To students and faculty, St. Patrick’s Day is a day to celebrate their Irish culture and heritage through family traditions like eating corned beef and cabbage. With St. Patrick’s Day quickly approaching California State University Stanislaus, (Stan State), the day of green clothes, food and drink can also serve as a quick history lesson in regards to what the day really stood for.
Cassidy Ferrell (sophomore, Liberal Studies) cannot recall anyone else on campus who loves to celebrate St. Patrick’s Day as much as she does.
“I start kind of a countdown thing where I countdown seven days before it starts just because it’s kind of cool, it’s like my heritage,” Ferrell said. She stated that she can also be seen wearing “lots of green” during the time of celebration.
Back home in San Diego, Ferrell’s mother cooks a large, traditional St. Patrick’s Day family dinner that includes corned beef, cabbage and mashed potatoes.
The traditional meal can serve as a celebration of a family’s Irish heritage as well as a way to connect with others through food and conversation.
“My aunt sends us Irish soda bread, it’s really good,” Ferrell said. “We look through things with family history too, like when our family came over we had ‘O’s’ in front of our last names, so we dropped them when we came over to America.”
According to Ferrell, in Chicago, where her mother is from, the Chicago River is dyed green, and people will jump into the cold water as a sign of their Irish heritage.
These traditions are very important to Ferrell and perhaps many others who desire to continue on the celebration of their Irish heritage.
“It’s my culture, it’s my background, it’s who I am,” Ferrell said.
Professor of theatre, communications and honors, Therese Lunt also celebrates St. Patrick’s Day with the traditional corned beef and cabbage meal and drinks Guinness beer. However, this meal did not become a tradition until after many Irish immigrants came to America.
“Most of the traditions we celebrate are Americanized due to the influx of Irish immigrants during the potato famine, who took basically a religious holiday, which was St. Patrick’s Day, and turned it into a celebration of their culture and their heritage as Irish immigrants,” Lunt said.
It was not until 1995 in Dublin, Ireland that the Irish began to host St. Patrick’s Day parades “due to tourism from America,” Lunt said.
According to Lunt, St. Patrick’s Day in Ireland is a religious celebration. When Lunt was attending a Catholic school in Los Angeles, St. Patrick’s Day was regarded as a “holy day of obligations,” and there was no school.
“When our kids were little, we took it a little bit further, just personally as a family, and the leprechauns would come to our house,” Lunt said.
Lunt stated that the “mischievous” leprechauns would turn anything liquid in the house green including milk, toilet water and mayonnaise. However, the leprechaun would also leave a bag of chocolate, gold coins as a parting gift.
Ferrell and Lunt both remarked that partaking in these age-old St. Patrick’s Day traditions keeps them in touch with their Irish roots and even allows them to keep their heritage alive from generation to generation.
Corned beef and Cabbage Ingredients:
- 2 prepackaged corned beef briskets
- 2 cups brown sugar
- ½ cup Dijon mustard
- ½ cup Horse radish
- 1 head of cabbage
- 1 stick butter
- Salt and pepper to taste
Begin by adding 16 cups of water in a pot bringing the water to a boil. Then, put the corned beef briskets into the boiling water for 2 hours. Next, place 2 cups of brisket water into a 9×13 glass baking dish along with the boiled briskets. Rub ¼ cup Dijon mustard and ¼ cup of horse radish onto each brisket. After that, rub 1 cup of brown sugar onto each brisket. Cover the pan with aluminum foil and bake the dish at 350 degrees for 2 hours. While the briskets are cooking, simmer on low heat for 45 minutes 1 head of cabbage in a pot. Add 1 stick of butter and season with salt and pepper to taste as the cabbage simmers. Once the briskets are cooked and the cabbage has boiled, slice the brisket into loaves and serve with the cabbage (green beans and mashed potatoes are optional as sides).
