DCHP-3

Jiggs' dinner

DCHP-2 (Oct 2016)

Spelling variants:
Jigg's dinner, Jiggs dinner, Jigg's Dinner

n. — Food, Newfoundland

a dinner of corned beef and cabbage, with potatoes and other vegetables on the side (see Image 1).

Type: 5. Frequency — Although there has been speculation that Jiggs' dinner originally meant a dinner for fisherman, due to the verb to jig, which means to hoist a weighted hook up sharply (Casselman 1998: 42), it is more likely that the term has its origins in the popular US comic strip Bringing Up Father by George McManus. In this comic strip a nouveau-riche Irish immigrant, Jiggs, cannot give up his lower-class ways, which includes eating his favourite meal of corned beef and cabbage. The comic strip ran in newspapers beginning in 1913 and enjoyed considerable success (see ANB reference). The term Jigg's dinner appears in US newsprint, beyond the comic, as early as 1927, and is usually associated with an Irish-themed dinner or event. In recent years, Jiggs' dinners have come to be associated with Newfoundland due to the island's strong Irish heritage that forms an important part of Newfoundland culture.
The term is most prevalent in Canada (see Chart 1).
See also COD-2, s.v. "Jiggs' dinner", which is marked "Cdn (Nfld)". Not found in other Canadian dictionaries, including DNE.

Quotations

1930
The Ladies' Aid of Sandwich United Church will serve a "Jiggs" dinner tomorrow evening in the basement of the church, from 5:30 until 8 o'clock.
1949-1965
Mike Wadden took me down on Broadway to a restaurant he knew, where we had a most enjoyable Jiggs' dinner of corned beef and cabbage, but the corned beef wasn't like what we eat in Newfoundland. It seemed to be a higher quality of beef and looked more like roast beef that had been corned.
1952
Being a businessman, Frank knows that a Newfoundlander also appreciates the inner man, especially when it comes to a few greens with his Jiggs' dinner.
1973
Carolyn Belbin, intermediate clerk steno in charge of morale building was the guest of honour at a recent Jigg's dinner and sad farewell.
1981
"It's a pity you can't stay longer," she says as she serves hot tea and fresh fruit cake to keep us going on our trip home. "I'll be serving Jiggs' dinner later on during the week."
1991
He sells scrunchions. He sells capelins. He sells bakeapples and partridgeberry jam. He sells hardbread (essential to make fish and brewis). For the weak-blooded he has Beef Iron & Wine, a tonic with the color and kick of manure tea. He stocks pudding bags to prepare Jigg's Dinner (although Robbins uses pillow cases to make his Jigg's Dinner.)
2003
For the more blister conscious, there is another Newfoundland, a gentler place where you can take time to smell the smelt, picture the pitcher plants, plow through plates of cod, dig in to a "Jigg's dinner," exchange "excuse-me's" with silver-tongued locals.
2013
Every Tuesday and Thursday, she cooked up a big "jigg's dinner" - potato, turnip, carrot, cabbage, peas, turnip greens, and a raisin bread pudding or doughboys cooked all together in a large pot with salt beef, and some kind of wild or store-bought meat and gravy roasting in the oven. Any leftovers were mashed into a hash for the next day. Friday was always fish day, with the species depending on what was available - usually cod, trout, capelin, or salmon. Saturday was always soup day, cooked in a huge pot so there'd been plenty to eat on Sunday. That was the day for church and rest. No cooking.
2016
Ottawa's 'soup guy' offers free Jiggs dinner soup to visiting Newfoundlanders. 'It tastes like you're in St. John's or anywhere in Newfoundland,' says chef [photo omitted] [photo caption:] Claudio Fracassi shows some of the soups he serves at his Ottawa restaurant, including a recipe based on Jiggs dinner. (Soup Guy Plus Facebook page)

References

Images

Image 1: A <i>Jiggs' dinner</i>. Source: Wikimedia Commons. Photo: celinecelines

Image 1: A Jiggs' dinner. Source: Wikimedia Commons. Photo: celinecelines

Chart 1: Internet Domain Search, 14 Aug. 2012

Chart 1: Internet Domain Search, 14 Aug. 2012