Who is Maris Piper?

If you ever wondered exactly why those potatoes are called Maris Piper and how Aston Martin came by its ‘DB’ model prefix, Eleanor Doughty has all the answers

- Eleanor Doughty

HER name is as familiar as any philosopher’s. She has been invoked time after time in supermarket aisles, cookery books and in a text from my mum: ‘Maris Pipers, 220ËšF, bit of salt.’ Yet who is she—who exactly is Maris Piper?

The answer, it turns out, is less exciting than I had initially imagined. There I was, hoping for some kind of potato celebrity— a wholesome country hostess, perhaps, wearing a pinny, her sleeves rolled up, flour on her nose—but no. Maris Piper is not real. She was never a person—at least, the potato wasn’t named after anyone. (There may, I accept, have been someone in British history called Maris Piper, somewhere.)

The truth is that, in 1956, workers at the Plant Breeding Institute in Cambridge were crossing potato breeds, when they were successful with what we now know as the Maris Piper, an oblong, smooth-skinned potato that launched a decade later. The name was derived from two elements: the first from Maris Lane in Trumpington, the location of the institute, and the second, Piper, chosen by the breeder H. W. Howard’s son. Still, I like to think that Maris Piper, the woman, accompanies me as I peel my potatoes.

Maris Piper’s identity revealed, I set about looking for other familiar names at home and away, which amount to a veritable shopping list.