Take the potato, a relative newcomer to the Old World (a post-Pissaro import from Peru, as I’m sure you know) that nevertheless slipped so easily into the New World’s cabbage-patch it’s hard to believe it’s not always been there. A tolerant tuber, needing little in the way of labour compared to rival staples such as wheat and barley, adapting itself to harsh conditions where nothing else will grow, the potato arrived in Europe at a time when regional gastronomic identities were pretty much established.
After initial suspicion that Solanum tuberosum, a member of the nightshade family (as indeed are chillis, tomatoes and aubergines) might be poisonous, it it was first admired and planted in the gardens of Seville for its pretty white flowers before settling into existing culinary habits as a foodstuff for humans, depending on regional need.
Among the inhabitants of the rainy islands off the coast of Europe, the Irish, first to plant the new miracle foodstuff in their peaty soil, popped theirs into the three-toed bastable and ate them with buttermilk and greens; the Scots dropped theirs into the stew-pot with mutton and barley; the English roasted theirs in the drippings from the Sunday joint or set them to bake in the bread-oven; while Welsh housewives added theirs to the cawl along with bacon and leeks.
In Europe, the Italians kneaded the cooked flesh into gnocchi, little hand-formed dumplings, precursor of the more sophisticated pasta, the most convenient form in which grain-foods can be prepared apart from porridge. Meanwhile t neighbours in France, elevating what had beem considered cattle-feed through the good offices of Napoleon’s favourite pharmacist, Antoine-Augustin Parmentier (viz. pommes parmentier), cooked them every which-way that regionality dictated, including a la dauphinoise.
Better still, as the Old World’s self-sufficient peasantry soon discovered, if you saved a handful over the winter, they sprouted in spring and, once planted at Easter, delivered a hundred-fold in summer.
p.s. Paid subscribers (don’t I just love you!) will shortly be furnished with a recipe for Himmel und Erde, Heaven and Earth, my current favourite supper one of many delicious German ways with the mighty tuber.
p.p.s. To order my prints of fruit and veg (including potatoes) just in time for Christmas, check out
the choice at https://www.elisabethluard.org/shop
Great minds, Elisabeth! I was just thinking of gratin dauphinois which I make for family Thanksgiving. This year I'm pondering gratin savoyard, almost the same but using stock in place of cream.
YES YES YES! That's dinner sorted.