In this episode, Kim and Leigh talk about potatoes, a vegetable with a 11,000 year history that has nourished civilizations but whose susceptibility resulted in one of history’s most devastating agricultural calamities.
Potatoes
Whether you roast, mash, boil, or stew them – potatoes are a culinary staple around the world.
Types of Potatoes
In this episode of As We Eat, we start with the basics: potato qualities – starchy, waxy, and all-purpose – and common varieties that we find in our groceries and pantries – Idaho and Burbank Russets, Red Norland, and Yukon Golds.
We trace the origins of our favorite edible tuber 11,000 years into the past to the mountains of South America and across the Atlantic Ocean to Spain in 1537 and north to France, England, and Ireland in the late 1700s.
The Great Irish Potato Famine
To understand the gravity of the Great Irish Potato Famine, Leigh and Kim discuss the Great Britain Acts of Union and how it impacted food history and culture in the British Isles. As a potato blight called “the vexing plant destroyer” spread through Ireland in the mid 1800s, it devastated a population that was incredibly independent on successful potato yields to provide both income and sustenance to farmers. The numbers of people who died from starvation or disease caused by malnutrition or who immigrated away from their homelands to survive are staggering.
The United States also faced a potato blight in the mid-1800s that prompted American horticulturalists to return to wild potato plants in order to breed a heartier, bigger, and blight-resistant potato. The horticultural efforts of Rev. Chauncy Goodrich yielded the Garnet Chile potato – a granddaddy potato varietal is the progenitor of fifty percent of potato varieties that we commonly eat today.
Some of Our Favorite Potato Recipes
As We Eat concludes our survey of the potato with a survey of some of our most favorite potato recipes, including Irish Colcannon, British Champ (or Bubble & Squeak), Indian Aloo Gobi, French pommes frites or American french fry, and Scandinavian lefse.
Next episode we dive into Nowruz (or Persian New Year) and the delicious traditions celebrating the ”new day” of spring.
Potatoes Transcript
🎧 Click here for the full, interactive transcript of this episode 🎧
Sources We Found Helpful for this Episode
Books We Think You’ll Enjoy Reading
Recipes You Really Need to Try
Colcannon – Small Town Woman
Champ – The Spruce Eats
Bubble and Squeak – Caroline’s Cooking
Lefse – The Kitchn
Aloo Gobi – Cook with Manali
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EP 15 Potatoes: Solanum Tuberosum, Hunger, and the Garnet Chile