Recipes
(Cally, Poundy)
Courtesy: Jack Devaney
Yield: 6 servings
In some parts of Ireland, the Feast of Lughnasadh (see below) came to be
called Colcannon Sunday, after a dish made from the first digging of
potatoes. The cook put on a special white apron kept for the occasion,
boiled a huge pot of potatoes over the fire, and mashed them with a
wooden mallet. Often, they were seasoned with onions, garlic or cabbage.
The cooked vegetables were then turned out onto a platter, and a well
hollowed out in the middle for plenty of butter and hot milk. The family
sat round and ate, while the cook ate hers from the pot itself—a special
privilege. In more well-to-do households, the meal would be accompanied
by meat such as a flitch of bacon, newly-slaughtered sheep or roast
chicken, and followed by seasonal fruits such as gooseberries and
blackcurrants.
It was thought to be unlucky not to eat Colcannon on this day, so people
often made sure to share theirs with less fortunate neighbors.
Ingredients:
1 medium cabbage, quartered and core removed
2 lbs potatoes, scrubbed and sliced with skins left on
2 medium leeks, thoroughly washed and sliced
1 cup milk
1/2 teaspoons each mace, salt, pepper
2 garlic cloves
8 tablespoons unsalted butter
Directions:
Bring a pot of salted water to a boil and boil the cabbage until tender,
about 12-15 minutes. Drain off the water and chop the cabbage. Set
aside.
Bring another pot of water to a boil and boil the potatoes until tender.
Drain off the water and set aside.
Put the leeks in a saucepan, cover with the milk, bring close to boiling
and then turn down to a simmer until tender. Set aside.
Add the mace, salt and pepper, and garlic to the pot with the potatoes
and mash well with a hand masher. Now add the leeks and their milk and
mix in with the potatoes, taking care not to break down the leeks too
much. Add a little more milk if necessary to make it smooth. Now mash in
the cabbage and lastly the butter. The texture that you want to achieve
is smooth-buttery-potato with interesting pieces of leek and cabbage
well distributed in it.
Transfer the whole mixture to an ovenproof dish, make a pattern on the
surface and place under the broiler to brown. After the first mouthful,
Irish families might call out, "Destruction to the Red-haired Hag!"
The red-haired hag is a personification of hunger.
The Celtic harvest festival on August 1st takes its name from the Irish god Lugh, one of the chief gods of the Tuatha De Danann, giving us Lughnasadh in Ireland, Lunasdál in Scotland, and Laa Luanys in the Isle of Man. (In Wales, this time is known simply as Gwl Awst, the August Feast.
Lugh dedicated this festival to his foster-mother, Tailtiu, the last
queen of the Fir Bolg, who died from exhaustion after clearing a great
forest so that the land could be cultivated. When the men of Ireland
gathered at her death-bed, she told them to hold funeral games in her
honor. As long as they were held, she prophesied Ireland would not be
without song. Tailtiu’s name is from Old Celtic Talantiu, "The Great One
of the Earth," suggesting she may originally have been a personification
of the land itself, like so many Irish goddesses. In fact, Lughnasadh
has an older name, Brón Trogain, which refers to the painful labor of
childbirth. For at this time of year, the earth gives birth to her first
fruits so that her children might live.
Tailtiu gives her name to Teltown in County Meath, where the festival
was traditionally held in early Ireland. It evolved into a great tribal
assembly, attended by the High King, where legal agreements were made,
political problems discussed, and huge sporting contests were held on
the scale of an early Olympic Games. Artists and entertainers displayed
their talents, traders came from far and wide to sell food, farm
animals, fine crafts and clothing, and there was much storytelling,
music, and high-spirited revelry, according to a medieval eye-witness
account:
"Trumpets, harps, hollow-throated horns, pipers, timpanists,
unwearied…fiddlers, gleemen, bone-players and bag-pipers, a rude crowd,
noisy, profane, roaring and shouting."
This was also an occasion for hand fasting, or trial marriages. Young
men and women lined up on either side of a wooden gate in a high wall,
in which a hole was carved, large enough for a hand. One by one, girl
and boy would grasp a hand in the hole, without being able to see who
was on the other side. They were now married, and could live together
for year and day to see if it worked out. If not, the couple returned to
next year’s gathering and officially separated by standing back to back
and walking away from each other.
Throughout the centuries, the grandeur of Teltown dwindled away, but all
over Ireland, right up to the middle of this century, country-people
have celebrated the harvest at revels, wakes, and fairs – and some still
continue today in the liveliest manner. It was usually celebrated on the
nearest Sunday to August 1st, so that a whole day could be
set aside from work. In later times, the festival of Lughnasadh was
Christianized as Lammas, from the Anglo-Saxon, hlaf-mas, "Loaf-Mass,"
but in rural areas, it was often remembered as "Bilberry Sunday," for
this was the day to climb the nearest "Lughnasadh Hill" and gather the
earth’s freely-given gifts of the little black berries, which they might
wear as special garlands or gather in baskets to take home for jam.
As of old, people sang and danced jigs and reels to the music of
melodeons, fiddles and flutes, and held uproarious sporting contests and
races. In some places, a woman—or an effigy of one—was crowned with
summer flowers and seated on a throne, with garlands strewn at her feet.
Dancers whirled around her, touching her garlands or pulling off a
ribbon for good luck. In this way, perhaps, the ancient goddess of the
harvest was still remembered with honor.