Bacon and cabbage () is a dish traditionally associated with

Ireland Ireland (, ; ; Ulster Scots dialect, Ulster-Scots: ) is an island in the North Atlantic Ocean, in Northwestern Europe. Geopolitically, the island is divided between the Republic of Ireland (officially Names of the Irish state, named Irelan ...

. The dish consists of sliced back bacon boiled with

cabbage Cabbage, comprising several cultivars of '' Brassica oleracea'', is a leafy green, red (purple), or white (pale green) biennial plant grown as an annual vegetable crop for its dense-leaved heads. It is descended from the wild cabbage ( ''B.& ...

and

potatoes The potato () is a starchy tuberous vegetable native to the Americas that is consumed as a staple food in many parts of the world. Potatoes are underground stem tubers of the plant ''Solanum tuberosum'', a perennial in the nightshade famil ...

. Smoked bacon is sometimes used. The dish is served with the bacon sliced, and with some of the boiling juices added. Another common accompaniment to the dish is

white sauce White is the lightest color and is achromatic (having no chroma). It is the color of objects such as snow, chalk, and milk, and is the opposite of black. White objects fully (or almost fully) reflect and scatter all the visible wavelen ...

, which consists of

flour Flour is a powder made by Mill (grinding), grinding raw grains, List of root vegetables, roots, beans, Nut (fruit), nuts, or seeds. Flours are used to make many different foods. Cereal flour, particularly wheat flour, is the main ingredie ...

, butter and

milk Milk is a white liquid food produced by the mammary glands of lactating mammals. It is the primary source of nutrition for young mammals (including breastfeeding, breastfed human infants) before they are able to digestion, digest solid food. ...

, sometimes with a flavouring of some sort (often

parsley Parsley, or garden parsley (''Petroselinum crispum''), is a species of flowering plant in the family Apiaceae that is native to Greece, Morocco and the former Yugoslavia. It has been introduced and naturalisation (biology), naturalized in Eur ...

Bacon use

The bacon used for the meal can vary somewhat depending on individual preference. Usually a brined "shoulder butt"/"picnic shoulder" is used for the recipe, but other cuts of bacon are sometimes preferred. However, the bacon used is almost always cured. The traditional curing process is a long process which involves storing the bacon in salt, however, in modern times, mass-produced bacon is cured using

brine Brine (or briny water) is a high-concentration solution of salt (typically sodium chloride or calcium chloride) in water. In diverse contexts, ''brine'' may refer to the salt solutions ranging from about 3.5% (a typical concentration of seawat ...

which is less frequently injected into the meat to speed-up the process. The bacon can also be smoked which adds a depth of flavour which some people prefer. In Ireland, one can also purchase what is known as ''home-cured'' or ''hard-cured'' which is bacon cured over a long period and then stored for another long spell, wrapped in paper. This makes the bacon very salty, hard in texture and yellowish in colour.

History

Historically, this dish originated in Ireland and was common fare in Irish homes because the ingredients were readily available as many families grew their own vegetables and reared their own pigs. It was considered nourishing and satisfying. The dish continues to be a very common meal in Ireland.

Descendants

Corned beef and cabbage

In the mid-to-late 19th century, Irish immigrants to the United States began substituting the bacon with corned beef when making the dish, thereby creating corned beef and cabbage. Like the original, the dish sometimes includes additional vegetables (especially carrots and potatoes); this also gives it a certain similarity to the New England boiled dinner, which almost invariably contains a mixture of root vegetables along with boiled meat and cabbage. The term "corned" comes from the large grains of salt used to cure beef, which was historically called "corns" of salt. Corned beef and cabbage remains a popular food in some areas of the United States and Ireland.

Jiggs dinner

On the island of

Newfoundland Newfoundland and Labrador is the easternmost province of Canada, in the country's Atlantic region. The province comprises the island of Newfoundland and the continental region of Labrador, having a total size of . As of 2025 the population ...

, where the Irish and the English made up a large proportion of the founding settlers, this, and the similar English boiled beef, gave rise to a boiled dinner featuring salted beef called Jiggs dinner."Jiggs Dinner"
Parks Canada.

References