A love for something humble and beautiful

Country Living with Francis Farragher

There are days to celebrate everything over the course of the year whether it be the world of octopuses or balloons, but over recent years, we’ve managed to put forward a genuine case to honour the humble spud here in Ireland, and few could quibble with such a day of adoration as we had on Friday last.

The potato is of course forever ingrained in our genes. For centuries it was the staple food of the Irish people and the failure of the potato crop in the 1840s, led to the greatest catastrophe in the history of the nation.

As well as wiping out an estimated one million of our population, The Great Famine, also led to mass emigration with another two million of the population managing to get on the famine ships bound for America.

The spud is a wonderful source of nourishment and energy, despite it getting some bad press over the years, possibly due to the over-consumption of chips and the consequent grease factor, while as a population we also take the greatest of pleasures from the taste of melted butter and a pinch of salt on hot potatoes.

Without the grease, and if its baked or boiled, the potato is one of nature’s real value packs. The spud is crammed nutrition and goodness including vitamins C and B6, thiamine, niacin, folacin, phosphorous and magnesium, but despite all that positivity, efforts have been made to tarnish its worth, mostly through the world of fad diets.

Even at times, the spud has had to battle its way to be classified as a vegetable. Back in the last Labour Government in the UK, the then Public Health Minister, Melanie Johnson, outlined that potatoes didn’t count as a vegetable in relation to the ‘five-a-day’ guideline for fruit and veg consumption. At that point, the poor old potato wasn’t allowed in the UK to carry the ‘five-a-day’ slogan on its packaging.

A high starch content in potatoes has been targeted by the ‘fad dieters’ as one of the reasons why its consumption should be minimised but over recent years, there has been a pretty solid consensus among health experts, dieticians, nutritionists and the medical profession, that potatoes are one of the healthiest foods that we can consume.

The Irish grá for the spud though shows no sign of abating. Every year, Irish consumers fork out over €200 million on potatoes while chefs from all over the world are encouraging us to experiment even more with recipes involving potatoes. According to ‘spud lover’ and master chef, Mark Moriarty, potatoes are always at the top of his shopping list when procuring vegetables for his meals.

For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.