Pumpkins are the only foodstuff we usually consider at Halloween, but Ireland is the only other country I know of that has any special food for Halloween (Mexican cookery has many breads and cookies for the Day of the Dead — All Hallows’ Day — but it’s not like our Halloween). There’s a famous dish made with potatoes. Dawdling along through my treasured Irish cookbook by the doyenne of Irish cookery, Theodora Fitzgibbon, I came upon some recipes and lore about my favorite Irish dish: colcannon.
“This is traditionally eaten in Ireland at Hallowe’en. Until quite recently this was a fast day, when no meat was eaten. The name is from cal ceann fhionn — white-headed cabbage. Colcannon should correctly be made with chopped kale (a member of the cabbage family) but it is also made with white cabbage; an interesting version is the Irish Folklore Commission’s, which gives it as mashed potatoes mixed with onions, butter, and a boiled white cabbage in the center.”
“Colcannon at Hallowe’en used to contain a plain gold ring, a sixpence, a thimble or button: Finding the ring meant marriage within the year for the person who found it, the sixpence meant wealth, the thimble spinsterhood, and the button bachelorhood.” (From “Irish Traditional Food,” by Theodora Fitzgibbon.)
For a dish that is not widely eaten or served today, colcannon remains remarkably widely known. Maybe the song about colcannon is better known than the dish. If you say “colcannon” in a crowded room, the chances are that half the room will break into one version of the song and the other into a completely different version. Like the recipe itself, there are two versions commonly known.
Did You Ever Eat Colcannon?
Did you ever eat colcannon
When ’twas made with yellow cream
When ’twas made with thickened cream
And the kale and praties blended
And the greens and scallions blended
Like the picture in a dream?
Like the picture in a dream?
Did you ever take a forkful
Did you ever scoop a hole on top
And dip it in the lake
To hold the melting cake
Of heather-flavored butter
Of clover-flavored butter
That your mother used to make?
Which your mother used to make?
Oh, you did, yes you did!
Did you ever eat and eat, afraid
So did he and so did I,
You’d let the ring go past,
And the more I think about it
And some old married sprissman
Sure, the more I want to cry.
Would get it at the last?
God be with the happy times
When trouble we had not,
And our mothers made colcannon
In the little three-legged pot.
“ — Colcannon is so like champ, cally, stampy, and poundies that it’s difficult to understand how it ever came to have a different name. Yet, all over the country, colcannon is colcannon and known as nothing else. As in the two versions of the song, it can be made with kale or with greens, meaning cabbage. Those reared on the version made with kale can never understand how the cabbage version can be considered colcannon, and vice versa. . . .” (From “The Poolbeg Book of Traditional Irish Cooking,” Biddy White Lennon.)
Colcannon #1
Serves four.
1 lb. curly kale or cabbage, cooked
1 lb. potatoes, cooked
1 onion, chopped
1 oz. dripping per lb. vegetables
Salt and pepper
Milk if necessary
1 ring, wrapped in greaseproof paper
Mash the potatoes or pass them through a food mill. Chop the cabbage or kale and add it to the potatoes. Mix well. Peel and chop the onion. Melt a little of the dripping in a large, heavy frying pan and cook the onion in it. Remove and mix with the potato and cabbage.
Season to taste, and stir in a little milk if the mixture is too stiff. Add the rest of the dripping to the hot pan and, when very hot, turn the potato and cabbage mixture into the pan and spread it out. Fry until brown, then cut it roughly and continue frying until there are lots of crisp brown pieces.
Just before serving, slip in the wrapped ring — the trick, as you can see from the rhyme, is to make sure the ring doesn’t turn up too soon — then the children will eat it all willingly! — from “Good Food From Ireland,” Georgina Campbell
Colcannon #2
Serves four.
1 lb. kale or cabbage
1 lb. potatoes
2 small leeks or green onion tops
1/2 cup milk or cream
Pinch of mace
Salt and pepper
2 Tbsp. butter
If using the kale, strip from the stalks or likewise remove the stump of cabbage before cooking in boiling salted water until tender but not overcooked. Drain very well and chop finely.
Meanwhile, cook the potatoes, and while they are cooking chop the leeks or onion tops and simmer them in milk or cream for about seven minutes. Drain the potatoes, season and mash them well, then stir in the cooked leeks and milk, adding a little more milk if needed.
Finally, blend in the finely chopped kale or cabbage. Add the mace and taste for seasoning. Heat the entire mixture gently, then pile in a warmed dish. Make a small well in the center and pour in the melted butter.
Colcannon #3
(from “Irish Traditional Food,” Theodora Fitzgibbon)
2 1/2 lbs. potatoes (cooked, mashed)
1 cup cooked kale (finely chopped)
1 cup hot milk
4 chopped scallions (optional)
Butter
Strip the heads of kale away from the stems and shred them finely. (Discard stems.) Kale is a tough vegetable which needs to cook for 10 to 20 minutes depending on its age. Cook as you would for any green vegetable in furiously boiling salted water until it is just tender. (Some people add a half teaspoon baking soda to the water to help keep the kale at its brightest green.)
Strain it and refresh it with cold water. Drain it thoroughly and squeeze out any excess water. Nowadays I put the kale into a food processor with the hot milk and blend them into a green soup which I then mix through the mashed potatoes. I then reheat it in the oven until it is very hot. This produces a dish fit for St. Patrick’s Day in greenness.
It is perfectly acceptable just to mix the kale and milk into the potatoes without recourse to the food processor, but the resulting dish is just speckled green. Do not use the processor if you are making colcannon with cabbage instead of kale. Don’t forget the coin and the ring to amuse the children.
