This chronicle tells the little or the big story behind our food, dishes or chefs. Powerful weapon soft power, A societal and cultural marker, food is the founding element of our civilizations. Conflicts, diplomacy, traditions, cuisine has always had a political dimension. Because as Bossuet already said in the 17th century, “it is at the table that we govern”.
Cleveland, Ohio, a small fast-food restaurant with its Formica tables and pipettes of yellow mustard, as America has thousands of them. Except that the establishment Joe & Freddy Slyman’s, which has perpetuated the tradition of the “best corned beef sandwich” since 1964 says the storefront, has already received several very famous clients: President George W. Bush in 2007 and Joe Biden in 2011, at the time vice-president of the United States.
This weakness of American statesmen for these thin slices of pink and brined beef brisket – much better than the canned porridge which bears the same name – is anything but the result of chance. Like Biden, half of all presidents and more than 30 million Americans claim Irish descent. These common roots have thus consecrated the corned beef and cabbage (cabbage) as the emblematic dish of St. Patrick’s Day in the United States.
Roast beef has become a symbol of aristocracy
But was he really born in Ireland? If you scour the pubs of Dublin this Sunday March 17, it will be difficult for you to find any… Historically, it is the pig which plays a primordial role in the Irish diet, the cow being considered a sacred animal in the Gaelic Ireland. But English domination, which resulted in the act of union of Ireland and Great Britain in 1800, decided otherwise. “From the beginning of the colonial era, roast beef became synonymous with the well-fed British aristocracy and middle class,” writes essayist Jeremy Rifkin (Beyond Beef: The Rise and Fall of the Cattle Culture, EP Dutton, Jeremy Rifkin, 1992). England is hungry for beef and Ireland becomes its pantry.
Between 1680 and 1825, the port of Cork became the epicenter of this trade. Irish beef is sweeping across continental Europe, from Newfoundland to the West Indies, and even supplies the French navy. The business flourished until the Cattle Acts in the 17th century banned the export of live cattle to England. The halt is brutal, at the very moment when North American competition is becoming more pressing. Between 1845 and 1847, Ireland was decimated by the “Great Potato Famine” due to a parasitic fungus in its crops. One of the “greatest horrors of modern times”, according to William Gladstone, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (1892-1894). The disaster caused nearly 1 million deaths and 1.5 million people were forced to emigrate, an eighth of the Irish population at the time. It is in this context that Joe Biden’s ancestors left the town of Ballina, in the west of the country, and arrived in Pennsylvania in the mid-19th century.
The trend for “Jewish delis” reaches America
Tens of thousands of Irish arrived in New York, particularly in the Lower East Side, a district of Manhattan. In the city’s kosher butcher shops, they find the famous cheap brisket that looks just like the one their parents and grandparents prepared for decades in Ireland. Already at the time, Abraham Lincoln, the first Republican president of the United States, loved corned beef and put it on the menu for his inauguration in 1861. Many Jewish grocery stores offer them, like the very famous Katz’s Delicatessen, named after its founder, Willy Katz, a Jewish immigrant from Russia, or the Second Avenue Deli and Sarge’s Delicatessen and Diner. The fashion for “Jewish delis”, which became icons of American pop culture in the 1950s, was launched.
America’s favorite St. Patrick’s Day dish is a reflection of Ireland’s relationship with Uncle Sam: unrivaled! Since 1952, a representative of the Irish government has systematically been received for this celebration at Congress and the White House, where green dye is thrown into the fountain and the Oval Office is abundantly decorated with clovers.
American presidents have all clearly understood the electoral importance of cultivating this proximity with Ireland. From Barack Obama who, in 2012, treated himself to a pint of Guinness in a Washington pub, to Joe Biden’s visit last year for the 25th anniversary of the agreement that ended the Northern Irish civil war , including Donald Trump who comes to play on his own golf course, all capitalize on America’s Irish roots. Some advice for the former American president, surrounded by business, who will attempt a return to the White House in 2024: he who has a well-known love for chips, burgers, meat loaf, the famous meat bread. Let him eat corned beef.
Our advice:
Where to eat good corned beef in Paris: Janet by Homer, 13 Rue Rambuteau, 75004 Paris.
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