Corned Beef Contains No Corn, and Other Things You Didn’t Know About Irish Food

Your life changes the day you realize that “sweetmeats” are actually pastries, “mincemeat” can refer to dried fruit cooked into a pie and ordering a plate of “sweetbreads” will get you a tasty calf pancreas. Misnomers like these just make you trust the world a little bit less. So, you can imagine how distraught I was to learn that corned beef has literally nothing to do with the yellow vegetable that grows on stalks. Well … almost nothing. 

“Corn” as we know it in Modern English has a rich etymology dating back to the Proto-Germanic kurnam, meaning “small seed.” This creates an obvious connection to the corn that we eat grilled with butter; what are kernels if not hundreds of small seeds lined up in a row? But Old English used the word corn much how we use “grain” today — that is to say, corn referred to the overarching category of small, granular cereals rather than to any specific plant.

In the Wake of St. Patrick’s, the Undertow Stays Strong

Because of the United Kingdom’s close proximity to Ireland, one would be inclined to think that St. Patrick’s Day would be an enormous celebration here. And it is – for Americans. Although I am surrounded by Scots, Englishmen, and both Irish and Northern Irish alike, I was forced to orchestrate my St. Patty’s Day plans with my American friends. The others followed suit, but couldn’t for the life of them understand why St. Patrick’s Day is such a huge deal in American metropolises spanning the nation at large. But deciding to forgo all questioning in favor of libation, the celebrations commenced for all.