“Will I bring you Mum’s copy of Full and Plenty?” big sis #1 had asked.

There was only one possible answer to that question, and that was a resounding yes please.

Maura Laverty’s book, a classic of Irish cooking, was one I remembered clearly from childhood, both at home in my mother’s kitchen and, later, in my sister’s house, the book having been passed on to her when she got married.

My Ma's well-worn copy of Maura Laverty's Full and Plenty

As a child, I has read and re-read the book. Maura Laverty prefaced each chapter with wonderfully written stories from her home place of Ballyderrig that revolved around food, cooking and its place in the lives of her family and community. Whether it was the story of Statia Dunne’s “monarch among stews” that had won her a husband (and – take note ladies – “at an age when she had almost given up hope”) or the love of cowslips that allowed the author to become acquainted with Mrs. McKey’s fruit roll, I drank it all in. I also exercised my early baking muscles on the book’s substantial store of recipes.

Originally published in 1960, the inscription on the inside of the book’s front cover shows that my mother received it as a present from her parents in the Christmas of that year. Now, over 50 years later, it is well-thumbed, liberally sellotaped and mine.

The inscription reads: To Dearest Angela, from Daddy & Mammy, Xmas 1960

With copious recipes either pasted in or hand-written onto the available blank pages, having the book is a wonderful record of some of the food that my mother cooked over the years. More than that, though, it’s also a window onto what Ireland, in general, was eating 50 years ago and a reflection of our attitudes to food at the time.

The book undoubtedly has a plain, wholesome feel to it, and there is a greater consciousness of thrift, with recipes for both “everyday” and “Sunday” gingerbread (the latter calling for more sugar, an extra egg and butter instead of margarine). It also displays a matter-of-factness about nose-to-tail eating, with recipes included for everything from boiled ox tongue and baked sheep’s heart to fried tripe, something you’re much less likely to find in more modern cookbooks. The author also shows, however, that there are some things about the quality of ingredients produced in this country that, thankfully, haven’t changed: “…we enjoy better-flavoured meat, … creamier milk, richer butter and cheese …” – words we would do well to remember.

Note: There is a print link embedded within this post, please visit this post to print it.

Potato Drop Scones

As I leafed through Full And Plenty once again (parts of which were, by the by, re-issued as a slimmer volume a couple of years ago), I was drawn to the recipe for drop scones, because it was something I remember my mother making from time to time.

Sweet, squat and cooked on a well-worn cast-iron frying pan, the drop scones were really just a kind of thick pancake – a treat that could be made without having to turn on the oven. The book includes a variation which adds grated potato to the basic drop scone recipe and that, of course, is the version I include below. I didn’t feel the need to mess with the recipe particularly – sometimes you just want the comfort of the plain, the simple and the straightforward. The recipe is easily halved if you don’t feel the need to make such a big batch.

You’ll need:

• 350g plain flour
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1 tsp salt
• 2 eggs
• 425ml milk
• 50g butter, melted
• 2 medium-sized potatoes, approx. 400g
• butter for frying

You’ll also need:

• A heavy frying pan or griddle

The Steps:

• Whisk together the flour, baking powder and salt.
• Beat the egg well and combine with the milk.
• Add the egg and milk mixture to the flour and whisk together until you have a smooth, fairly thick batter, then stir in the melted butter.
• You can use the batter straight away if need be or, better still, refrigerate it for at least 30 minutes or leave it overnight if you like.
• When you’re ready to cook, place your pan over a medium-high heat. If you want to keep your pancakes warm while you cook the full batch, turn your oven onto a low heat, around 120C.
• Peel and grate the potato. At this point I wrap the grated potato in a tea-towel and squeeze out most of the excess liquid, the only change I make to the original recipe. Stir the grated potato into your batter.
• Add some butter to your hot pan and, once melted, drop heaped tablespoonfuls of batter onto the pan. Spread the batter a little using the back of a spoon so that you have squat, thick-ish pancakes, around 7-8cm across.
• Cook until bubbles appear on the surface and burst (around 3-4 minutes), then turn and cook on the other side for another 3 minutes or so, until golden. Repeat until the batter is used up, either serving the pancakes as you go or keeping them hot in the oven until you’re done.
• As with any plain potato pancakes, you can serve these equally well with sweet or savoury accompaniments – they go just as well with some butter and honey or golden syrup as with a fried egg and bacon.

