Drink intentionally this St. Patrick's Day
Monday, March 15, 2010
By Megan Sweas
Comments (3)
For better or worse, drinking is a part of Catholic culture, particularly around Saint Patrick's Day when everyone is suddenly Irish.
Regular readers know that I am very interested in food and in particular food systems--how food gets from the fields to our plates, in other words. Particularly since writing Greener Pastures for U.S. Catholic magazine, I have tried to support local farmers by shopping at farmers markets whenever possible.
But until this weekend, I never thought about my drinking habits in this context. At Chicago's FamilyFarmed EXPO on Saturday, I learned that drinking locally also means supporting local farmers.
By getting to know your local brewer or distiller, you can also get to know where their raw ingredients come from. Often the barley, wheat, and other ingredients come from not far away. Illinois even has some good wines, I learned.
Adam Seger, the creator of Hum (a botanic spirit that tastes amazing with Goose Island's Matilda, for those of you in Chicago), said that buying locally often means supporting local wine stores as well. Seger, who works at a restaurant and knows how many bottles are recycled (hopefully) or thrown out every night, is also asking his bars to return the bottles for reuse, just like bars do with Goose Island kegs, making the process more environmentally friendly. This can only happen on a local scale though.
One key is that people find out what they can get locally and ask for it by name. We could call it "drinking intentionally"--as if that were possible on St. Patty's Day weekend, or any weekend really, in a city like Chicago.
For most young people, alcohol is a means to an end: drunkenness. Take a quote from This American Life on Penn State, named the No. 1 party school: A student said that he wishes there was a "drunk button" so that he could achieve that goal without having to choke down Natty Light. I can't throw any stones, but that's just sad.
I imagine that vast majority of green-clothed young adults in Chicago were drinking green-dyed Miller Lite, and not even in Guinness, last weekend. I am part Irish (that part grows this time of year), and I will enjoy a Smithwick's (my favorite beer) with my corned beef and cabbage (I give up my Lenten fast from meat just for the feast day) on Wednesday.
But most of the time, you'll find me enjoying a good, local beer and at least trying to drink intentionally. Thankfully in Chicago I have plenty of options (Goose Island, Piece, Three Floyds, Two Brothers, Half Acre, Revolution, Metropolis, and Bells).
Photo credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/lorika/ / CC BY-NC 2.0
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St. Patrick's Day Celebration (Part II)
By Anonymous (not verified) on Tuesday, March 16, 2010(Continuation of story from Part I) below) Run by a largely Irish political and church elite, the city visibly celebrated the Feast of St. Patrick on March 17. In Chicago, this included a prominent parade and turning the Chicago River green. In multi-ethnic parochial schools this found expression in "the wearing of the green" visually marking those of Irish heritage. As is often the case in diasporic immigrant culture, the importance of St. Joseph's Day escalated and found new significance in a new context. In immigrant Polish and Italian communities this provided an alternative form of cultural identification and expression of loyalty. Just two short days later, Polish and Italian Americans dressed in red, celebrating their patron and publicly showing their ethnic identity. (Both national flags include this color as opposed to the Irish green). Especially in those of school age, this created a curious linking of the two ethnic groups, who identified against the traditions of the Irish. Along with this new festive significance came a blending of ethnic traditions.
St. Patrick's Day Celebration (Part I)
By Anonymous (not verified) on Tuesday, March 16, 2010Do not forget that the feast day of St. Joseph (March 19) follows only two days after St. Patrick’s Day. Following is a nice historical recollection of the evolution of the celebration of St. Joseph’s Day in Chicago. Note the emphasis is on celebrating with food versus the Irish celebrating with beverages:
Especially in the earlier waves of immigration (1890s - 1930s), Polish and Italian immigrants were faced with an American Catholic church hierarchy controlled largely by Irish clergy, most often unsympathetic to the newcomers whom they often regarded as inferior, primitive, overly demonstrative, and superstitious. In the face of this disdain for Southern and Eastern European Catholicism, Poles responded by forming their own Polish language parishes (i.e. St. Stanislaus Kostka in Chicago) while Italians responded by preserving their religious traditions in the form of "Feasts" (Festa) run by patronage societies from their home villages and cities. This tension found curious expression in Chicago, America's largest Catholic Archdiocese. (Story continued on a subsequent Comment due to word count limitations.)
Penitential drinking
By Anonymous (not verified) on Monday, March 15, 2010Since St Patrick is the patron saint of Purgatory, and he wants his devotees to suffer for their sins, over drinking, and the torturous hangovers that follow, can actually be acts of penitential piety if done with the right intention.
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