Why no Potato in Irish Potatos?

Factual Questions
1

I love to bring this question up to my Irish friends every year, the ones who bleed green. And all I get is strange stares.

I grew up in a neighborhood in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (USA) that was mostly Irish and Italian. As an Italian, I would love to pose this question to my Irish friends.

After hundred upon hundreds of inquiries, not one Irishman has provided an answer, or even an educated guess. Nothing… silence and stares…and this is before they start drinking. :slight_smile:

My guess is that the potato-starved Irish Americans - fresh out of Potatos due to leaving Ireland as a result of the great potato famine - conjured up a “potato” from whatever they could. Throw some cinnamon on the outside to mimic the old dirty rough skin, and…voila! Potato!

Any help? Searches give tons o’ recipes and famine info.
Signed “McPhilster”

2

I’m Irish and I’ve never heard of Irish potatoes (apart from the vegetable).
Maybe it’s an Irish American thing?

3

Irish, from Dublin and have never heard of it.

I’d go along with jonnyb and say it’s Irish-American.

What’s a Irish Potato BTW? The only ones I’m familiar with are the ones I have every Sunday when I go home to the Ma’s and have me Sunday diner :wink:

4

From http://www.cookierecipe.com/AZ/IrishPotatoes.asp

I’d guess they’re called that because they LOOK like potatoes, nothing more. Somehow, I doubt the Irish would call them “Irish Potatoes” themselves–if they even had any part in creating the cookies in the first place. Seems like something a bunch of silly (non-Irish) Americans would name them.

5

Sounds like for the exact opposite reason why there is no rabbit in Welsh Rabbit.

In one case, the Welsh supposedly like cheese so much they’d rather eat it than meat, so a bunch of cheese on toast is called “rabbit.” In the other case, the Irish supposedly love potatoes so much in order to get them to eat a cookie, you have to call it a potato.

See also Dutch Treat.

This is in contrast to Polish Sausage and Mexican Standoff, which actually contain real meat products and deadlocks, respectively.

6

I’m Irish American, with ancestors that came to New York in the 1840s and 1870s, and with a lot of Irish culinary traditions that have been retained by my family. I have never heard of cookies called “Irish Potatoes,” so my guess is that it is a recent cutesy coinage.

It seems to me it’s not even a real Irish-American thing.

7

Similarly, there is always “Die Eier von Satan” (a Tool song w/ vocals by the guy from Einsturzende Neubauten):

[English translation:]

If you’ve ever heard the song, it’s truly the world’s scariest recipe.
UND KEINER EIER!
(PS–mods: Let me know if this quote is verboten … I don’t think the translation of the lyrics is copyrighted, but I could be wrong. Don’t want to get SDMB into trouble.)

8

The only ‘Irish Potatoes’ I know of are a West Indian dish from Jamaica or other parts of the British influenced Carribean Islands- potatoes, herbs and spices, roasted in animal fat. Had them cooked for me by Carribean staff who I worked with.

9

Sounds like City Chicken-which is breaded pork or beef bite size pieces skewered on a stick. It’s disgusting.

10

Full confession time: I haven’t the faintest idea in the Cecil damned world what the legality is here.

If someone else translated it for some official purpose, I suppose they probably have a copyright on it. If that’s the case, let me know (and supply a link), and I’ll redact the lyrics above.

Otherwise, I guess I’ll just leave it.

Thank you for asking.

11

I think the suggestion behind Welsh rabbit is that a Welshman is not competent to catch a rabbit and must therefore content himself with cheese.

12

Hmmm. Philster couldn’t be Dan Quayle’s alias, could it?

13

Philster We’re all waiting for you to reply to the posts that have been made so far.

It might have helped if you had said more directly that you were referring to a cookie, or something.

What kind of thingy were you referring to as “Irish Potatos[sic]?”