It’s March and we all know what that means, St. Patrick’s Day. All the grocery stores are running deals on brisket, cabbage, potatoes, and carrots.
I was able to score corned beef brisket for $3.49/lb, 8lbs of potatoes for $1.49, cabbage for $.79/lb, and carrots for $.99/lb.
$3.03 per person.
After being very confused by this picture, I just went down a rabbit hole researching the use of “corned beef” across the English speaking world…
As far as I can tell:
- US/Canada call this corned beef, and it’s made from brisket.
- UK/ex-Commonwealth call this salt beef, again made from brisket, and corned beef is very different mushy canned meat product
- In Ireland it seems, from looking at the website for one of their supermarkets, they just call everything corned beef? The canned mush, raw brisket, this - all “corned beef”?
Corning is a preservation process that involves curing meat with salt corns (big grains) in a brine. This helps extend the shelf life of the brisket and imbues a salt flavor to the meat.
Hopefully that clears up some confusion.
We have the canned kind in the US too. I guess we distinguish between them with context clues. “Pick up a can of…” vs “I’m making…”
Yup. I always buy the canned stuff to make corned beef hash, the premade stuff has awful potatoes.
In Canada, there is sliced meat from the deli called corned beef, but also corned beef in a can like in the UK. I’ve never seen inside a can, but Ive assumed its like canned ham, a formed meat product.
Corning is a process so I assume it can come out in all shape sizes and colors lol
I might just be too high but I needed a solid minute to stop seeing the meat as bits of pink knitting
In a way I suppose meat fibers are a sort of knitting.
I’ve never been able to try it, I can’t get past the color.
As a North Carolinian, I am with you.
My mom, in her 70’s asks for this about once a month.
Everything reminds me of her.
Did you corn the beef yourself?
I’ve done it myself. It is not cheaper than buying it in March when it is usually on sale. I cooked some fresh and canned the rest up for later meals.
I do it myself as well, but not because it’s cheaper. Gonna get me one of those big ass Costco briskets and corn the whole thing for ten days.
Just finished last year’s batch this week.
I also use Costco. I make sure to render all the trimmings into tallow so nothing goes through waste.
No, I just bought premade. You really can’t beat $3.49/lb.
