Colcannon
Colcannon
Irish potato dish
Colcannon (Irish: cál ceannann, meaning 'white-headed cabbage') is a traditional Irish dish of mashed potatoes with cabbage. It is a popular dish on Saint Patrick's Day[1] and on the feast day of St. Brigid.[2]
Course | Main course or side dish |
---|---|
Place of origin | Ireland |
Serving temperature | Hot |
Main ingredients | Mashed potatoes, cabbage |
Colcannon is most commonly made with only four ingredients: potatoes, butter, milk and cabbage. Irish historian Patrick Weston Joyce defined it as "potatoes mashed with butter and milk, with chopped up cabbage and pot herbs".[3] It can contain other ingredients such as scallions (spring onions), leeks, laverbread, onions and chives. Some recipes substitute cabbage with kale.[4] There are many regional variations of this staple dish.[5] It was a cheap, year-round food.[6][7] It is often eaten with boiled ham, salt pork or Irish bacon. As a side dish it goes well with corned beef and cabbage.[3]
An Irish Halloween tradition is to serve colcannon with a ring and a thimble hidden in the dish. Prizes of small coins such as threepenny or sixpenny bits also can be concealed inside the dish.[8] Other items could include a stick indicating an unhappy marriage and a rag denoting a life of poverty.[9]
Colcannon is similar to Champ, a dish made with scallions, butter and milk that traditionally offered to fairies be being placed at the foot of a Hawthorn tree in a spoon.[4]
The origin of the word is unclear. The first syllable "col" likely comes from the Irish "cál," meaning cabbage. The second syllable may derive from "ceann-fhionn," meaning a white head (i.e. "a white head of cabbage."). This usage is also found in the Irish name for a coot, a white-headed bird known as "cearc cheannan" or "white-head hen.".
In Welsh, the name for leek soup is cawl cennin, a phrase combining cawl meaning "soup", "broth" or "gruel", when it is not a reference to the typical Welsh meat and vegetable stew named in full "cawl Cymreig", with "cennin," the plural of "cenhinen," meaning "leeks".[10]
The song "Colcannon", also called "The Skillet Pot", is a traditional Irish song that has been recorded by numerous artists, including Mary Black.[8][11] It begins:
Did you ever eat Colcannon, made from lovely pickled cream?
With the greens and scallions mingled like a picture in a dream.
Did you ever make a hole on top to hold the melting flake
Of the creamy, flavoured butter that your mother used to make?
The chorus:
Yes you did, so you did, so did he and so did I.
And the more I think about it sure the nearer I'm to cry.
Oh, wasn't it the happy days when troubles we had not,
And our mothers made Colcannon in the little skillet pot.
- Clapshot, stovies, and rumbledethumps, from Scotland
- Bubble and squeak, from England
- Champ, from Ireland
- Biksemad, from Denmark
- Trinxat, from the Empordà region of Catalonia, northeast Spain, and Andorra
- Roupa velha (Portuguese for "old clothes"), from Portugal, often made from leftovers from cozido à Portuguesa
- Boerenkool stamppot, from the Netherlands
- Stoemp, from Belgium
- Hash, from the United States
- Hash browns
- Potato cake
- Tribune, Beth Dooley Special to the Star. "4 recipes for a traditional St. Patrick's Day meal, and it's not corned beef". Star Tribune. Archived from the original on 22 May 2024. Retrieved 22 May 2024.
- "If you really want to celebrate Brigid, eat colcannon on Wednesday and then make your cross". The Irish Times. Archived from the original on 22 May 2024. Retrieved 22 May 2024.
- Andrews, Colman (21 December 2012). The Country Cooking of Ireland. Chronicle Books. ISBN 9781452124056. Retrieved 31 August 2019.
- Sheraton, Mimi (13 January 2015). 1,000 Foods To Eat Before You Die: A Food Lover's Life List. Workman Publishing Company. ISBN 9780761183068. Retrieved 31 August 2019.
- "Recipe from An Bord Bia (Irish food board)". Archived from the original on 19 February 2014. Retrieved 12 May 2011.
- Irwin, Florence (1986). The Cookin' Woman: Irish Country Recipes. Blackstaff. ISBN 0-85640-373-3.
- Friedland, Susan R. (2009). Vegetables: Proceedings of the Oxford Symposium on Food and Cooking 2008. Oxford Symposium. ISBN 9781903018668. Archived from the original on 28 August 2023. Retrieved 31 August 2019.
- Allen, Darina (2012). Irish Traditional Cooking. Dublin: Gill and Macmillan. p. 152. ISBN 9780717154364.
- Allen, Darina (28 October 2020). "Eat, drink, and be scary this Halloween". Irish Examiner. Archived from the original on 1 November 2020. Retrieved 29 October 2020.
- Evans, H. Meurig (1980). Y Geiriadur Mawr. Gwasg Gomer.
- "The Black Family" CD, 1986, Dara Records, DARA CD 023
Media related to Category:Colcannon at Wikimedia Commons