If you’re a “traditionalist” and plan on enjoying a pint of green beer tomorrow in celebration of St. Patrick’s Day be thankful you won’t be drinking the original green hops beverage.
“No, it wasn’t a green glass, but a real beer in a regular colorless glass. But the amber hue was gone from the brew and a deep green was there instead,” according to an eyewitness at a 1914 celebration of the day in New York.
Hosted by Dr. Thomas Hayes Curtain, an immigrant from Ireland’s County Carlow and Bronx, New York, coroner, “everything possible was green or decorated with that color” and “Irish songs were sung” at the banquet that featured the doctor’s emerald home brew.
Pressed to reveal the secret ingredient of his suds Curtain confessed to having added “one drop of blue wash to a certain amount of beer.”
The “wash blue” was also, in fact, poison, an iron powder solution used to whiten clothes. Which begs the question: Was the coroner just trying to drum up more business for himself? Just sayin’.
These days three to five drops of standard green food color to a pint will get you a non-lethal version of Curtain’s beverage. Beer dying experts recommend putting the drops in the glass first. They also caution against adding blue food coloring to yellow beer. While it might seem like a clever idea, you’ll just end up with turquoise beer.
Parades are a big deal on St. Paddy’s Day. New York boasts that it’s 1.5-mile long parade with 150,000 participates and 2 million spectators is the “oldest and largest.” It was first held 1762, 14 years before the Declaration of Independence was signed.
The thing is, Boston also lays claim to having the first parade in honor of the Christian saint in 1737 but it seems both big cities claims are just so much foam. According to historical evidence unearthed by the University of South Florida, residents of St. Augustine gathered then “processed” through that Florida city’s streets in honor of St. Patrick, the population’s official “protector” of corn fields, in 1601.
Hot Springs, Arkansas, lays claim to the “world’s shortest” St. Patrick’s Day parade. It’s a whopping 98-feet long.
Celebrations honoring the patron saint of Ireland occur all over the world including the nearly 10-day long celebration on the island Montserrat in the Caribbean and Chicago uses 40 pounds of dye to color the river green. But St. Patrick wasn’t Irish, he didn’t wear green and he never chased snakes from the rollin
g green of Ireland’s hills into the sea. Sorry to burst those bubbles.
He was born in the late fourth century to a Roman Britain family and given the Christian name Maewyn Succat. Captured by Irish raiders when he was 16, Succat’s religious faith deepened during his six years of slavery. After his escape from captivity he returned to Britain but believed God had chosen him to Christianize Ireland so, he returned to his land of captivity as a missionary of the Catholic Church.
He also took a new name, Patricius, or Patrick, deriving from the Latin for “father figure.” He wore blue, not green, robes traveling the country using the three-leafed shamrock plant as a physical metaphor for the Holy Trinity; performing baptisms and confirmations; and, not, leading snakes over a cliff. There are no snakes in Ireland.
As for the holiday’s tradition repast, it only dates back to 19th century Irish immigration into the U.S. Here the closest counterpart to salt pork was bacon, a luxury item. The cheapest meat available was, you guessed it, corned beef and the cheapest vegetable were cabbage and potatoes and so a holiday feat was created.
Tomorrow when you sit down to your plate of corned beef and cabbage remember there are no lady leprechauns, only men who earn that gold in their pots by repairing shoes. And when you lift your glass of green brewski give a toast to the Isle of Éire which is not “Erin go Bragh” but rather Éirinn go Brách which, roughly translated, means “Ireland Forever.”
