Irish Entertainment & Food at the Ethnics Festival
There is a range of entertainment and food from Ireland and other Celtic countries at this weekend’s Ethnic Festival in Kansas City’s Swope Park.
Ireland is represented at the 2008 Ethnic Enrichment Festival by booth #40. I it serving boxty, coddle, shepherd’s pie, rashers, potato cakes, and soda bread? Or a breakfast roll even?
No. At the Ireland booth you will find “Hand-squeezed, Lemonade; Turkey Legs; Bangers on a Bun; Lemon Cake; Loaded Bakes Potato.”
Or to put it another way, Ireland is represented by food, however nice it may be, not at all Irish.
Let’s recap. Lemonade is a nice refreshing drink, but not something remotely Irish. The word “lemonade” to a person from Ireland means what the words “pop” or “soda” mean to a person from Kansas City. Sometimes we get specific and have “white lemonade” or our strangely unique “red lemonade”, but either way it’s fizzy.
Turkey legs are a classic festival food on a stick item, an American food at an American festival that is. Bangers? I’ll repeat, a sausage in Ireland is not called a banger. A sausage sandwich sounds nice though.
Lemon cake? I’ll talk about cakes another day, but for now I’ll unecessarily add that lemon cake is no more Irish than chocolate cake.
And “Loaded Bakes Potato”. Assuming a typo, that means you can have loaded baked potato. A food from the New World cooked and served in a manner that is particular to the New World. The fact that in Ireland people eat relatively a large amount of potatoes doesn’t make Irish every dish involving potatoes.
I’m not having a go at the Hibernians who work the Irish booth, as they clearly work hard and enjoy it, but the Ethnic Enrichment festival is designed to “foster understanding and appreciation of cultural diversity in the greater Kansas City area” and I believe that should mean introducing actual Irish food and drink to KC.
Next door to the “Irish” food booth at #41 is Irish crafts, but I have no details as to what that includes.
The Irish entertainment at the festival is provided by the The AOH Pipe & Drum Corps on Saturday, August 15, 2008 from 3pm to 3:30pm. If you’ve been to the Ethnics festival over the years - this is the 29th year - you’ll probably remember the many appearances here by the O Riada Academy of Irish Dancing. Indeed you possibly have Cotton-Eye Joe still reverberating in your head.
The St. Andrew Pipe Band will be representing, as you would expect, Scotland, and that’s TODAY, Friday August 15, 2008 at 8pm. There are also Scottish Highland Demonstrations from Noon—5pm on Saturday. I’m going to guess that’s demonstrations of Highland games and not Highland dancing, but I don’t actually know - it could be Highland Pipe playing.
Our fellow Celtic cousins in Wales are represented in the entertainment area by the Welsh Folk Dance Society in Kansas City, on Saturday at 12:30pm. There is no Welsh food booth however.
Scotland, the booth not the country, is serving “Scottish Highland Beef; Highlander Breakfast Roll, Beef Steakburger; Oz Dog; Oz Dog Meal; Scottish Sausage; Sausage Meal; Bangers, Tattie & Brown Onion Gravy; Mince, Tatties & Brown Onion Gravy; Smoked Turkey Legs; Shortbread, Mixed Fruit Cup; Soda; Water”
Admission
Adult admission is $3.00. Children 12 and under are admitted FREE with adult. Parking is Free.
Website
See www.eeckc.org for more information.
Calendar
This KC festival is posted on the Kansas City Irish events calendar.
More Food & Drink on Irish KC:
• Eating Turkey in Ireland and America
• A Bad Pint
• A Vegan Irish Recipe
• Rhubarb
• Eggs: It Never Happened in America
• Readapting to the Food in Ireland
• Some Thoughts on Tea
Eolaí gan Fhéile:
