thumb|right|250px|Colcannon recipe on a bag of potatoes
Colcannon ( ) is a traditional Irish dish of mashed potatoes with cabbage. It is a popular dish on Saint Patrick's Day and on the feast day of St. Brigid.
Description
Colcannon is most commonly made with only four ingredients: potatoes, butter, milk and cabbage. Irish historian Patrick Weston Joyce defined it as "potatoes mashed with butter and milk, with chopped up cabbage and pot herbs". It can contain other ingredients such as scallions (spring onions), leeks, laverbread, onions and chives. Some recipes substitute cabbage with kale. There are many regional variations of this staple dish. It was a cheap, year-round food. It is often eaten with boiled ham, salt pork or Irish bacon. As a side dish it can be paired with corned beef and cabbage.
Song
The song "Colcannon", also called "The Skillet Pot" and "Yes You Did," is a popular Irish song (Roud 9485) first recorded in 1913 by Irish vaudeville performer Shaun O'Nolan, who is believed to have written the lyrics, possibly setting them to an existing Irish melody. It has been recorded by numerous artists, including Mary Black. It begins:
<blockquote><poem>Did you ever eat Colcannon, made from lovely pickled cream?
With the greens and scallions mingled like a picture in a dream.
Did you ever make a hole on top to hold the melting flake
Of the creamy, flavoured butter that your mother used to make?</poem></blockquote>
The chorus:
<blockquote><poem>Yes you did, so you did, so did he and so did I.
And the more I think about it sure the nearer I'm to cry.
Oh, wasn't it the happy days when troubles we had not,
And our mothers made Colcannon in the little skillet pot.</poem></blockquote>
Similar dishes
See also
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- List of cabbage dishes
- List of Irish dishes
- List of potato dishes
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