Mendocino Flavors: Where to find St. Patrick’s Day food in Mendocino County and other tasty news bites

MENDOCINO Co., 3/16/23 – One of the biggest foodie holidays is on Friday, Mar. 17: St. Patrick’s Day! Scores of Mendocino County residents will flock to pubs and pop-ups to sip green beer, dance the jig, and score a plate of corned beef and hash. But is corned beef and cabbage really Irish? According to the New York Times, corned beef and cabbage has a few possible origin stories. All of them have one thing in common: it’s a dish born in America. 

Corned beef and cabbage may stem from Irish immigrants in 19th-century New York City who could not afford the price of bacon or beef and opted instead for Jewish brisket. Another theory is that the dish of salted pork and cabbage was common in Ireland. But when St. Patrick’s Day gained popularity in the United States in the 20th century, commercial depictions of Irish people as pigs also became common. Irish-Americans fought the association with a dirty animal through protests, and eventually a cultural shift towards corned beef became associated with the Irish.