Are you red, or... gray?

It was a tough week for working people. Wisconsin governor Scott Walker managed to strip the collective bargaining rights from government workers (at least the government workers that people don't care about. Fireman and policeman still have their right... well not a right, a privilege, since rights are for everybody, to bargain collectively). Same old same old. At least there was a fight.

"irony alert, he was a British dude"

Funny thing. Or maybe ironic. We'll be celebrating Saint Patrick's day this week. Probably with a big corned beef and cabbage hootenanny. Guess what, people in old Ireland didn't eat corned beef. As a British colony the best Irish lands were used  to raise cattle for meat. Meat that was not for British consumption but for export to other colonies. Meat that could travel in ships. Meat that was salt-cured so it wouldn't go bad, i.e. corned beef. If you were an Irish peasant and you wanted to eat  you helped your British masters raise cattle on the good land then planted rugged crops that took well to bad soil, i.e. potatoes, on the land that was left.

Corned beef was a money maker. Sucked about that potato blight though. Of coarse the Irish people didn't have any collective bargaining rights either, so the good lands were used for cattle, the food was for export, and you could either flee or die. Of coarse we wouldn't want to deny the Achievers in society their just due now would we? That would be socialism.



Besides there was always America. Where you could get a job, and maybe buy some corned beef. Now you're living high. You could establish yourselves, have a holiday to commemorate your heritage (even though real rich people ate fresh beef), and get your Irish on.

Nothing says balls to the wall wild time like a parade.

Then of coarse there is the problem of red vs gray corned beef. It would be too easy to just cook some food, have a few beers and enjoy yourself. Where's the fun in that? As any good patron of the food network knows it has to be authentic in order to be good (unless a celebrity chef does it and then it's artistic, What, you don't believe in art?). So red? or gray?

Red corned beef is made with spices and nitrates. Gray corned beef is made with water and salt only. As I will go to my grave pointing out authentic is always a load of bull used to separate the cool kids from the losers. (An essential step in deciding who must be killed when things go bad.) If you are from New England gray corned beef is authentic. If you are from most other places in America you probably have never seen anything but red corned beef. If you are from Ireland your ancestors probably didn't have corned beef on St Patty's day until the relatives came back from the states.

How to choose? Well they do taste different, but I dare anyone to blindfold themselves and identify red or gray by taste alone ( maybe you could get the completely self-deluded wine snobs to help you). Maybe go the healthy route, nitrates are probably bad for you. Maybe go the anti-Semitic route since red is the color of choice in jewish delis. Maybe you should just buy what you feel like buying. Tomorrows corned beef and cabbage recipe works with whatever you buy and it will definitely taste good either way.

Final thought. In Wisconsin, in America, there are liberals that have your back and there are conservatives that have your back, but Scott Walker and the Republican party are always going to be the British. I hope you like potatoes.