March 16, 2017 – My French grandmother used to say
we were Irish
I
can always call out the date of St. Patrick’s Day – March 17th. It is my French Grandmother’s birthday and I
often think of her at this time of year.
When our family visited her on her birthday when I was a kid she would
often say,
“You
know, St. Patrick was French.” She was a
small woman with few words and would have a soft smile and would not say much
more. As a young child I believed it and
even now mention it often when everyone is talking about St. Patrick. That is how I claim my “Irish” identify even if
I don’t have any. But then, why would my
mom and my husband call me “Bridget” if I didn’t have at least a wee drop of
Irish blood in me?
There
is a little bit of factual historical information about St. Patrick being in
France for several years, so maybe my Grandmother learned that when she was a
child and added that to her birth date and from that she simply passed on her little
Irish heritage to me. Now that it has
been passed along to me, I am not letting it go.
I
think everyone is Irish on St. Patrick’s Day or should be. Many years I have addressed my St. Patrick’s Day’s
cards with “O” in front of peoples’ surnames in order to elicit a private
chuckle out of it and pass along a temporary membership in “Irishness” to them.
That
is what St. Patrick’s Day is for me: A
beautiful holiday to enjoy, to have fun, to speak some blarney, actually speak lots
of blarney. Drink some Irish whiskey
and then some more whiskey, dance a jig, sing some Irish ballads off key in the
boisterous crowd, wear green and pinch those who wear orange. And, loosen up and say “Kiss me I’m Irish” when
at an Irish pub.
Once
a year I make corned beef and drink wonderfully chilled stout beer with
it. It is mine and my husband’s Irish Holiday that doesn’t cost us much
as we park our jobs or life on hold for 12 to 24 hours to just enjoy the moment
in a corned beef dinner, an Irish coffee, or a nice tumbler of Jameson whiskey
on the rocks.
Let me tell you I am a
serious Irish coffee snob. YES, if they
don’t have real Irish whiskey and real coffee, I don’t order it as it is not
what I consider Irish coffee. This food snob says – you can keep your Bailey’s
Irish Crème – YUCK [is my opinion].
Recipe:
Irish Coffee - International Bartenders
Association version
TYPE Mixed Drink
Primary
Alcohol Irish whiskey
Served Hot
Drinkware Irish Coffee Mug
IBA specified
Ingredients
2 parts Irish whiskey
4
parts hot coffee
1
½ parts fresh cream [whipped]
1
tsp brown sugar
Preparation Heat
coffee whiskey and sugar;
Do
not boil.
Pour
into Irish Coffee Mug [glass]
Top
with cream
Serve
hot
Being a certificate
holding bartender I have lots of useless
bits of interesting information:
The two brands that I am most familiar with and
readily available here in the United States are Jameson Irish Whiskey and Old
Bushmills Distillery. Jameson is said to
be the Catholic whiskey and the Protestant whiskey is Bushmills based solely on
geography. We were given this little
tidbit of information to forestall a heated discussion. It was also suggested to us it might be wise to have bucket of cold green beer on hand to dump on the roughians if a donneybook broke out.
The word “whiskey” is
derived from a Gaelic phrase meaning “water of life.” Irish whiskey was once the most popular
spirit in the world, however, declined from the last of the 19th century
onward. But, it is now making a
comeback.
The
bottom line on Irish coffee is that it is hot coffee, Irish whiskey, stirred in
sugar, then topped with whipped cream. Irish
coffee is drunk through the cream so that you end up with a cream mustache.
Maybe
that is why there is the saying:
“Kiss
me I’m Irish.”
What
better way is there to wipe away the cream?
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