The Variations:

• Endless variations are possible here – you could add some cooked onion to the mix and whatever herbs or spices take your fancy, or leave out the potato, reduce the salt and add a little sugar for simple sweet drop scones.

The Results:

• This makes around 30 drop scones / pancakes, enough for 4-6 people, depending entirely, of course, on what else you’re having to eat with them.

Yep, the sign says it all

St Pauli: hip, happening Hamburg

A weekend in St. Pauli, the beating heart of Hamburg. There would be wine, there would be music, but also, there would be labskaus.

Knowing my potato obsession, labskaus was one of the first things that our friends helpfully mentioned on the flight out. A local speciality of mashed potato mixed with corned beef and beetroot, topped with fried eggs and served with rollmop herrings and pickles, we had also received fair warning from the Hamburg natives: it looks disgusting. No matter about that, though. It was too intriguing not to seek out.

Labskaus on the menu
(and yes, potatoes, in general, are a definite feature of traditional Hamburg fare)

Labskaus, we learned, is the kind of unfancy, stick-to-your-ribs food that dock workers in this major German port city would have eaten in times gone by. While you might not expect to find labskaus on too many modern menus, Raval Brasserie in St. Pauli, which specialises in local Hamburg dishes, had labskaus and more.

Labskaus at Raval Brasserie in St. Pauli: it's colourful, that's for sure

When it arrived at the table, my sister surveyed her labskaus, if not with suspicion, then with a certain degree of trepidation. Still, she was gamely eating it, though was heard to say “I’m not exactly savouring this” or words to that effect. She continued, “You know you could actually make something nice with these ingredients…”, lending weight to the theory that labskaus may simply be something you need to have grown up with to love. I fared much better with my choice of fried fish and potatoes with mustard sauce, and a dessert of stewed cherries with vanilla custard was entirely simple and lovely.

Fried fish with fried potatoes and onions and a mustard sauce

Spudly curiosity satisfied, I enjoyed the rest of a wonderful weekend in Hamburg and returned home. As time went on, though, I found myself becoming more than a little inquisitive about what certain other well-known visitors to that city would have made of labskaus. Turns out there was more of a connection than I might have at first imagined.

Love, Love Me Labskaus

Tucked away on Paul Roosen Strasse in St. Pauli:
yes, The Beatles lived here

So, did those famous one-time residents of Hamburg, The Beatles, find anything just a little bit familiar about labskaus when they lived in St. Pauli, I wonder?

Larry Zuckerman’s fascinating book The Potato: How the Humble Spud Rescued the Western World notes that one of the earliest savoury potato recipes to emerge from England was lobscouse. The name rings a bell, no? It’s reported to have derived from lapskaus, a Norwegian word for stew, whilst the German labkaus has the same etymological origin.

Lobscouse dates from around 1700 and is reported by Zuckerman to have consisted of potatoes, meat, onions, and “strong seasonings”. It was eaten with hardtack and was popular as sailor’s fare in the ports of Lancashire, of which that future home town of The Beatles, Liverpool, was the largest. By the 1880s, lobscouser had become a nickname for sailor and ‘Scouse’ and ‘Scouser’ eventually came into common English usage to describe the Liverpool accent and a resident of Liverpool, respectively.

