What is corned beef?
Every year as St. Patrick's Day rolls around, suddenly corned beef is the topic of the day. (I'll be honest with you, I am personally not a big fan of corned beef. Too salty, with a bit of a weird sour taste that seems "off" to me. But that just leaves more for the rest of you, right?)
First of all, corned beef has nothing to do with corn. Corned beef has been treated with a very coarse salt, with grains that were said to be the size of corn kernels. These "corns" of salt are what lends corned beef its name.
Corned beef has been around for as long as people have been preserving meat with salt. A long time, in other words. In the United Kingdom, corned beef production boomed during the Industrial Revolution of the 17th and 18th centuries, when they churned out tins of corned beef by the millions for British citizens and sailors alike.
Most of this corned beef was produced in Ireland, which set up a bustling trade system for beef and salt with France and Spain. Ireland's coastal cities became the main source of corned beef production throughout the Atlantic, a valuable commodity to a country which had struggled with financial hardship so often in the past.
Ireland's rousing success with packaging and selling corned beef was a source of national pride, although most Irish people don't think of corned beef as a traditional Irish food. Apparently Ireland was so busy selling corned beef that Irish people rarely actually ate it. It was considered a luxury item, one which had more value as a commodity to be traded than as something to eat for dinner.
Nevertheless, corned beef is still associated with Ireland in the minds of many people, particularly Americans celebrating St. Patrick's Day.
Image courtesy Flickr/larryjh1234