Corned Beef Doesn't Really Have Anything To Do With Cornwall

If you've ever wondered where corned beef got its unusual name, you may have been under the mistaken impression it has something to do with Cornwall, the remote historic county on England's southwest coast. While Cornwall gave the world Cornish pasties, those delicious savory hand pies stuffed with beef and vegetables, the area has little to do with corned beef. Although the name is English, it was the Irish who first began preserving meat using ash from burnt seaweed. By the Middle Ages, the Irish were using salt traded with the French to cure pork and beef.

While pork was the go-to meat eaten in Ireland, salted beef was mostly reserved for Celtic kings. In Gaelic culture cattle were considered sacred and were mostly used as a draft animal and for their milk. They were typically only slaughtered when no longer useful. Then, in the 1600s, the beef-loving British conquered Ireland, turning its cattle into a commodity and giving Irish salted beef its iconic name.

In 17th century England, the word corn referred to any small individual grain from a crop plant, and the term began to be used when referring to salted beef because of the large granules — or kernels — of salt used in the preserving process. In the mid-1600s, a series of laws in England curtailed the exportation of live Irish cattle to England, which spurred the production of corned beef in Ireland to continue to satisfy England's voracious appetite for beef. After Irish corned beef became a staple of the British Navy, it helped to spread the food and its ties to Ireland across the globe.

In Ireland, pork continued to be the preferred protein and even today, you're more likely to see bacon and cabbage or shepherd's pie with lamb eaten in Ireland on St. Patrick's Day then corned beef. When the Irish Potato Famine of the 1840s and 50s (in part due to England's beef policies) sent millions of Irish fleeing to the United States hoping for a better life, they discovered that there the beef was plentiful and affordable, helping to make corned beef and cabbage an Irish-American holiday tradition. And while corned beef was likely eaten in Cornwall, the historic county and the dish aren't related.