Traditions

My father was an Irish man from the suburbs of Boston.  A man with eight brothers whose great grandfather came from Ireland.   My mom was pregnant 12 times, 7 of those pregnancies went to full term.  We were a good Catholic family who took up an entire pew in the Catholic church in Newtown.  Two of my brothers were altar servers.  Of course we celebrated St. Patrick’s Day.   A very vivid memory I have is waking up and being in my pajamas and my brothers coming over to me and pinching me because my pajamas were most likely pink and not a touch of green on them.  They told me that the rule was if you weren’t wearing green on St. Patrick’s Day you got pinched.  Not being someone who liked to be pinched I seldom forgot that rule.  We had the typical meal of corned beef, potatoes and boiled cabbage.  Other than the potatoes, I really disliked the corned beef and boiled cabbage and being from a strict Irish, Catholic father what was on your plate had to be eaten. It was mostly the boiled cabbage I disliked.  I suffered through and as a result I have never made it or served it to my family. I typically have made potato soup or corned beef sandwiches with coleslaw.  I realize now it was a texture thing with the boiled cabbage.  I like coleslaw because of the crunch.  So tonight my daughter is taking over the kitchen and she is planning to saute the coleslaw with some onion.  A new generation is bringing back the tradition of cabbage on St. Patrick’s Day.

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