In contrast to labskaus, traditional Liverpool lobscouse (or simply ‘scouse) is more of a potato stew. Still a popular dish in Liverpool, it is reported here to have consisted traditionally of a cheap cut of lamb cooked with onions, carrots, water or stock and as many potatoes as possible. Interestingly, it is often served with preserved beetroot and, in some parts, as with its cousin, labskaus, corned beef is the preferred choice of meat. The Hamburg dish may, therefore, not have been entirely alien to the visiting Liverpool lads, though, if they ever wrote about it, those songs have, alas, been lost.

In some ways, it was as if a country field day had come to the city.

At least that’s what I thought when I saw the kiddies crazy golf with the Mayo landmarks. A holy water bottle represented the Marian Shrine at Knock and a toy aeroplane the international airport nearby, and knocked they both were with great regularity by the junior would-be golfers.

Knock, knock...

But while these may have stood (or sometimes not, depending on the golfer’s aim) for two of the things that we most know the county of Mayo for, last Sunday’s Mayo Alive event, held in the Dublin City Council Amphitheatre, was all about bringing Mayo’s other attractions, from outdoor adventuring to fine local food, to the attention of the wider Dublin public.

Attractions like the Gourmet Greenway of Mayo, which highlights the great selection of food producers near to and along the route of the ruggedly scenic Great Western Greenway, the longest off-road walking and cycling trail in Ireland. The Greenway follows the route of the old Westport to Achill railway and visitors can sample and purchase the fare of the producers along the trail, including Mulranny Park breads and jams, the much lauded black and white pudding of Kelly’s Butchers in Newport and native Clew Bay oysters, clams and mussels from Croagh Patrick Seafoods.

While any those foods might be reason enough to visit Mayo, the star attraction for me, however, was my first encounter with Mayo boxty.

Martina's boxty - gotta love an ingredients list that reads simply: potatoes, flour & salt

Martina McGuire’s boxty – both the original potatoes-flour-and-salt version and one with added garlic and herbs – was well worth sampling. Unlike other boxty recipes of my acquaintance, Martina’s boxty does not include either milk or buttermilk, nor does it make use of any cooked, mashed potato. Instead it is made simply from raw potatoes, flour and salt, which she told me was a Mayo way of making it.

If you want to sample it for yourself, you’ll find Martina’s boxty on sale, not just in retail outlets in Mayo, but in other western counties throughout Connaught. Failing that, you can try the recipe below, which I hope comes close.

Martina's boxty on the pan

Note: There is a print link embedded within this post, please visit this post to print it.

Mayo Boxty

This, then, is my interpretation of Mayo boxty à la Martina McGuire, using just raw potatoes, flour and salt. It’s a dense, chewy pancake that’s almost pure potato. For the record, Martina’s preferred potato for boxty is Maris Piper.

You’ll need:

• approx. 500g potatoes (2 largish potatoes), preferably a floury variety
• 0.75tsp fine salt
• 2-3 tblsp plain flour
• butter for frying

You’ll also need:

• A grater, a clean tea towel and a large frying pan

The Steps:

• Peel the potatoes, grate them very finely and, wrapping the grated potato in a clean tea towel, squeeze out as much liquid as you can into a bowl and set the bowl aside. At this point (and partly because I did not have as fine a grater as I would have liked) I chopped the squeezed, grated potato finely.
• In a medium-sized bowl, toss the grated potatoes with the salt and about 2 tblsp of flour. You want the mixture to come together enough so that you can shape it into little patties. If the mixture is very wet, add a little more flour. If it’s a bit dry, add some of the starch that will have collected at the bottom of the bowl of squeezed potato liquid.
• Place your frying pan over a medium heat and add about 1 tblsp of butter. Shape the potato mixture into small patties, around 7-8cm across and 5mm thick, and add to the pan once it’s hot and the butter has melted. Depending on the size of your pan, you may need to fry the boxty in batches. Fry for around 6-8 minutes before turning the pancakes over and adding a bit more butter to the pan. Fry for another 5-7 minutes or until golden on both sides.
• Serve hot with additional butter, on their own, as part of a fry-up, as a base for any number of savoury toppings or have them sweet with honey.

