One tuber to rule them all

Accused of inflaming passions, encouraging flatulence and generally being a bore, life without the humble yet delicious potato is unthinkable, swears Tom Parker Bowles

- Tom Parker Bowles

How do you take yours? Few foodstuffs can be transformed into such a cavalcade of mouthwatering delights as the potato

IT didn’t start well. ‘Many people thought potatoes a dangerous foodstuff, or at least a coarse one and at best suitable for pigs,’ sighs Alexandre Dumas in his Grand Dictionnaire de Cuisine. Officially banned by the French parliament in 1748, on suspicion of causing leprosy, potatoes were also believed to carry syphilis, another unwanted import from the New World. Protestants in the north of Ireland initially refused to plant them. Not only were potatoes omitted from the Bible, but they matured underground, not even grown from seed. Infamy of the most devilish kind. The poor spud was accused of everything from inflaming the passions to encouraging flatulence. Even the most gastronomically enlightened thought it a bore. ‘I appreciate the potato only as a protection against famine,’ sneered that great gourmand Anthelme Brillat-Savarin. ‘Except for that, I know of nothing more eminently tasteless.’

Equally damaging was a dodgy relative. Just like the tomato (another ingredient that was initially reviled), the potato is a member of the genus Solanum, alongside the highly toxic deadly nightshade, which didn’t exactly help its reputation. As Dumas points out: ‘Absurd prejudices prevented it being duly appreciated for a long time.’ But now, we worship this mighty vegetable, with a recipe for every whim, mood and desire, from the puritanical to the deeply sybaritic. Boiled or baked, roasted or mashed, chipped, fried, scalloped and sautéed. The potato is, after maize, rice and wheat, the fourth most cultivated staple food crop in the world. An ingredient as varied as it is versatile.