Corned beef & cabbage came out of Hell's Kitchen—the cheapest cut of meat was brisket from the Jewish butchershops, and cabbage with potatoes is an Irish staple. A NYC mixed-marriage made in heaven, or rather, in Hell's Kitchen.
The ancient Irish didn't eat much beef (unless a cow died)—cattle were the equivalent of thousand-dollar bills. The ancient Irish ate pigs. A ham hock or saltpork and cabbage would have been traditional fare. A traditional Irish saying, You're on the pig's back now, preserves the idea of luck being associated with pigs and plenitude.
The ancient Irish figured out how to salt-cure beef during the first millennium A.D., but it was a luxury item. Never kill the cash-cow! Salt-cured beef was first mentioned "in print" in the 12th century gluttony poem called the Vision of MacConglinne in the Land of Cockagne—with 77 mentions of milk products, from buttermilk to ropy milk. So the concept of corned beef wasn't entirely alien to the ancient Irish.
Salted beef was considered a luxury as it required so much salt to prepare it—kernels, or corns of salt—a very expensive luxury in the ancient world. Salt sal salary salad...same root word. Salzberg/Hallstat—Celtic salt mines. In the days of no refrigeration, the salting/brinebath was the only way to preserve large chunks of meat.
Pork takes well to smoking, beef doesn't. Ancient Irish didn't eat much beef as it was their cash cow. Believe it or not, pastrami is the same cut as corned beef—brisket, an otherwise inedible form of beef. Salting makes it edible.
Pork is LEAN! (Fat is on the outside of the muscle). Beef is marbled with fat throughout the muscle—thus needing another form of curing—or it would turn rancid. Mutton needs to be stewed outdoors or the house will reek of tallow for a season or longer.
Potatoes are a New World food, so parsnips, aka Celtic carrots—would've been the starchy vegetable. And any form of brassica as well. But it didn't all come together as as traditional dish until they all met up in Hell's Kitchen.
St. Patrick's Day is an American invention. The Day itself, a holy day of obligation, is not an invention the parade and drinkfest is an American invention.
Ireland: Why We Have No Corned Beef & Cabbage Recipes
This was in draft mode and I forgot to look at the date, I know the date but not the year. So I'm going with 2015, until the Facebook, On This Day post comes around again. It was a note to Paul Hardstone.
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