The Variations:

• There are any number of things that you could add to the basic boxty mixture: garlic, chives, spring onions, parsley, coriander, dill and much more besides.

The Results:

• Makes around 8 small boxty pancakes, enough for 2-3 people

I’ll come right out with it.

While there will be music and art and poetry and drama and goodness-knows-what-else on offer this coming Friday as part of Culture Night, there’s not, it would seem, much going on that relates to food and drink.

To be fair, the slogan for the evening is “what will you see?” and not “what will you eat and drink?”, so I suppose that the opportunity to see, if not drink in, the remains of an ancient Dublin pub on the night is a reasonable compromise.

With that in mind, I went along to look at one of the new venues opening their doors to the public as part of this year’s event. The Dublin Civic Trust is housed in a restored Georgian shop and merchant’s house near Dublin Castle.

Dublin Civic Trust, 4 Castle Street

More to the point, the Civic Trust is home to a fascinating exhibition of pieces from ‘The Irish House’. This was a fabulously stuccoed Victorian pub which was sited on Wood Quay and, though long since demolished, its external scenes of Irish nationalist heroes made it a remarkable building during its time. It was, no doubt, an intriguing place to have a pint of porter, though you will just have to use your imaginations for that part.

The Irish House, formerly of Wood Quay

There will, however, be no need to imagine the fish and chips that you will find yourself demolishing after your visit to the Civic Trust. The townhouse is just around the corner from Leo Burdock’s, the oldest (and bestest) chipper in town. And while it may not be an official Culture Night venue, it’s as real a piece of Dublin culture as you can eat.

Leo Burdocks, 2 Werburgh Street

Note: There is a print link embedded within this post, please visit this post to print it.

Gur Cake

After all of that, you might, perhaps, be expecting a recipe for fish ‘n’ chips. Instead, here’s another piece of eminently edible Dublin culture: Gur Cake.

Those of you who have spent any amount of time in Dublin may have met some gurriers – the local brand of young lad, generally thought of as being up to no good. To ‘go on the gur’ meant to mitch (or skip school in other words) and so-called gur cake, made traditionally from leftover stale bread or cake, was one of the cheapest things to buy from the baker, so young lads ‘on the gur’ would buy pieces of gur cake to fuel their school skipping activities.

You will find this in Dublin bakeries still, though nowadays it will more usually be labelled fruit slice (or possibly Chester cake) – moistened bread or cake crumbs mixed with fruit and treacle or sugar, and spread between two sheets of pastry. It’s a simple and economical thing to make which, these days, makes it seem like an old cake for new times.

For the pastry:

• 250g plain flour
• 125g cold unsalted butter, cut into approx. 1cm cubes
• pinch of salt
• approx. 3 tblsp cold water
• a little milk to brush on the pastry (optional)

For the filling:

• 300g stale bread (about 8 slices of sliced pan)
• 350ml fresh, strongly brewed tea
• 150g mixed dried fruit (sultanas, raisins or whatever else takes your fancy)
• 2 tblsp treacle
• 2 tblsp golden syrup
• 1 tsp ginger
• 0.25 tsp cinnamon
• 0.25 tsp cloves
• pinch of salt

You’ll also need:

• Rectangular baking tin – mine was 27cm x 18cm and about 4cm deep

The Pastry Steps:

• Let me preface this by saying that if making pastry is something which causes you grief, your first step here should be to refer to Jenni’s tips on pie crust to ensure that you have a happy pastry experience.
• In a large bowl, whisk the flour and salt together well.
• Rub the butter into the flour until the texture resembles coarse meal, but with some larger (approx. pea-sized) lumps of butter remaining.
• Sprinkle over a tblsp of the cold water, and toss the flour and the water together. Squeeze a handful of the mixture – if it sticks together and doesn’t crumble apart, it’s ready. If not sprinkle on some more water and repeat.
• Roll the pastry out (ideally between a couple of sheets of parchment paper) so that it’s large enough to make a base and lid for your baking tin, then chill for at least 30 minutes.

