Potatoes - earthy delights
Potatoes, those most comforting of vegetables, fought a long, hard battle for acceptance. They're the most widely grown tuber in the world and the fourth largest fresh produce item after rice, wheat and maize.
The Incas, who 7000 years ago grew several varieties, many of them purple through and through, had a real respect for them. As well as depending upon them for nutrition, they used them to help measure time: by how long they took to cook.
The Conquistadors brought them back to Spain in the mid-16th century. When the Spanish fleet was destroyed by the British in the battle of the Spanish Armada, potatoes, carried on board as an easily stored staple, floated ashore in Ireland and were planted by the villagers.
But it took another two centuries for the English to approve them. In 1733, revered gardener and writer Stephen Switzer observed, ' That which was heretofore reckon'd a food fit only for Irishmen, and clowns, is now become the diet of the most luxuriously polite.'
Even now, the spud has been sold for too long as a humble tater when in fact the right variety applied to the right purpose elevates the tuber to a new height. There are many more varieties commonly available in supermarkets in Europe.
- Russets are good for baking, mashing, roasting and frying.
- Red Bliss are good for baking, steaming and mashing, less successful for roasting.
- Yukon Gold, with a waxy texture, hold their shape well cold in salads. They're excellent boiled or steamed.
- Fingerlings, shaped like witches' digits, elevate potatoes to serious heights in flavor and texture and are wonderful steamed or boiled, hot or cold.
Since they are related to the Solanaceae or Deadly Nightshade family, you need to look after them. Store them in a dark place, but not in the fridge where they will go green. Any green bits should be cut away - they are potentially poisonous - or at least the possible cause of a bit of a stomach ache.
Old potatoes used for boiling will have more flavor if you boil them in their skins, having cut out any bad bits, skinning them once cooked.
Try and buy potatoes loose. Bagged potatoes are sometimes exhausted and slimey.
You can get purple ones, which would have been familiar to the Incas, at Dean & DeLuca. But no-one sells the tiny new potatoes the English grow called Jersey Royals which are almost one of the best vegetables in the universe.