St. Patrick's Day Food & Drink You Might Not Know About

Saint Patrick's Day or the Fest of Saint Patrick is held every year on March 17th. While it is known in the United States as a drinking holiday, it is also an excellent time to have a dinner party in March. You won't find any artificial green food coloring in our suggestions below. We dug into a few Irish cookbooks for lesser known dishes you can cook for a feast of your own.

What to Eat

We browsed through Helen Walsh's Irish Cooking, which was published in 1986.

• To start the evening, try a nettle soup. Walsh explains, "Nettle soup was part of the diet of the monks in Ireland as far back as the 6th century." It is a simple soup thickened with toasted oatmeal and made silky with butter and milk.
• Colcannon takes simple mashed potatoes a step further with the addition of fried onions and cabbage. We like to grill our cabbage in slabs for extra caramelization. A variation on this is Champ, a Northern county specialty where you swap the cabbage with scallions.
• Mackerel is abundant in Ireland and Walsh advises to eat it the day it is caught. If that is not possible, she advises to blanche them in salted water with a dash of white wine or cider. Cool them completely in an ice bath and they're ready for tea sandwiches with yogurt, apple, and walnut.
• You might reach for corned beef as your main dish, but consider Limerick ham, a ham smoked with juniper berries and glazed with apricot jam.
• For dessert, try apple fool. Fold 2/3 cup whipped cream into 1 cup of apple puree. Divide between four glasses and chill before serving. Experiment with toppings like you would with any pudding.

Another book we checked out was A Return to Ireland by Judith McLaughlin, published in 2022 by Hatherleigh Press. Her newer take on Irish diaspora food mixes traditional ideas with new ingredients.

• McLaughlin's Irish Pie is a cool surf n' turf stew with braised beef, bacon, and oysters under a baked pastry crust.
• Slow cooked bacon loin is more well-known in Ireland itself than corned beef and cabbage. Note that American bacon is made with belly, but Irish bacon is more like Canadian bacon, which is from the back of the pig. McLaughlin serves hers with cabbage and a creamy0-based mustard sauce.
• Cullen Skin Seafood Bake is a smoked haddock pie with white cheese sauce topped with mashed potatoes, and more crispy Irish cheese. Most recipes online are for chowder, but McLaughlin's version is heartier.

For a client, we made corned beef and colcannon with purple potatoes and onion sprouts. Potatoes come in many colors and textures these days.

What to Drink

Guinness is the most well-known Irish beer, but here are a few others if you want to diversify your offerings.

• Guinness, a rich and creamy dark stout. Pairs well with hearty and rich foods, like meat, and stew.
• Harp, a European pale lager also produced by Guinness. Pairs great with fruits, vegetables, cheese, and fried foods.
• Murphy's, an Irish dry stout. Its slight bitterness goes well with seafood, smoked foods, and chocolate.
• Smithwick's, an Irish red ale. It pairs with roasty, grilled goods as well as sharp and strong cheeses, like cheddars and blues.

A Party Tip

According to Walsh, The rules of pagan Celtic Irish hospitality were set down in Brehon laws. In the social hierarchy, we thought it was interesting to note who got to dig in first:

"The one person the royal cook was bound to take particular care of, and first, was the court poet, or the visiting man of letters. Then, as now, the Irish venerated their poets and literary men, and were mortally afraid of offending them lest they be satirised. The post, or man of letters, therefore got the first and finst cuts of meat, rubbed with salt and honey, and the best salmon steaks, or pieces of trout flavoured with honey."

It might be fun to uphold this tradition in your own way. Determine who is the "most studied" or "poetic" guest and serve them first. In exchange, they can make a toast or a quick poem about the evening.

Feast of Saint Patrick Gifts

If you're hosting or the hosted at a St. Patrick's Day dinner, consider the gifts in our Etsy collection to commemorate the holiday.

• A giant glass-blown shamrock is a statement piece that will bring you great luck.
• Juniper berries are essential for Limerick ham and a great addition to any meat brine.
• Bring Ireland to you with a candle that smells like the Irish hillside.
• Show off with a vintage "My Goodness, My Guinness" glass.

We hope you learned a few more Irish dishes you can bring to your table. Cheers!

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