The Filling Steps:

• Remove any very thick, hard crusts from the bread.
• Place the bread in a medium-sized bowl and pour the tea over it. Allow the tea to soak in and soften for a minute or two, then mash well with a fork. You need just enough liquid to wet all of the bread – the mashed bread mixture will be stiff rather than overly liquidy.
• Stir in fruit, treacle, golden syrup, ginger, cinnamon, cloves and salt. Mix well and leave to plump up for an hour or two.
• When you’re ready to bake, preheat the oven to 200C
• Remove the pastry from the fridge. Use half of it to line the base of your tin (just lining the base and not the sides). Then smooth the filling over the base layer and top with the rest of the pastry.
• Prick the pastry topping all over with a fork, brush with a little milk if you like, and bake until golden, around 30 minutes or so. Allow it to cool in the tin before slicing into squares and eating with a cup of tea. Skipping school is optional but does add to the whole experience.

The Variations:

• Given the nature of this cake, it’s really all about using what you have on hand. You can certainly substitute molasses and, say, corn syrup for the treacle and golden syrup, or just replace the lot with brown sugar. The finished product actually reminded me of mince pies, what with the buttery pastry and warm, Christmas spices, so I think that you could expand that theme by adding some orange and lemon zest and perhaps a little drop of brandy.

The Results:

• Makes around 54 3cm x 3cm squares.

“I wouldn’t fancy that, now, jaysus!”

The speaker was maintaining a suitably safe distance from the Caribbean-style saucery on offer from Bad Boy Sauces, apparently not at all enticed by the lure of “Carribbean Cooking for Culchies“. Clear evidence that you can give an Irishman curry, but you can’t make him eat it.

Fortunately there was plenty of traditional fare at Bloom to satisfy the spice-averse – soda breads, jams, sausages, smoked fish, cheeses, apple tarts and boxty – while those with more international tastes could treat themselves to everything from locally produced madras curry sauce from Govenders and smoked almonds from The Good Snack Company to the eternally moreish sprouted chickpea hummus from Natasha’s Living Foods.

Artisan Food Market At Bloom:
Soda bread from The Foods of Athenry in Galway; Ardrahan cheese from Cork; Burren Smokehouse salmon from Clare; Boxty from the Boxty Bakers of Leitrim

If nothing else, the spread of food on offer was evidence of a national menu that is worthy of our support. Spend even a minute talking to the likes of Birgitta Curtin from Burren Smokehouse or Mag Kirwan from Goatsbridge Premium Irish Trout and you will also know that the people behind the food are passionate about the quality of what they produce.

Boxty making with Padraic Óg Gallagher

No less enthusiastic were the people who took to the stage in the name of Lost and Forgotten Skills, encouraging attendees to revisit our traditional food and drink – local apples, traditional farmhouse cheeses, griddle breads, seaweeds, oysters and more. The ways of pan, loaf and boiled boxty were ably demonstrated by Padraic Óg Gallagher of Gallagher’s Boxty House, who I daresay could teach me a thing or two about spuds. And as for the poitín, well that was not so much lost and forgotten as (mostly) illegal.

The poitín-making apparatus of Mick from the Mountains

A man, introduced to us only as “Mick from the Mountains”, proudly displayed a court summons once served upon him for producing his clear firey liquor. We got to see his poitín still, though we couldn’t, strictly speaking, sample the results of same. Poitín shots were, however, supplied by Oliver Dillon from the Bunratty Mead & Liqueur Company, the only Irish company licensed to make the stuff. It was surprisingly aromatic, but with a kick that, as Oliver says, travels down to your toes and then back to your head. One drop too far and you will be lost and forgotten yourself!

Copper Coast red ale from the Dungarvan Brewing Company

If you were on the lookout for something a little less potent, there were beers and other perfectly legal beverages from local craft brewers on offer at the Bloom Inn. That’s where I got to chat with Niamh from Eat Like A Girl and sample some of the tasty brews from newly launched Dungarvan Brewing Co., before it was time to take a turn around the gardens. Even there, there was no escaping the food and drink theme.

