by Sally Hammond

In case you missed it, the year, 2008, was designated World Year of the Potato. It may seem hard to believe that a lowly tuber merits a whole year dedicated to it, but the common spud has a rich history, a multitude of uses, and worldwide fans.

OK, so we're not eating chips as often these days. Those health gurus may have finally convinced us that fats will be the death of us, but the good news is that we don't have to lay potatoes to rest entirely. They are actually good for us. How does a quarter the vitamin C of an orange per potato, and less kilojoules than corn or bananas, or more potassium than most other vegetables, sound?

Potatoes, called by some wags an 'Irish avocado', were actually not planted in the Emerald Isle until l584. Explorers in Ecuador only thirty years before this had discovered natives eating a tuber which they called pappas, and the Spanish called batata. 

It quickly became a staple of many people’s diets in Europe once introduced there. So much so that the Great Irish Famine, caused by a fungal disease – potato blight – that destroyed the food crops, decimated the poorer western Irish communities, and was a direct result of a huge wave of immigration to New World countries.

The later nickname 'spud' derived from the three-pronged fork used for lifting the mature vegetable. For a while potatoes were even prohibited by the church – not because of that devilish-looking pitchfork – but because they were not mentioned in the Bible and therefore were believed to be evil.

In France the Champagne region now produces almost 40 per cent of all French potatoes, but cautiously the French waited for around 200 years after the tubers had been brought back by explorers to the New World before making use of them. Finally in the mid-18th century, Parmentier, an entrepreneurial scientist, talked King Louis XVI into allowing some fields of potatoes to be planted near Paris. To encourage the peasants to try this hitherto banned food, he ordered the fields to be heavily guarded by soldiers. One night, just when the potatoes were ready for harvesting, the armed watch was removed. To his delight the wily peasants played right into his scheme and snatched the lot. Voilá! An overnight gastronomic success.

Potatoes can be used in a variety of ways, boiled, mashed, baked, fried as chips or crisps and while many associate them with weight-gain, a potato actually has much the same kilojoules as a banana. Potatoes are an excellent source of vitamin C (a 90g potato has about a third of a similar sized mandarin) as well as other vitamins including thiamin, niacin and B6, minerals such as phosphorus and iron, and fibre. While weight-watchers routinely avoid potatoes, the truth is there are only 334kJ per 100g. The real problem usually comes with what we put on potatoes (lashings of butter or sour cream, please) or how we cook them. By frying slices of potatoes in oil we may more than triple the kilojoules.

Potatoes are available all year and keep well so long as they're stored in a cool, dry, airy place away from the light. Discard green or sprouted potatoes, because as a member of the nightshade family, potatoes have one deadly aspect. Solanine is an alkaloid that can cause death if taken in large enough doses and is found in varying levels in all members of this plant family. It is particularly concentrated in the green skin, shoots and leaves of potatoes and these should never be eaten. Too much solanine can cause intestinal cramps, headaches, diarrhoea, and depression. For people with a diagnosed sensitivity to members of the nightshade family, eating potatoes regularly, or any other member of this family, is believed to particularly aggravate rheumatic and arthritic conditions.

Unfortunately those of us who were raised in the 'meat and potatoes' school of culinary arts, sometimes go to pieces at the idea of a meal without spuds. Really the alternatives are simple: where you would serve boiled or steamed potatoes, substitute rice or noodles as an accompaniment to a savoury dish. Many other vegetables may be fried or baked – pumpkin, taro, yams or parsnips – and give a delicious break from baked potatoes or chips. Cooked carrots or parsnip may be mashed as may white sweet potato, pumpkin or yams. The flavours will be different, but very good just the same.

After decades of only using one or two varieties of potato, Australians can now find several more in their fruit and vegetable markets: creamy fleshed desirees, pink skinned pontiacs, long finger-like pink fir apples, kipflers – a long thin potato ideal for baking – and pinkeyes, a small round potato with a lighter skin and excellent for potato salads. More recent is the purple congo, a potato with a dark flesh. In rural areas around the country, dedicated farmers have been experimenting over the last decade or so with Toolangi delights, russet burbanks, blue bismarks, Dutch bintjes, spuntas, Guyra blues, Dutch creams, and King Edwards.

No other vegetable is as versatile as a potato. You can mash, bake, fry, boil or steam it as an accompaniment to a main course, chop it into mayonnaise for a salad, mash it and mix it with flour for an Irish-style pastry, or let it take pride of place as a curry, soup or stuffed full of vegetables and legumes. You can make potato cakes, latkes, potato bread or boxty pancakes with it, casserole it as gratin potatoes, or use those same thin slices on top of a pizza sparked with rosemary and garlic. Potato flour is also used for thickening some dishes.

