinfo/sca-cooks
>  
>