The GIY edible garden at Bloom

The “edible garden”, designed by Fiann Ó Nualláin and put together by the super-friendly people from Grow It Yourself (GIY) Ireland, was a truly collaborative national effort. The 70 GIY groups from around the country were each asked to grow a contribution, and the result was an inspiring demonstration of the food that can be cultivated, given a small patch of ground and an Irish climate.

And if that was the garden that said Eat Me, it made sense that there should be one that said Drink Me too. After all of that traipsing around, I don’t mind if I do.

Now that looks like my kind of garden

For instance, the other day, I rushed home to take delivery of…

A truly authentic ham sandwich from Denny

…a ham sandwich. Yup. White sliced pan, something butter-like and Denny ham. No more, no less.

Notwithstanding the fact that I’m not an eater of meaty sandwiches (oops, Denny forgot again), the significance of what is an Irish Institution was not lost on me. The ham sandwich (more properly referred to in certain parts of the country as the hang sangidge) has graced many’s the Irish lunchbox and been consumed by countless thousands of attendees at GAA matches, community field days and parish hall functions. A ham sandwich, thus presented, is nothing less than tradition between two slices of bread (though one to which you might just want to add a bit of mustard).

This tradition is the inspiration for Denny’s Taste of Home (outdoors) campaign which, in turn, is the reason I found myself in receipt of one iconic ham-filled lunchable, along with a list of Denny’s top 10 spots at which to enjoy same. These locations range from beautiful Glencar Waterfall in Co. Leitrim to The Burren in Co. Clare, and one presumes that they are equally well suited to the enjoyment of hamless sandwiches. (My own personal choice of sandwich filling would be Tayto cheese and onion, how ’bout you?)

Also included on Denny’s list of sandwich spots is next week’s Bloom In The Park festival and, let me tell you, if last year is anything to go by, there’ll be a lot more than ham sandwiches to be had.

While the show gardens are the centrepiece of the festival, this year’s programme guarantees that those with an interest in food and drink will be well catered for. With what’s being billed as their “totally edible garden”, Grow It Yourself (GIY) Ireland will be demonstrating the potential of a suburban vegetable patch. The artisan Food Market will include a Lost & Forgotten Skills display, with demonstrations of cheese making, butter churning, apple pressing and fish smoking (no prizes for guessing where you will find me, then), while the Craft Beer Garden will be dispensing Irish craft beers, spirits and liqueurs to the thirsty among you (ok, so you might find me there too). And if, after all of that, you should feel the need for a ham sandwich, Denny, I’m sure, will oblige.

“You’ll need tights,” said Fergal (though, as you may have gathered, he was ultimately mistaken on this point).

“Er, ‘scuse me…?”

We were arranging a visit to Fergal’s mammy, Rose, for a boxty-making session. Fergal, as it turns out, was referring not to a dress code for the visit (phew), but to the tights one might (or, as it turns out, might not) use to squeeze grated raw potato – boxty’s principal ingredient.

It had been many months since I first heard my friend Fergal wax lyrical about his mammy’s boxty and I had been pestering him for the recipes ever since. While boxty is a very traditional Irish potato dish, it is not something that was ever made in my family, and remained a significant gap in my potato repertoire. This was my chance to get the low-down on same from a native of Leitrim, where boxty is big.

Rose demonstrates just how boxty is done

The first thing you need to know is that there are many different forms of boxty: Rose herself makes three – boxty on the pan, boxty in the oven and boxty dumplings – and it was a delight and a privilege to watch an Irish mammy in action, making boxty on the pan just as her own mammy would have done.