Almost every country in the world has a favourite way to showcase the potato: the French have vichyssoise, the Finns Karelian pastries; there are Cornish pasties and shepherd's pie in England, potato scones in Scotland.

But perhaps the Russians have found the ultimate use. They make vodka from it.

WANT MORE INFORMATION?

www.potato2008.org/en/index.html

RECIPES

MOCK WHITEBAIT

These delicious potato cakes are meant to resemble the patties made with those tiny, tiny fish.

2 large potatoes, peeled and coarsely grated

2 eggs

l onion, grated

2 tablespoons flour

salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste

oil to fry

Place the potatoes in a large bowl and mix with the eggs, onion, flour and salt and pepper. Heat a little oil in a large heavy frypan to medium heat and place spoonfuls of the potato mixture in the pan. Cook slowly until crisp and brown on one side, turn over and continue cooking until the second side is done. Do not cook at too high a heat as the outside will over cook and the potato in the centre will not be cooked through. Drain on kitchen paper and serve with wedges of lemon or some tartare sauce. Serves 4.

CHEESE VEGETABLE BAKE

A great family dish, this is equally good sliced cold with salads or cut as a wedge and sent with a school or work lunch.

1/2 cup wholemeal SR flour

salt to taste

1 cup lower-fat grated cheese

4 eggs

1/4 cup milk

l medium onion, grated

2 medium potatoes, grated

l medium carrot, grated*

Lightly grease a casserole dish and mix all ingredients together in a large bowl. Pour into the dish and smooth top. Bake in a preheated 190C oven for 45 minutes or until golden brown. Serves 6-8.

*you can use parsnip, zucchini, choko or other firm vegetables instead.

SOUP VALDESE

A delicious soup from the far north of Italy where potatoes often feature instead of pasta.

5 cups vegetable stock or water

l cup small shell noodles

2 medium potatoes, grated (unpeeled if desired)

l medium carrot, grated

l onion, grated

l clove garlic, crushed

l cup chopped spinach, watercress or rocket

salt and freshly ground black pepper

chopped parsley or cress

freshly grated parmesan

Heat vegetable stock until boiling and sprinkle in pasta. Simmer 5 minutes, then add potatoes, carrot and onion. Add garlic and spinach or other green vegetables, season to taste, then simmer for about 15 minutes. Serve garnished with parsley or cress and parmesan if liked. Serves 4.

CURRIED POTATO SALAD

This is a new twist on an old favourite and sure to wake up some jaded tastebuds.

4 medium potatoes, with a waxy texture like bintje, cooked

2 spring onions, chopped

1/2 cup cooked peas

2 tablespoons chopped red capsicum

1 tablespoon light olive oil

1 tablespoon lemon juice

1-2 teaspoons curry powder

salt and freshly ground black pepper

2 tablespoons chopped coriander

Chop potatoes into cubes while still warm and mix immediately with all other ingredients so the dressing may be absorbed by the potato. Chill until ready to use. Serves 4-6.

KNOWING YOUR ‘PRATIES’

It is one thing to buy a variety of potatoes, but it is just as important to know how to use them.

Generally for steaming, baking, boiling and mashing, use older, floury potatoes. Desirée or Dutch cream, Sebago, Nicola are ideal.

For baking: Pink Eye, King Edward, Dutch cream, Nicola, Sebago and kipfler.

For frying: Sebago.

For potato salads, where you want a firm waxy potato, use kipfler, Nicola.

HOW DO YOU HAVE YOUR POTATOES?

­– with added kilojoules, or without?                                           kJ

Baby potato, steamed or boiled                              50g            145

Small "                        "             "                         100g            290

Medium            "            "                                     150g            440

Large            "            "            "                           200g            585

Extra Large            "            "                                250g            730

Mashed potato with butter and milk                          50g            210

Mashed potato with milk, no fat                               50g            125

Roasted whole in fat                                             100g            525

Wedges, roasted in fat                                          100g            630

Jacket baked with 2 teaspoons fat                          150g            730

"   with 2 tablespoons sour cream                           150g            940

"   with 2 tablespoons cottage cheese                      150g            710

"     with 1/4 cup grated cheese                              150g            920

"     with bacon and cheese                                    150g            1255

Sauteed slices                                                       1/2 cup        920

Hash browns                                                         100g            1130

Potato chips - straight cut                                       100g            835

- crinkle cut                                                          100g   1005

- french fries                                                         100g            1210

- large wedges                                                      100g            750

Oven Fries                                                            100g            585

Potato salad (average)                                           1/2 cup        500