I cannot be in the same room as corned beef and cabbage cooking.
Something has always made me hurl at the first whiff. The MIL didnāt understand that until she saw it. Poor thing, she thought it was because I was preggers. I wasnāt.
Sauerkraut is pickled cabbage, so it qualifies.
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Ok, now I am making a Reuben-ish sandwich for lunch! Turkey pastrami, sauerkraut, 1000 island, and Swiss on grilled sourdough.
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An online search reveals a lot of people think Reubens can be Irish. Why not? LOL.
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I donāt think thereās one for the Scandinavian community, at least not one celebrated nationally.
Iāve read that corned beef was introduced to the Irish community in the US by Jewish immigrants. Same pathway that fish & chips took in England.
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Santa Lucia Day in December is a big tag for Swedes and Sicilians.
St Urhoās Day for Finns in North America and in Finland
I donāt think thereās a day for all of Scandinavia thatās celebrated by the whole region other than Midsommar.
No idea what the Icelanders, Danes and Norwegians celebrate regionally. Every European country has a patron saint. Some have several.
St Hans/ John the Baptist is a big Saint for most of Scandinavia and the German -speaking countries.
Blackcurrants are called Johannesbeere in German because theyāre in season around June 23rd, his name day.
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None nationally but in Solvang, CA.
Itās an interesting question since St. Patrickās day isnāt technically national since itās religious holiday but of course thereās a huge Irish American population. Columbus Day is national and has become the Italian heritage days kind of by default. I think it was renamed Italian heritage day in SF, or the parade was renamed. Then thereās Lunar New Year, not a national holiday but school kids in SF get the day off. But Juneteenth is now a national holiday, and hopefully it stays that way.
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So the religious and patron saints days as a default ethnic holidays is a set pattern.
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My Irish American friends say corned beef is Irish American not Irish. Irish eat bacon and cabbage.
On that note, the fortune cookie was invented in SF by Japanese Americans for the tea ceremony.
In predominantly Christian counties they do, along with Midsommar which is of course originally Pagan, but notice one of the most important Saints Days (John the Baptist) lands on Summer Solstice.
Traditionally, celebrating your name day was a bigger deal than celebrating your bday in most parts of Europe. Imagine how may Johns, Jeans, Seans, Giovannis, Ivans, not to mention all the Joannas, Siobhans and Yvonnes would be celebrating on June 23rd.
St Paddyās and San Giuseppe land on Spring Equinox.
Xmas, St Lucia/ St Wenceslas/ Orthodox St Basil, and Orthodox St John land around Winter Solstice.
In Greece and Italy, itās Aug 15th thatās the big summer holiday. Panageia which celebrates Mary and Panagiotis/ Panagiota in Greece, takes place the same time as Ferragosto in Italy.
Even as the countries have become more secular, celebrating on those days remains a big thing.
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Iāve always found it interesting how many big religions holidays are actually seasonal pagan or folk holidays, like Christmas and Easter.
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People need to be cheered up with lights and food when itās cold, nothing is growing, and thereās no sunshine. The pagans figured that out. The ancient Egyptians, the Greeks, the Romans. And so on. Everyone else has followed.
I get a kick out of people who donāt understand the symbolism behind the rabbits and chicks. Fertility, renewal, everlasting life, etc.
Same with people who donāt understand Halloween has roots in both Paganism and Christianity.
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Thereās been some dispute about the origin of fortune cookies, but I think the Japanese-American narrative isnāt so much that they were made for the tea ceremony as for the tourists. The traditional foods for a chado donāt usually involve crackers/cookies. Coincidentally, my grandfather worked for a cousin when he first immigrated to the US making rice crackers. He moved from LA to Sacramento to open a northern California branch of the company (Umeya Co), and many of the immigration and business docs showed his occupation and business as making fortune cookies, but in fact they were rice crackers.
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Iām gonna be a little pedantic and modify your statement to suggest that just about every immigrant community has a celebration. Few of them rise to the level of holiday, but most get to put their cultural ties and traditions on display for both the sake of their immigrant/descendant community and the melting pot (I actually prefer to think of it as a salad bowl) at large.
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This is thread drift but so it goes. This the story Iāve heard the most.
We understand that 19th Century Jewish immigrants to the UK fried fish for Sabbath, because it could be safely kept to savor during the sundown-to-sundown observance. The rest is history ?
New York City has long celebrated many ethnic groups with parades. Hereās a 2025 list, from a City website:
The parades include the Manhattan Three Kings Day Parade in January, Manhattan Chinese New Year celebrations in February, the St. Patrickās Day Parade in March, Easter Bonnet Parade, the Manhattan Tartan Day Parade, Greek Independence Day Parade and Persian Parade in April, the Sikh Day Parade, Japan Parade, the Dance Parade, Asian American Pacific Islander Parade, Fleet Week and Manhattan Memorial Day Parade in May, the Indian Parade, Manhattan Puerto Rican Day Parade, Israel Parade, Romania Festival, Pride Parade and Philippine Parade in June, the Manhattan Dominican, the Indian and Cuba American Day Parades and Bastille Day Celebration in July, the Labor Day Parade, San Gennaro Festival, Steuben Day Parade, African American Day Parade, Mexican Parade and Climate March in September, the Manhattan Columbus Day, Halloween, Nigerian, Hispanic Day, Pulaski and Indigenous Peoples Day Parades in October and the NYC Marathon and Manhattan Veterans Day Parade in November.
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Yeah, that tracks with what Iāve heard, too. My (extended) family didnāt make any claims to be the first, but the company did last for nearly a century. They folded (heh) their tent in 2017, when there was nobody left who wanted to keep running the business. Rex Hamano - my grandfatherās first cousin once (twice?) removed - ran the factory on the outskirts of Little Tokyo in LA.
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