Street View Street Food
Colcannon
History
There are many regional variations of this dish. It is
often eaten with boiled ham or Irish bacon. At one
time it was a cheap, year-round staple food, though
nowadays it is usually eaten in autumn/winter, when
kale comes into season.
An Irish Halloween 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.
Culture
The origin of the word is unclear. The first syllable ‘col’ is
likely 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 use is
also found in the Irish name for a coot, a white headed
bird known as ‘cearc cheannan’, or ‘white-head hen’. The
phrase may also be borrowed from the Welsh name for
a leek soup known as cawl cennin, literally “broth (of)
leeks.
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