In recent weeks, the US meat industry has found itself wrestling with a culinary conundrum: Would American Roman Catholics be able to eat corned beef this St Patrick’s Day?
Traditionally in the US, the feast of St Patrick calls for a family meal featuring corned beef and cabbage.
But this year, the holiday falls on a Friday during Lent, the season when many Christians observe a period of fasting and repentance. Many Catholics abstain from eating meat on Fridays during this period.
So meat packers and restaurants breathed easier after dozens of church leaders around the country recently granted dispensations to the corned-beef faithful.
At least 80 of the nearly 200 US Catholic dioceses have issued some form of exemption on avoiding meat on St Patrick’s Day, including those in Chicago, Boston and Atlanta, according to the Catholic News Agency.
In Omaha, Nebraska, Archbishop George Lucas said Catholics in his archdiocese could eat beef today as long as they abstained from it tomorrow.
The seasonal demand for the stringy, salted hunks of meat is usually a time of economic cheer
Archbishop Gustavo Garcia-Siller of San Antonio, in the top US cattle-producing state of Texas, said Catholics could eat corned beef provided they substituted a comparable penance.
The seasonal demand for the stringy, salted hunks of meat is usually a time of economic cheer for the country’s beef sector, when sales boom.
St Patrick’s Day and the Fourth of July are the top two holidays for US beef consumption at home, according to the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association trade group.
Corned beef sales account for less than one per cent of total retail beef sales during the rest of the year – but jump to nine per cent in March, NCBA said.
The largest US corned beef producer, Colorado Premium, accounts for 30 to 40 per cent of about 32 million kilos of corned beef consumed on St Patrick’s Day, company spokesman Zack Henderson said.
Such volume is expected to help offset the tight margins that have challenged beef processors in recent months, analysts said.
Corned beef and cabbage
Corned beef is brisket, topside or silverside which has been pickled in brine. It is best to soak a joint overnight to remove excess salt. The following recipe serves four to six.
Ingredients
2kg joint of corned beef
1 large cabbage
2 large onions
2 large carrots
4 potatoes
bay leaf
ground black pepper
cold water to cover
Quarter the cabbage and put aside. Peel and slice the other vegetables. Cover the meat with the water and bring to the boil. Skim the surface, add the vegetables (except the cabbage), the bay leaf and the pepper and simmer gently for 90 minutes. Add the cabbage and cook for a further 30 minutes. Serve the meat surrounded by the vegetables with additional mashed potatoes.