The other day I wondered if I had a genetic predisposition to prefer potatoes over other forms of carbohydrate. I mean, I really do love a potato, any type at all, you can “boil ‘em, mash ‘em, stick ‘em in a stew” I’m not in the slightest bit fussed. If pushed I’d say that you can’t beat the tiddlers straight from the ground with plenty of melty Cornish butter. But, I hold my hands up and admit it, I have what could be described as a more-than-healthy dependence (obsession? addiction?) on them. I simply can’t go more than a few days without eating those magical little ‘earth apples’ and any prolonged subjection to rice, pasta, pizza or trendy, budgie-seed concoctions will bring about a thunderous black cloud to hang over my long face of potato- absence misery. Science or no science I’m quite happy to put my spud loving mania down to my Irish ancestry. It makes sense to me. Soda bread, Guinness and potatoes. Essential. Nostalgic. Delicious.
Anyway, after conducting a brief spell of Googling and research (that lasted for as long as it takes a Great Western Railway train to trundle between Reading and Taunton (on a good day), I arrived at the conclusion that it is highly unlikely and dubious that I can apportion my potato obsession to anything genetic. That is to say, I did find some scientific postulations that one person might prefer one type of food over another but I couldn’t find sufficient, potato specific scientific evidence or anecdotal comment to suggest that you can be destined to be a potato lover simply by birth.
When recently asked at a team building event (yes, these do still occur) to provide my one desert island item, I found myself in hot competition with others who had variously come up with Swiss army knives, the complete Works of William Shakespeare, goats, hand held giro radios and other useful (or erudite) knick knacks. I added my life-saving bag of tatties to the mix and there was laughter and derision. Until, that is, they realised that my daft idea wasn’t so daft an idea after all. I could eat a few, store a few and plant a few. Hopefully i wouldn’t die waiting for my crop but having just read that they can survive periods of no rain I may just survive after all. I chose the prettily pink-skinned Desiree above other equally marvellous ones based purely upon nostalgic childhood memories of digging them up for tea and eating them boiled with nothing more than melty butter. (did I mention that’s my favourite?)
Anyway, being a potato officianado, I tried the new chips at The Crown Inn the other day. It transpires that they are not only very potato-y, tasty and amazing but even better, it turns out that they are grown only a few fields away from the pub itself making them just about as sustainable and ecologically sound as they could possibly be. They are sown, grown, prepared and delivered fresh by Colwith Farm and they don’t even see the inside of a freezer !!
Just thrilling and amazing that we have something so local, so enterprising, so down to earth (literally) and so very real right here on our doorsteps. This is ‘plough to plate‘ aspirations for all.
……and as for Airmiles? If they threw them to us over the hedge that would be about as airborne as they’ll ever get hahahaha!
Thanks for reading.
‘Gogmagog‘
6th day of May
