There’s only so many Michelin stars a girl can eat in the space of a month before her bank account starts to protest. So this month’s seasonal ingredient is about as cheap and cheerful as they come. Source of history lessons about famines in Ireland… source of endless vexations on my father’s part when the dreaded ‘blight’ struck the vegetable patch…. source of my childhood whining at the dinner table when the damned things were served at least five days a week… yep, it’s the humble spud.
For years after leaving home, I shunned potatoes in favour of the sexier and more cosmopolitan carbs: rice, pasta and cous cous. I didn’t mind baked jackets (someone really needs to introduce a baked-jacket potato bar in Amsterdam – seriously), nor roasties on Sundays, nor sautéed spuds for breakfast, nor even mash with gravy and chips with mayo. But plain, boiled potatoes struck me as beyond dull.
They do, however, have one redeeming feature: when it comes to summer picnics, the potato salad comes into its own. It’s rained like Noah’s flood here this week, but assuming the sun returns at some point, these two majestic potato numbers achieve the seemingly impossible: they elevate the status of the boiled spud to its rightful position as a sustainer of nations and one third of the magic trio of meat ‘n two veg. It comes from the Solanaceae family apparently – now that sounds much more regal, doesn’t it?
