Saturday Night Live Transcripts
Season 27: Episode 15
01o: Ian McKellen / Kylie Minogue
Delicious Dish
Margaret Jo McCullen …. Ana Gasteyer
Lynn Bershad …. Rachel Dratch
Liam Shannessy … Ian McKellen
Margaret Jo McCullen: Hello. I’m Margaret Jo McCullen …
Lynn Bershad: … and I’m Lynn Bershad …
Together: … and you’re listening to, The Delicious Dish on National Public Radio.
Margaret Jo McCullen: Well, Lynn, Faith and Begorrah. I’m happy to say that one of our all time favorite holidays is upon us.
Lynn Bershad: St. Patrick’s day.
Margaret Jo McCullen: Now for must of us this lusty and raucous celebration means one thing above all else: …
Lynn Bershad: … gathering with rowdy friends to convivially overindulge in that nectar of the gods …
Together: … bicarbonate of soda. [they knock pints together and take a swig]
Margaret Jo McCullen: Wow. Head rush.
Lynn Bershad: That’s right, MJ. This miracle ingredient is the cornerstone of the luscious and savory taste explosion that is Irish Cuisine.
Margaret Jo McCullen: Where to begin? We could do a whole show alone of the electrifying kaleidoscope of Ireland’s dry, flat breads.
Lynn Bershad: You sure could.
Margaret Jo McCullen: I have a real weakness for them, as you know.
Lynn Bershad: Speaking of weakness, MJ, anyone who knows me knows I have a weakness of my own.
Margaret Jo McCullen: I know. You’re dangerously anemic.
Lynn Bershad: Well, yes. But actually what I was referring to was my fondness for cabbage.
Margaret Jo McCullen: Ditto here. Yeah. I would be hard pressed to find anyone who didn’t find a swirling cauldron full of stewed cabbage leaves irrepressibly erotic.
Lynn Bershad: I find I never feel quite so much a woman as I do when I am standing at the stove, my hair wilted from spectacular amounts of greenish steam, beads of perspiration condensing on the underside of my bosom as the blanched white heads rollick in the foamy boil. [laughter, pause] I’m really lonely sometimes.
Margaret Jo McCullen: I know. Me, too. Yeah.
Lynn Bershad: Yeah.
Margaret Jo McCullen: Yeah.
Lynn Bershad: It’s neat fun.
Margaret Jo McCullen: Yeah.
Lynn Bershad: It’s good times.
Margaret Jo McCullen: It’s good times.
Lynn Bershad: I know. Well, Margaret Jo the peat bogs of the Irish kitchen require the navigation of an Irish Chef.
Margaret Jo McCullen: So we’ve got someone special here today to make sure your “Erin Go Bragh” isn’t “Erin Go Blah”.
Lynn Bershad: Good Lord, that’s funny.
[audience laughter]Margaret Jo McCullen: He’s here to steer us through the ‘lepre-pros’ and ‘lepre-cons’ of Irish cooking.
Lynn Bershad: Seriously stop. You are killing me.
Margaret Jo McCullen: What can I say? I’m on fire.
Lynn Bershad: Well, please welcome the author of the book, “If You Can’t Stand the Heat, Get Out of the Fldaccacloellong”.* The Emeril Lagasse of Galloway, Liam Shannessy.
[audience applauds]Liam Shannessy: [enters, sits and puts on his headphones]
Margaret Jo McCullen: So, Liam, I take it that this long Gaelic word in the title here means, “kitchen.”
Liam Shannessy: It does indeed. Although in certain countries it is also bawdy Irish farmhand slang for cattle insemination.
Margaret Jo McCullen: That’s neat. It’s a homonym.
Lynn Bershad: Vulgar.
Margaret Jo McCullen: It’s good times. Yeah. So, Liam, we read your book.
Liam Shannessy: Thank you very much, indeed.
Margaret Jo McCullen: Needless to say, the way you describe rinsing dirt off parsnips would give James Joyce a run for his money.
Liam Shannessy: Well, indeed. And this cookbook is very special to me because I’ve dedicated each recipe to a special family member. And I come from a large and colorful family. For example: my recipe for Cod Cobbler is a delectable mixture of blanched white fish topped with creamy clotted cheese.
Margaret Jo McCullen: It sounds good.
Lynn Bershad: Yeah.
Liam Shannessy: It’s my brother Deckland’s favorite dish.
Lynn Bershad: Oh, your brother must be so thrilled to be mentioned in your book.
Liam Shannessy: Yes. He would be. But he’s dead. Yes, he died from a parasitic infection he contracted from handling pig droppings.
Lynn Bershad: I’m so sorry.
Margaret Jo McCullen: Wow. What better way to memorialize someone than with a wonderful codfish recipe.
Lynn Bershad: Yeah.
Liam Shannessy: True. That’s what they always say.
Margaret Jo McCullen: They do.
Lynn Bershad: That they do.
Liam Shannessy: I also included my cousin Dermot’s favorite dish, bruised turnips.
Margaret & Lynn: Ooooo.
Liam Shannessy: Turnips are such an underrated vegetable.
Margaret Jo McCullen: They really are.
Liam Shannessy: A beloved of children from 6 to 60 … not unlike Dermot who was 60 but had the mind of a child of 6. Yes, indeed. He wandered into the ocean one day and the nearest we could tell he ended his days violently sucked into the propeller or an eel trawler. But his of love bruised turnips is what I’ll always remember.
Margaret Jo McCullen: That’s touching.
Lynn Bershad: Powerful.
Liam Shannessy: Oh, and then there’s my Gram’s potato cake recipe also known as ‘boxty.’ My Gran, you know, she was a colorful woman and she had a rhyme to go with all her recipes. The rhyme for this dish used to go, …
[snaps his fingers twice]“Boxty on the griddle,
Boxty on the pan.
If you can’t make boxty
Then you’ll never get a man.”
Lynn Bershad: You can say that again.
Liam Shannessy: [he repeats it, snaps his fingers twice]“Boxty on the griddle,
Boxty on the pan.
If you can’t make boxty
Then you’ll never get a man.”
Margaret Jo McCullen: Your Gran sounds like quite a character.
Lynn Bershad: She really does.
Liam Shannessy: Yes. Yes. A deary, my Gran. Yes. But now she’s dead, you know. It’s a funny story actually. She went to be with Jesus after eating a dodgy batch of Uncle Deckland’s Cod Cobbler.
Lynn Bershad: Oh. Is that the same Cod Cobbler recipe you have here in your book?
Liam Shannessy: Yes, indeed. The very same.
[light laughter]Lynn Bershad: Well, that’s all the time we have. Join us next week when we spice up the airwaves with a rollicking discussion of …
Margaret & Lynn: … bulgar.
[applause, pull back, fade to black]Submitted by: Michael Menninger
