The Humble Tuber

What is it about eating a hot potato that makes us feel so good? We have many ways of taking carbohydrate and we may eat more bread or more pasta or even more rice but for most of us, potatoes are our first love. We never tire of chips, mash and roast potatoes and everyone, or their mother, knows how these are best made, what varieties of potato should be used, when they should be peeled, how they should be cut, if they should be rinsed, which fat or oil should be employed.

In Lancashire, beef dripping is preferred and in Belgium it is reputed that horse fat is used for making what is considered to be Europe’s finest chips. New season jersey royals have arrived but sadly, like so many other grossly extended crops, they appear to be impostors. These early potatoes, once grown in richly loamed, seaweed-enriched soil, are being forced in poly tunnels. Well they don’t fool me; I find myself increasingly waiting for the first of the English or Egyptian “news” that have such a superb flavour.