Half Magic – Half Music
In 1991 the United States Congress designated March as Irish American Heritage month. Since then, the president annually issues a proclamation commemorating the occasion. Curious about the history of the St. Patrick’s Day parade in New York City, as it has become one of the largest parades in the world and New York turns green on that day, I have learned that the first parade was held on March 17, 1762. When the parade proceeds up Fifth Avenue on Sunday, it will be the 262nd year the marchers have gathered. This means the parade was held fourteen years before the Declaration of Independence was adopted. What a tradition.
I usually bake Irish soda bread to celebrate St. Patrick’s Day. It isn’t difficult because it is one of the easiest breads to bake as it’s made without yeast and there is little that can fail. A few years ago, a friend gave me an exquisite book entitled, The Country Cooking of Ireland by Colman Andrews (Chronicle Books, 2009). It is a cookbook filled with luscious photographs, and commentary about each recipe.
There are two Irish soda bread recipes. One is a “Brown Soda Bread” and the second is “Kitty’s White Soda Bread with Thyme.” In the “Brown” recipe it is noted that it is Myrtle Allen’s, who is from Ballymaloe House in Shanagarry, County Cork, and she uses sour milk not buttermilk.
The second recipe notes that most soda breads call for a combination of white and whole meal flour, “wholemeal.” In this one, Kitty Timmons, of Ballyknocken House in Ashford, Country Wicklow, “liked to put raisins in her white soda bread – turning it into what the Irish call ‘spotted dog.’ Her granddaughter, Catherine Fulvio, who runs a country house hotel and cooking school in Ballyknocken, makes this savory version with thyme (3 tablespoons) or with parsley or chives.”
According to the New Hampshire Historical Society, the Scotch-Irish were New Hampshire’s second largest ethnic group from about 1720 through the mid-19th century. New Hampshire is the state with the highest population of Irish, as a percentage of the population. Of course, the landscape of New Hampshire reminds one of the fields and hills in Ireland. New Hampshire, like Ireland, is sort of quietly tucked away.
“(O)ver it all – the white houses, the green fields with their stone walls, the long road winding, the slow herds coming along in the knee-deep dust, the sweet smell of turf burning, the little carts with coloured shafts, the soft Irish voices, the quick Irish smiles – over it all, and in it as if imprisoned in the stone and brick of this country, as if buried beneath the grass and hidden in the trees, is something that is half magic and half music.”
-H.V. Morton, In Search of Ireland (1930)
Aren’t we all a bit “Irish” on St. Patrick’s Day. I encourage you to bake a loaf of soda bread, brew a cup of tea and perhaps take a moment on Sunday to enjoy reading poetry. After all, New Hampshire is just as magical and beautiful as Ireland.