Alternative names Poundies | Place of origin Ireland | |
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Main ingredients Mashed potatoes, scallions, butter, milk, any cheese Similar Colcannon, Boxty, Coddle, Irish stew, Barmbrack | ||
Champ (brúitín in Irish) is an Irish dish, made by combining mashed potatoes and chopped spring onions with butter, milk, any cheese and optionally, salt and pepper. The traditional inclusion of cheese into the recipe is no longer followed in Northern Ireland. As recently as the mid-20th century it was sometimes made with stinging nettle rather than scallions but this is rarely seen now. It is simple and inexpensive to produce. In some areas the dish is also called "poundies".
Champ is similar to another Irish dish, colcannon, which uses kale or cabbage in place of scallions.
The word champ has also been adopted into the popular Hiberno-English phrases, to be "as thick as champ", meaning to be stupid, and to be "as ignorant as champ at a wedding", meaning to be uncultured or boorish (champ being a common everyday dish, not one befitting a banquet celebration).
