Weekend Cooking #17: Happy St. Patrick’s Day

Today is the day everyone is Irish.  Here, in NYC, this is celebrated in a big way with a huge parade up Fifth Avenue.  This year marks the 251st St. Patrick’s Day Parade.   It began back on March 17, 1762, when a group of Irish immigrants decided to get together on lower Broadway and celebrate being Irish.  Being Irish in Ireland was forbidden at the time, but here they could speak Irish, dance Irish play the Irish pipes and just revel in their Irish pride and ‘the wearing of the green.’  

Unlike the Thanksgiving Day Parade, which was cancelled during World War II, the St. Patrick’s Day Parade was held every year, with varying numbers of marchers and viewers, but always honoring the members of the armed forces.  

Now, I have always like a nice Corned Beef and Cabbage meal, with boiled potatoes and some home baked Irish Soda Bread on St. Patrick’s Day.  But I was curious about what people could eat given wartime rationing to celebrate this holiday, so I looked up some of the recommended recipes from the New York Times.

Nothing was very St. Patrick’s Dayish:

In 1942, Mock Goose 

In 1943, Ox Joints with Vegetables

In 1944, Scalloped Eggplant

In 1945, Bologna Stuffed with Cabbage

But I thought for sure there would be come kind of Irish treat once the war was over, so I looked up 1946 and found Vegetable Loaf.

I am learning to appreciate the hardships of wartime rationing more and more as I write Weekend Cooking posts, but since I am a traditionalist at heart, I am including a recipe for Irish Soda Bread that was given to me by a neighbor who had brought it with her from the Emerald Isle.  I have made it lots of times and it is delicious.

Irish Soda Bread

4 1/4 cups of flour

1/4 lb butter

1 egg 

2 cups of milk

1 tsp vanilla

4 tsp baking soda

1/2 cup sugar

pinch of salt

3 tbsp caraway seeds

2 cups raisins

1- Beat the egg, milk and vanilla together

2- By hand, blend the butter and flour together

3- By hand, mix together with remaining ingredients except the raisins

4- Now mix in the raisins, also by hand

Put into a well greased dutch oven 

Bake at 400℉ for 20 minutes

After 20 minutes, add a pan of boiling water to the bottom of the oven

10 minutes later lower oven to 350℉

Continue baking for 40 minutes or until knife come out dry when inserted in the middle of the bread.

For something really grand, serve this hot with a lovely cup of tea.

Weekend Cooking is a weekly meme hosted by Beth Fish Reads