page_title: Corned beef
section_title: Ireland
hierarchical_section_title: Corned beef / Regions / Ireland
caption_attribution_description: English: Irish dinner
context_page_description: Corned beef 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 also added to corned beef recipes. Corned beef is featured as an ingredient in many cuisines.
  Most recipes include nitrates, which convert the natural myoglobin in beef to nitrosomyoglobin, giving it a pink color. Nitrates and nitrites reduce the risk of dangerous botulism during curing by inhibiting the growth of Clostridium botulinum bacteria spores, but have been shown to be linked to increased cancer risk in mice. Beef cured without nitrates or nitrites has a gray color, and is sometimes called "New England corned beef".
  Corned beef was a popular meal throughout numerous wars, including World War I and World War II, during which fresh meat was rationed. It also remains popular worldwide as an ingredient in a variety of regional, national or foreign dishes, and as a common part in modern field rations of various armed forces across the world.
context_section_description: The appearance of corned beef in Irish cuisine dates to the 12th century in the poem Aislinge Meic Con Glinne or The Vision of MacConglinne. Within the text, it is described as a delicacy a king uses to purge himself of the "demon of gluttony". Cattle, valued as a bartering tool, were only eaten when no longer able to provide milk or to work. The corned beef as described in this text was a rare and valued dish, given the value and position of cattle within the culture, as well as the expense of salt, and was unrelated to the corned beef eaten today.
caption: Corned beef dinner, with potatoes and cabbage, Ireland
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