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The history of eating corned beef on St. Patrick's Day gets a great deal of internet attention. Often, sources detour into how and when beef was corned with preserving salt, but don't strictly explain why corned beef was adopted as a St. Patrick's Day food. And the history of eating cabbage on this day is often just the humble accompaniment. To understand why these two foods became combined for the celebration of St. Patrick's Day on the 17th March, it is necessary to look at what both these foods symbolised in Irish culture and how the immigration of Irish peasants to America, culminating in the 19th century, established the combination of these two foods as a tradition.

All this means that the eating of corned beef and cabbage on St. Patrick's Day did not begin in Ireland. It had Irish connections in the new Irish homeland of America. How and why did this happen?

At first, the answer seems quite simple. Irish immigrants, mainly peasants, (escaping the Great Famine in Ireland of 1845-9), could now afford to buy corned beef and cabbage.

In Ireland, corned beef was only accessible to the rich and the rest was for export. First, exports were to England and France. Later they extended to America.

The cabbage story follows another route. The peasants' small acreages of cheap potatoes (which failed in the Great Famine) crippled all thought of growing cabbage as well. After all, cabbage could not be grown in the same area until four years had passed. The Irish peasant did not have enough acreage to consider crop rotation.

In the New World, especially the favoured New World of east coast America, especially in New York, the impossible became possible. Corned beef and cabbage, together, became a celebration of being Irish on St. Patrick's Day. They symbolised a form of new found "wealth".

But this simple answer seems to beg more questions. Could it be rightly said that the Irish peasant immigrant could afford to buy corned beef if it's only bought for celebrating St. Patrick's Day? Perhaps cabbage would be bought in New York, but would it be readily available in all the seaports where the Irish settled, often in slum urban conditions? And why would the Irish immigrants choose these two particular foods?

The Irish were not the first people to combine these two foods. Corned beef and cabbage was a favoured dish of the ancient Romans. Greek and Roman colonists brought cabbages from the Black Sea region into Russia. (Cabbage is now regarded as Russia's national food). Possibly

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