Corned, banged, and bloodied: Curious Celtic abuses of meat

Besieged by extreme poverty, black weather, and feudalism, Celts of the British Isles had no choice but to get creative with meat. These hardy folk baked pigs' kidneys and beef into pies and figured out how to cook the lungs, heart, and liver of a sheep in the animal's stomach. (Sounds gnarly, but it was probably a meal to look forward to under those bleak circumstances.) We couldn't find any kidney pie or haggis, but The A.V. Club discovered other odd Celtic meat preparations sprinkled around Madison like so many grains of barley.

Corned beef and cabbage
Irish Celts of yore tended to cobble meat scraps together with vegetables—some variant on beef boiled with cabbage in water was something of a default dish. A hunk of beef is "corned" by soaking in salt brine with spices. In an upscale version of this traditional Irish dish, The Coopers Tavern (20 W. Mifflin St., 608-256-1600) will cure beef brisket in-house and then brine it for seven days before serving it alongside cabbage for St. Patrick's Day.

Bangers
Bangers, ground meat mixed with spices and breadcrumbs, get their name from their tendency to burst out of casings made from sheep or pig intestines when fried. They are typically served with "mash," buttered mashed potatoes. A rosemary-heavy version at Claddagh (1611 Aspen Commons., Middleton, 608-833-5070) comes drenched in thick, syrupy onion gravy.

Black pudding
Sausage stuffed with pig's blood, pork fat, suet, and oats or barley is allowed to congeal into blood sausage, or black pudding. It's part of the big Irish breakfast at Brocach Irish Pub (7 W. Main St., 608-255-2015) along with more sausage, bacon rashers, and white pudding. This crazy meat feast made sense for farmers fueling up to plow fields for 10 hours. For desk jockeys, it simply adds up to a grisly and strangely appetizing diversion.