Homesick Cures for the Irish in America
For any Irish who may be homesick in America, though it may well apply to Irish emigrants in other parts of the world, here’s a little list I’ve done up to help you hang on to your Irishness and your sanity.
Just for the record I should stress that I’m not actually homesick myself, and, since I’m being transparent, that I in fact didn’t manage to hang on to my own sanity which I distinctly recall bringing with me from Ireland and declaring in the Customs Hall in Chicago.
Here then is my Top 10 cures for any homesick Irish people in America:
1. Burn an egg. Break an egg into a frying pan while taking great care not to break the yolk but, and this is important, failing. Then just burn the thing like your grandmother would. Don’t give a moment’s thought to anything being over easy or slippery side arseways; it’s just an egg. No two should be alike.
2. Change in public. Grab a large towel, though not one as big as the state of Nebraska. Go outside and open your car. Do not get in. Stand beside the open car door and wrap the towel around your waist. Underneath the towel introduce swimming togs before shuffling and grunting and overstretching. When the pains and the fear of embarassment subside, walk out of your towel a changed man, just like Mr Ben. Or Mr Bean.
3. Turn the water off. Grab a large plastic bowl. It will be labelled in America as a small plastic bowl. Place it in your sink. Put dirty dishes into the bowl. Turn on the hot water tap. The next part is the most crucial. When the water level rises so high within the bowl that it is about to spill over the edge, turn off the tap. Without turning the tap back on, wash all the dishes in the bowl.
4. Take up smoking. Do it for lent. Go to the pub and buy somebody a drink. Wait for their first sip and then stick an open box of fags, with one sticking out, in their face. By gesture of resignation alone make it very clear that you expect your offer to be accepted. Get the bus home. Ask the driver if it’s okay for you to smoke upstairs.
5. Eat gritty sandwiches. Using sliced white bread, as unsweetened as you can find, and ideally not tasting of plastic or feeling robust enough to bounce like a basketball an unmouldy two months after purchase. Make sambos. Egg sandwiches. Salad sandwiches. Chop eveything up tiny and mush it with something moist before putting it on the bread. Finally, sprinkle a pinch of sand for that full seaside flavour.
6. Dispense tea unsolicited. Wait for high summer. When the temperature reaches triple figures be sure to always have a pot of tea made. When anybody steps into your home, without asking them, just hand hand them a hot cup of tea, already milked. As they look puzzled, ask them if they had wanted sugar.
7. Take friends shopping. Stop your car at the bus-stop and pick up the number of passengers necessary to fill your empty seats. Plus one more. Tell everybody you know a great parking spot. Park your car a 25-minute walk from the shops. Tell everybody you’ll meet them back at the car in 5 hours. On the way home pick up new passengers at the bus-stop. Make new friends.
8. Queue for cash. Bring your four closest friends to the bank. Park down the block. Walk to the bank and around the back to the ATMs. Wait for a gap in the cars. Ask your friends to form a line in front of you, and to each use the cash machine before you. While waiting in line for your turn, text your friends in front of you and ask them where they are.
9. Delay the TV news. Record the 5 O’Clock news on television. At 6 O’Clock play an audio recording of church bells you have made earlier. Sigh for a full minute while you wait for the bells to finish. Get up to go and start to make a pot of tea, only for the bells to finish. Start your tape of the news at one minute past 6pm.
10. Take a gyro out. Buy a gyro, wrap it in foil and place it in the pocket of your pants. Ignore it. Go out for the evening with friends. Drink until you forget you have a sandwich in your pocket. In the morning wake fully clothed and discover your sandwich. Text your friends to ask where you bought kebabs.
11. UPDATE: Whoops! I forgot my favourite homesick cure.
Any suggestions yourself?
More About Being Irish While Not Being In Ireland:
• What Do You Miss About Ireland?
• Online: Staying Irish Away From Ireland
• How Do You Find America?
Eolaí gan Fhéile:
Make sure you put plenty of butter on the slices for #5, which you won’t get in the U.S.
What exactly is a gyro?
Oh, and number 7 is one I do regularly - well the outbound part anyway. I never seem to secure a back-load.
Medbh, what size do you take in a butter? I take an 8.
Primal, a gyro? From an American perspective it’s the Greek equivalent of your Turkish friend at Abrekebabra, but try and get the Aegean neighbours to admit it. And in Greece itself its meaning varies.
Defined on:
-What’s Cooking America
-Greek Landscapes
-Wikipedia
Just on the gyros front, and having glanced through the three sites, basically everywhere in central and southern Greece, and in Crete, there is a standard gyros, which consists of a rather greasy pita bread, heated on a large hot plate, filled with shaved off chunks of sliced pork, with tomatoes, onions, and tzatziki, seasoned with salt and pepper.
Some places will stick in fries as well, and others will sprinkle on some paprika, but neither’s standard. You have to specify chicken if you want chicken rather than pork, and I’ve never seen the big spike adorned with slices of lamb or beef, let alone a ground up and seasoned combination of the two - that is the standard for your common or garden doner kebab, though. And doner kebabs aren’t really all that common in Greece. In fact, I’ve never seen them there.
Basically, the gyros, the kebab, and the schwarma are all close relations, but they’re not quite the same thing, unless, say, a Turk tries to make a gyros, or a Greek tries to make a schwarma. Then old habits kick in, I fear.
Why Irish kebabs aren’t just glorified ham sandwiches is something that never fails to puzzle, and indeed impress me.
Were my homesick cures no good? Try them and then tell me you’re homesick. Wait…. when you think about it they might make you extra homesick. Ha!
Chris - Are you saying you tried to make a comment earlier with Homesick Cures and it didn’t get posted? If so, send it to me by email and I’ll make sure it does. (eolai AT irishkc.com)
There are filters that sometimes prevent comments being posted. They designed to fight spam but aren’t perfect - and when they are employed you don’t get notified, which makes things even worse. I’m looking into better systems.