Colcannon () is a traditional Irish dish of

mashed potato Mashed potato or mashed potatoes ( American and Canadian English), colloquially known as mash (British English), is a dish made by mashing boiled or steamed potatoes, usually with added milk, butter, salt and pepper. It is generally served as ...

es with cabbage or

kale Kale (), or leaf cabbage, belongs to a group of cabbage (''Brassica oleracea'') cultivars grown for their edible leaves, although some are used as ornamentals. Kale plants have green or purple leaves, and the central leaves do not form a head ...

Description

Colcannon is most commonly made with only four ingredients: potatoes, butter, milk and cabbage (or kale). Irish historian

Patrick Weston Joyce Patrick Weston Joyce, commonly known as P. W. Joyce (1827 – 7 January 1914) was an Irish historian, writer and music collector, known particularly for his research in Irish etymology and local place names of Ireland. Biography He was born i ...

defined it as "potatoes mashed with butter and milk, with chopped up cabbage and pot herbs". It can contain other ingredients such as

scallion Scallions (also known as spring onions or green onions) are vegetables derived from various species in the genus ''Allium''. Scallions generally have a milder taste than most onions and their close relatives include garlic, shallot, leek, chi ...

s (spring onions),

leek The leek is a vegetable, a cultivar of '' Allium ampeloprasum'', the broadleaf wild leek (syn. ''Allium porrum''). The edible part of the plant is a bundle of leaf sheaths that is sometimes erroneously called a stem or stalk. The genus ''All ...

laverbread Laverbread (; cy, bara lafwr or '; ga, sleabhac) is a food product made from laver, an edible seaweed (littoral alga) consumed mainly in Wales as part of local traditional cuisine. The seaweed is commonly found around the west coast of Great B ...

onion An onion (''Allium cepa'' L., from Latin ''cepa'' meaning "onion"), also known as the bulb onion or common onion, is a vegetable that is the most widely cultivated species of the genus ''Allium''. The shallot is a botanical variety of the oni ...

s and

chive Chives, scientific name ''Allium schoenoprasum'', is a species of flowering plant in the family Amaryllidaceae that produces edible leaves and flowers. Their close relatives include the common onions, garlic, shallot, leek, scallion, and ...

s. Some recipes substitute cabbage for kale. There are many regional variations of this staple dish. It was a cheap, year-round food. It is often eaten with boiled

ham Ham is pork from a leg cut that has been preserved by wet or dry curing, with or without smoking."Bacon: Bacon and Ham Curing" in ''Chambers's Encyclopædia''. London: George Newnes, 1961, Vol. 2, p. 39. As a processed meat, the term "ham ...

salt pork Salt pork is salt-cured pork. It is usually prepared from pork belly, or, more rarely, fatback. Salt pork typically resembles uncut side bacon, but is fattier, being made from the lowest part of the belly, and saltier, as the cure is stronger ...

or Irish bacon. As a side dish it goes well with

corned beef Corned beef, or salt beef in some of the Commonwealth of Nations, is salt-cured brisket of beef. The term comes from the treatment of the meat with large-grained rock salt, also called "corns" of salt. Sometimes, sugar and spices are adde ...

and cabbage. An Irish

Halloween Halloween or Hallowe'en (less commonly known as Allhalloween, All Hallows' Eve, or All Saints' Eve) is a celebration geography of Halloween, observed in many countries on 31 October, the eve of the Western Christian feast of All Saints' Day. ...

tradition is to serve colcannon with a ring and a thimble hidden in the dish. Prizes of small coins such as threepenny or sixpenny bits were also concealed inside the dish. Other items could include a stick indicating an unhappy marriage, and a rag denoting a life of poverty. The dish

champ Champ is the short form of champion. It may also refer to: People * Champ (nickname) * Champ (surname) * Champ Butler (1926–1992), American singer * Champ Lyons (born 1940), justice of the Supreme Court of Alabama from 1998 to 2011 * Champ Se ...

is similar but made with

s, butter, and milk. It was traditional to offer a portion of champ to the fairies by placing a dish of colcannon with a spoon at the foot of a hawthorn.

Etymology

The origin of the word is unclear. The first syllable 'col' is likely to be derived from the Irish 'cál' meaning cabbage. The second syllable may derive from 'ceann-fhionn' meaning a white head (i.e. 'a white head of cabbage') – this usage is also found in the Irish name for a

coot Coots are medium-sized water birds that are members of the rail family, Rallidae. They constitute the genus ''Fulica'', the name being the Latin term for "coot". Coots have predominantly black plumage, and—unlike many rails—they are usuall ...

, a white-headed bird known as 'cearc cheannan', or 'white-head hen'. In Welsh the name for leek soup is cawl cennin, a phrase combining

cawl Cawl () is a Welsh dish. In modern Welsh the word is used for any soup or broth; in English it refers to a traditional Welsh soup, usually called ''cawl Cymreig'' (literally 'Welsh soup') in Welsh. Historically, ingredients tended to vary, but t ...

meaning "soup", "broth" or "gruel", when it is not a reference to the typical Welsh meat and vegetable stew named in full 'cawl Cymreig', with 'cennin', the plural of 'cenhinen', meaning "leeks".. It is unlikely that this Welsh phrase is the source for the Irish word, because of the differences in pronunciation affecting the vowels, and the great divergence in sense, "mashed potato and cabbage" versus "leek broth".

Song

The song "Colcannon", also called "The Skillet Pot", is a traditional Irish song that has been recorded by numerous artists, including

Mary Black Mary Black (born 23 May 1955) is an Irish folk singer. She is well known as an interpreter of both traditional folk and modern material which has made her a major recording artist in her native Ireland. Background Mary Black was born into a m ...

."The Black Family" CD, 1986, Dara Records, DARA CD 023 It begins:

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?

The chorus:

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.

Similar dishes

References

External links