[Sca-cooks] Spices and the Irish Common folk

[Phil Troy / G. Tacitus Adamantius]

On Mar 24, 2006, at 3:37 PM, Judith L. Smith Adams wrote:

> Love that combo of spice/herb... and instead of boiling potatoes  
> and cabbage (or even steaming it), like to serve the corned beef  
> with colcannon...

I remember once being asked, one slowish March 17th evening, in one  
of the French restaurants I worked in, to create a souffle special  
for the evening's dinner service. I braised about equal parts of kale  
and leek in cream sauce, then worked in potato puree and beaten egg  
white, et voila! Souffle aux pommes Colcannon...

The exec chef at the time never did figure out what it was supposed  
to be, but several people coming home from the Saint Patrick's Day  
Parade ordered it (probably in a state of drunken whimsy), and  
laughed hysterically when it arrived (they were beautiful, if I say  
so myself). A waiter returned to the kitchen with a ramekin that  
looked like it had been licked clean, and said, "The guy at table 20  
says Lughnasa's not for another five months, but it was good anyway."

Adamantius



"S'ils n'ont pas de pain, vous fait-on dire, qu'ils  mangent de la  
brioche!" / "If there's no bread to be had, one has to say, let them  
eat cake!"
     -- attributed to an unnamed noblewoman by Jean-Jacques Rousseau,  
"Confessions", 1782

"Why don't they get new jobs if they're unhappy -- or go on Prozac?"
     -- Susan Sheybani, assistant to Bush campaign spokesman Terry  
Holt, 07/29/04