The humble potato.

The humble potato is one of the grates things that you can use in the kitchen. It is with out doubt the most versatile and inviting of foods. Every one has a potato dish that they like and warm to. Some thing that reminds them of days gone by. A roast potato with your Sunday lunch crispy on the out side and fluffy in the middle. A baked potato in its jacket, on a cold winter night, as the fire works light the sky on November 5th. The first of the new potatoes fresh from the ground with a skin that can be rubbed away with your finger revealing a White flesh, boiled and tossed in butter and a Little mint. Each one of these images invokes a memory in me of what was a grate meal or time, and that is what is so good about the potato. It is a food that feeds the sole as well as the belly.

And what an interesting history behind it, some things that it holds in its past is the stuff of legends and that is no small thing. From the far away shores of South America the potato first came, in pure amongst other such places. It was a much-used thing as a food, dried, and stored even worshiped and buried with the dead. Called the “Papas” it was a dark purplish skin and yellow flesh. Having existed for year, undiscovered it was discover, by the Spanish. The conquistadors "discover" it in the fifteen hundreds, if you can discover some thing that has always been there .But they saw the advantages to this food source that could be stored and kept for long periods. Also, it was very filling easy to grow and that made it perfect to feed to the Incas as you made them work in the silver mines. Also, it was well used by the sailors as the ships ferried the silver back to Spain.

It is, according to legend rather than fact, the Spanish who introduced the potato to Ireland. It is said that after the failed attempt to invade England the Spanish armada had to sail all the way round the coast of England up past Scotland and round Ireland to get back home. It is while they was doing this a ship got in to difficulty and was run aground of the coast of Ireland. The potatoes were washed ashore and that id how they got to Ireland. That or it could have been Sir Walter Raleigh. I like the idea of them being washed up and planted to become a synonymous with the Irish. The sad thing is that what is most thought of is the potato famine. A blight or fungus called Phylophlhora Infestans made the potato harvest in eighteen forty five, forty-six and forty-eight .This lead to mass emigration and thousands of the people leaving to go to America and Canada. It is now a more common belief that even though Ireland was producing tons of food it was all being consumed in the markets of England and the towns of the industrial city's and tables of England . History that is not so palatable.

The English was first introduced to the potato by John Hawkins. But if you were like me and not until I did a little reading up on the subject, had never heard of him. The glory goes to Frances Drake. He reintroduced the potato and being more popular and charismatic was a better champion of the vegetable.

France has its own and more interesting potato hero in the guise of Amlonine Augustin Parmentier. He was a chemist and biologist who worked for the French military. He grew potatoes for King Louis the XVI. He grew them in a Field under armed guarded, but one night gave the guards a night of. So the French farmer in a very French way liberated the potatoes and planted them in there own Fields. Also, Parmentier was captured as many as five times in the seven years war and had to live on a diet of potatoes. That is why so many potato dishes bare his name in France.
And not to forget the efforts of Henry Harmon Spalding who introduced the potato to Idaho. This man was a Presbyterian missionary who tried to show the Nez Perce Indians that farming was better than hunting and gathering. I do not know how much success he had at that but the potato became to be the symbol of Idaho and that became the potato state.

So be they white, red or russet, New or old season fried boiled or creamed. The potato is a good all round veg that is satisfying and beautiful in it’s simplicity. As for me, my most favourite potato is hard to say. For sophistication, it is Dophenars. Take a good wax fleshed potato, peal it, and slice as tin slices. Do not wash it but put it with some milk and cream. Add to that some fresh crushed garlic and grated Gruyere cheese. A Little salt black pepper and a pinch of nutmeg. Then pack in to individual moulds as tight as you can. Place them into a baking try and fill the try with water so the out side of the moulds are half cover and bake in the oven until the potato is cooked. If not this king like dish then the common one, the chip or fry. Cut the potato into good fat long sticks. Wash it and place in a pan of water. Yes, water not oil that comes later. Put the pan on to heat up and let the water boil. When the potatoes have just started to get a little give in them, take them of the heat and drain away the water. Refresh the potatoes by pouring cold water over them and stopping the cooking process. Then with them still in the pan give them a good bash about with the lid on the pan. This will cause all the edges of the potatoes to go fluffy. Then deep fry them in hot oil until crispy .sprinkle with a little salt and eat. Now that is a chip, as we say in Briton.