Bacon and Cabbage

The dish is a boiled joint of cured pork - loin or collar, not the streaky rasher bacon of a fry - simmered slowly, with cabbage cooked for the last stretch in the same pork water, floury potatoes alongside and a white parsley sauce over the lot. It was the standard Irish Sunday dinner for generations, on the logic that a pig was the affordable animal for a small holding and salting was how meat kept. The American association with corned beef comes from emigration: Irish arrivals in New York found beef cheaper than bacon and bought it from Jewish butchers, so corned beef and cabbage became the Irish-American dish and is still assumed in the United States to be the Irish original. It is not. Good bacon and cabbage depends on the cure and on not overboiling either component, and it turns up in pubs and carveries more reliably than in restaurants.

What you actually see

• The cured joint - loin or collar, boiled slowly, not fried rasher bacon.
• The cabbage - cooked in the pork water at the end.
• The parsley sauce - the standard accompaniment.
• The corned beef confusion - the American substitution and why it happened.

When to go

Any time of year; it appears as a Sunday carvery option in many pubs. Around Saint Patrick's Day it is served deliberately as the authentic alternative to corned beef.

Honest expectations

Plain food - boiled meat, boiled cabbage and potatoes - and people expecting something elaborate find it dull. Quality depends entirely on the bacon. Overcooked versions in tourist pubs are common.

Nearby

Served nationwide; carveries and traditional pubs are the reliable places to find it.