I saw the potatoes being very finely grated and squeezed to remove a surprising amount of liquid (Rose keeps a small linen bag specifically for the purpose, so no need to break out the emergency supply of tights (again phew) – and I now know that Rose would have been aghast if I had done so). A little buttermilk added, then a tiny sprinkling of sugar, salt and a small scoop of flour, some bread soda mixed with a little milk, all stirred together to form a thick batter. Spoonfuls cooked up on a hot buttered pan until golden on both sides and eaten with yet more butter and, traditionally, some bacon.

It’s like a chewier version of a potato cake and is equally simple, uncomplicated fare that harks back to Rose’s early life on a farm in the 40′s and 50′s, when the spuds came from their winter store of kerr’s pinks, the buttermilk was the by-product of the butter they churned and the bacon was home-cured.

When I later made some boxty for myself, I was, of course, tempted to add in all sorts of things and I have no doubt that, in due course, I will. But for my first time out, I kept it simple and made it exactly as Rose had done. Nothing required to enjoy it other than butter, and lots of it. Simple is good. Simple with lots of butter is even better.

Mashed potatoes! The beatings, the maulings, and the ultimate degradation to a which an honest Irish potato must submit tomorrow turn me sad-eyed from my plate.

Now there’s a woman who doesn’t mince her words. The quote above is just a small extract from a 5 page complaint about potatoes being “fluffed, whipped, paddled, pounded, beaten, bruised, crushed, flouced and shaken, but never – oh the pity of it – never mashed”. Notwithstanding the fact that I am intrigued by the notion of flounced potatoes, I have a certain amount of sympathy with the woman’s stated position on what some people do in the name of mash.

The piece is contained in Mark Kurlansky’s book Food of a Younger Land, which presents a selection of material written for the America Eats project during the late 1930′s and early 1940′s. The project was shelved because of the onset of America’s participation in WW2 and such material as had been written was archived and, until recently, largely forgotten about.

I first came across the book when I was in the States earlier this year and heard a radio interview with the author on KQED. I quickly started taking notes. The minute I got wind of a multi-page rant about mashed potatoes, I knew that I would have to get my hands on a copy, if for no other reason than that.

While the mashed potato article is probably the most entertaining individual piece in the book, it is, as a collection, a fascinating peek at American eating in the days before frozen food, fast food and the advent of the national highway system. A time when people didn’t have to make a point of their food being regional and seasonal because that’s simply the way things were by default. In fact, our mashed potato advocate had this to say about spuds and seasonality:

Of course grandma had sense enough not to try to serve mashed potatoes the year round… (she) would have been shocked if anyone ever intimated that a mashed potato could be served before autumn.

She makes an excellent point. Firm new potatoes do not a good mash make, so you’ll have spuds at their early summer best if simply boiled or used in salads. Besides, life is more interesting if mash is off the menu for at least a few months of the year. As for flounced potatoes, it seems that it might be best to avoid them altogether.

Frankly, I’m not likely to start eating spuds this way (except, at a push, when I have some freshly dug new potatoes on my hands). Yesterday, however, when I found my cupboards devoid of crackers, I was inspired to try my hand at using potato to make something crackeresque in nature, and just right for dipping. A little homage to “praties and dip” as it were. Though mainly I just wanted some crackers to feed my cheese ‘n’ crackers addiction.

The idea was a decent enough one. However, I had never attempted to make anything that you might describe as a cracker before and here I was, going to wing it first time out. I took some flour, rubbed in some butter, stirred in grated parmesan and chives, combined into a dough with some mashed potato and milk. I chilled it. I rolled it out thinly, cut out the crackers, whacked them in the oven until they were golden…

They sure do look the part

…but they weren’t what I would call killer crackers. A little bit too much chew where the rolling of the dough wasn’t super-thin and a little bit overdone where it was. Now, don’t get me wrong. They weren’t bad and I’ve eaten quite a lot of them already (they are parmesan-cheesy after all) but suffice to say that the formula is not ready for the big time just yet. Indeed, the inclusion of potatoes in the dough might be at odds with the requirement for ultimate cracker crispiness. Hmmm. The search for Spud’s perfect cracker will continue.