Tomorrow is St. Patricks day. Our family is getting together with other families on the block and making corned beef and cabbage. I don't know if this is what Irish people really eat on this day (I read in the paper they like bacon or ham with cabbage). Oh well, I like corned beef. Below is a tidbit about what corned beef really is:

Corned Beef again surfaces in writings from the late 1600's as a specialty, a costly delicacy - expensive because of the salt - and made to be eaten at Easter, and sometimes at Hallowe'en. Surprising to this writer, was learning what the term "corn" really means. The name comes from Anglo-Saxon times when meat was dry-cured in coarse "corns" of salt. Pellets of salt, some the size of kernels of corn, were rubbed into the beef to keep it from spoiling and to preserve it. Today, brining -- the use of salt water -- has replaced the dry salt cure, but the name "corned beef" is still used, rather than "brined" or "pickled" beef. xoxo A.Joy