St. Patrick traditions

It looks like the St. Patrick's Day parade in Cincinnati is a very wet one. We sre are in a rainy period in southern Ohio and dreams of fertilizing wheat and planting crops get pushed back further each day.

"The First Parade :

The first St. Patrick's Day parade took place not in Ireland but in the United States. Irish soldiers serving in the English military marched through New York City on March 17, 1762. Along with their music, the parade helped the soldiers reconnect with their Irish roots, as well as fellow Irishmen serving in the English army.

Over the next 35 years, Irish patriotism among American immigrants flourished, prompting the rise of so-called "Irish Aid" societies like the Friendly Sons of Saint Patrick and the Hibernian Society. Each group would hold annual parades featuring bagpipes (which actually first became popular in the Scottish and British armies) and drums.

In 1848, several New York Irish Aid societies decided to unite their parades to form one New York City St. Patrick's Day Parade. Today, that parade is the world 's oldest civilian parade and the largest in the United States, with over 150,000 participants.

Each year, nearly three million people line the 1.5-mile parade route to watch the procession, which takes more than five hours. Boston, Chicago, Philadelphia and Savannah also celebrate the day with parades involving between 10,000 and 20,000 participants."

Me, I like the bagpipes but I thought that was a Scottish tradition. That's close enough to Ireland I guess but the call of the parade brings out all the ancestrial traditions. I remember the pipes playing in parades from Buffalo to Cincinnati.

I wonder where the tradition of corned beef came from that is often served during Lent?

"Why do they Call it "Corned" Beef?The term “Corned” comes from putting meat in a large crock and covering it with large rock-salt kernels of salt that were refered to as “corns of salt” This preserved the meat. The term Corned has been in the Oxford English Dictionary as early as 888 AD.

Irish Were the First Exporters of Corned BeefIrish were the biggest exporters of Corned Beef till 1825. The English were serving corned beef but also the Irish. In this day and age corned beef and cabbage is not very Irish, but corned beef is. The area of Cork, Ireland was a great producer of Corned Beef in the 1600’s until 1825. It was their chief export and sent all over the world, mostly in cans. The British army sustained on cans of Cork’s corned beef during the Napoleonic wars."

Corned beef is not my thing but that's the beef that "What's for dinner?" tomorrow. Cabbage? I like crisp folding money but cole slaw is the best use of cabbage I ever tasted.

Happy St. Patty's Day March 17.

Ed