Happy St. Patrick’s Day! Please enjoy my recipe for mouth-watering corned beef

Everybody’s Irish on St. Patrick’s Day.

I’m Irish every day.

(As if you couldn’t already tell from my photos and stories.)

Technically I am an American of Irish descent but growing up I was just Irish. Our family parties were like a meeting of the Clans: Dempseys, Conroys, Boyles, Condons, and Langans proliferated.

Identifying as an ethnic group has long been important in Chicago. The entire city was divided into ethnic centers whose influence can still be felt today, even if the original nationalities have moved on: Pilsen for Germans and Czechs, Bridgeport for the Irish, Bucktown for Poles, Bronzeville for African-Americans, not to mention Little Italy and Chinatown. When you emigrated to the city, you knew where you belonged.

We were Irish and everyone who wasn’t was to be pitied a little. Okay, a lot.

It would have been a horror beyond horrors not to wear green on St. Patrick’s Day and shout your pride to the world, with a brogue of course. The celebration lasted all day, from saying Top O’ the Morning to everyone we met to sampling whisky after supper. (We young ‘uns got a taste from licking the shot glasses of the adults. Times were different.)

If you’ve seen the movie Backdraft, you get a glimpse of what that culture was like. Although to be honest, I think the timeframe in the movie was off. That culture was thriving in the 1960s, but I think it had faded by the 1980s. Or maybe it continued but I didn’t know because we were no longer part of the city.

My mother’s parents were born in Ireland. She looked even more Irish than I do, but she wasn’t that fanatical about it. She preferred a good polka to an Irish jig, although she was adept at both. Her closest friends were Polish. We couldn’t help but laugh at all the unpronounceable Polish names on the tombstones of the cemetery she chose for her final resting place.

My dad’s family was less Irish, but he was the one who embraced the history. We heard about Cromwell, the famine, and the IRA from him. At his knee, we learned that “No Irish Need Apply,” that St. Brendan had discovered America long before Columbus, and that we shouldn’t go out on St. Patrick’s Day because it was “Amateur Hour” when it comes to drinking. We knew which famous people were Irish and which were not.

My father’s favorite album was Bing Crosby singing Irish ballads, which featured prominently on St. Patrick’s Day. To this day, I can’t hear McNamara’s Band without picturing him tapping his foot in time to the music.

We always went to the parade in downtown Chicago, whether it was a school day or not. The green river, the playing of the bagpipes, and the mass of people wearing green were all second nature to me. Often, my sisters marched in the parade, but I never did.

I was stunned to discover that other people did not boast about their ancestors as we did.

Jeff’s family, for instance, does not embrace their European ancestry with the same fervor that I do mine. If anything, they celebrate their Canadian heritage, but not much else. One side of the family is German. They emigrated in the 1880s but two world wars with Germany as the aggressor meant that they kept their pride under wraps. Another side has Swedish and Norwegian blood but there is no lutefisk or meatballs in the family fare.

A good portion is Irish, but for some reason that side is never mentioned.

Detroit has an Irish element but nowhere near as vocal as in Chicago. The other ethnic groups seem muted as well. The flaunting of the green was not as big a deal. I once made matching shamrock shirts for the boys to wear to school, but that went over like a lead leprechaun.

My St. Patrick’s Day celebrations today

Nowadays, our Irishness comes to the forefront mainly on St. Patrick’s Day. It’s no longer an everyday thing. So, I will put on the Irish music, dress in green, and provide a proper corned beef dinner for whatever family members are in town.

My sister and I have a bit of a disagreement about our mother’s ability to cook corned beef. Ann remembers a stringy, flavorless blob, but I recall a tender, mouth-watering delight. I think the difference is that she has more memories of our time on the South Side when the family funds were stretched thin, whereas I remember the meat mother bought from the butcher shop she frequented once we moved to the suburbs. (I have maligned my mother’s cooking before, but there were three dishes I liked: turkey, ribs, and corned beef.)

So, to celebrate the saint, here is my recipe for corned beef. It has nothing to do with my mother, by the way.

Start with the best corned beef you can find. I don’t recommend the brisket from the supermarkets. You can see the stringiness through the plastic wrap. If they have a flat cut at your market, go for it.

In my case, I was introduced to the best corned by my good friend, Nancy. When St. Pat’s Day rolled around, we traveled to downtown Detroit to Gratiot Central Market to purchase the corned beef from Wigley’s. Not the Wigley’s stand-alone store, she said. We had to go to the Central Market location. Why? Because Nancy said so. (Nancy had once worked for the IRS, and we never argued with her.) So Central Market it was. She taught me to buy the flat cut and to say yes to the extra fat. It used to be around four dollars a pound. I’m almost terrified to find out how much it will be this year. No matter. Whatever it costs, I will buy it. St. Patrick’s Day only comes once a year.

Does my family like corned beef? I once bought a seven pounder for five people and there were no leftovers.

Most people boil their corned beef, along with the potatoes and cabbage side dishes. Please don’t. The smell of boiling cabbage is on my list of things that smell like the fires of hell, right along with rotten broccoli.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Place the corned beef in a large roasting pan. Lay the extra fat on top. Add two cups of water. Cover. Bake for about three hours. Discard the fat, let the corned beef rest for a few minutes, then slice against the grain.

Clean house while the beef is cooking if you forgot to do it before. Or pour yourself a glass of Irish whiskey. I don’t judge.

Now for the side dishes. I steam my cabbage. I used to put slices of cabbage on the tempura tray in my wok and steam over water. Now I have a Tupperware® steamer that I use instead. Twenty minutes or so produces a soft cabbage that does not stink up the joint.

The potatoes can be any style you like. I prefer baked because all I have to do is remember to put them in the oven about halfway through the cooking process for the meat.

Carrots are a perfect accompaniment. Slice on the diagonal, sauté in butter, and no one will complain.

I have a decent recipe for soda bread, but you can look up various ones online. Just remember to have buttermilk on hand. I do prefer raisins and caraway seeds in mine.

The best part of the meal is the sauce. Start with ¼ cup of honey, add one to two teaspoons of dried dill, two tablespoons of Dijon mustard, and three tablespoons of melted butter. Stir well. This can be used on the meat, cabbage, and potatoes. Throw it on the soda bread if you like.

Our oldest son once worked in a liquor store, and I asked him for a recommendation of a wine to accompany corned beef. There really wasn’t one. Go with the stout.

A little Irish Mist with dessert rounds out the meal. Normally I make chocolate cupcakes with some Guiness thrown in, but not this year. Sean and Jeff are rather “meh” on cupcakes, Cassie usually doesn’t have room for dessert, and I need to avoid sweets for my diet. The twins have not had chocolate yet, to my knowledge, so I can’t use them as an excuse. I may have to settle for fruit salad.

We will listen to Bing Crosby and The Chieftains while eating dinner on the good china with the good silver.

Then I will snuggle on the couch with my honeybunch to watch Maureen O’Hara and John Wayne duke it out in The Quiet Man.

That’s a perfect, modern St. Patrick’s Day celebration in my book.

Slainte!