Anyway, to revert to the theme of last Saturday: if the Celtic Tiger grows mangy or worse, you could get by if you have put down your spuds and some greens: cabbage and the like. Brid Mahon, in her fascinating book Land of Milk and Honey (Mercier Press 1990), gives all you would want to know about the best ways of making the potato a more enticing dish, though, even on its own, boiled simply, it is not only nourishing but palatable. Colcannon, to her recipe, consists of potatoes mashed and mixed with chopped kale or green cabbage and onions. She gives a few lines of verse which celebrate the virtues of the dish, including: "Did you ever scoop a hole on top/To hold the melting lake/Of the clover-flavoured butter/Which your mother used to make?"
In Armagh, she writes, and doubtless beyond - say Belfast, for example - there was the variation of champ. This is a dish of mashed potatoes, sweet milk (just milk to most of us) and chopped chives or onions, eaten, like colcannon by dipping the spoonfuls into the well of melted butter on top. The author says that when the first of the new potatoes were dug, they were made into champ (some might prefer them eaten straight). Boxty potatoes she mentions, and surely we are not so far gone on fast food of today that this is forgotten. Usually eaten around Samhain or Hallow'een. You squeezed grated raw potatoes in a cloth; they were sieved and mixed with baking powder and salt and a beaten egg. Milk was added to make a batter. Many will know boxty best in the form of pancakes or farls baked on a griddle. Brid Mahon has a rhyme for this: "Boxty on the griddle, boxty in the pan./If you don't eat boxty, you'll never get your man." Fadge, of course, is the name in the North, and perhaps elsewhere, for apple potato cake, often mentioned by one of the best cooks that came out of Belfast (she will be nameless). As said, much of this is built around celebrations of Samhain or Hallow'een, but carried on in towns and cities where country life is largely only a memory.
Lorna Reynolds, by the way, mentions a slightly more elaborate or dandified colcannon. Colcannon, properly made to her recipe, had equal quantities of kale and potatoes (or cabbage, if preferred) as above, but as well as salt and pepper, nutmeg and cinnamon were added; also leek, boiled soft in milk, if you liked. "With the addition of fried rashers, it makes a solid meal." (From Tasty Food for Hasty Folk, Attic Press, Dublin 1990.) Y
