The latest wave of anti-spuddism arises from a study carried out by Harvard researchers into the dietary habits of around 120,000 health professionals from around the U.S. over a period of 12+ years and published recently in the New England Journal of Medicine.

The aspect of the research which has gained most attention is the finger of blame that is pointed towards potato products when it comes to potential for weight gain. On the basis of increased daily servings, the study finds that people who were in the habit of eating French fries gained, on average, 3.35 lb after four years, while those with a predilection for potato chips (or crisps, in Irish-speak) averaged a 1.69 lb increase. If your extra helpings came in the form of boiled, baked, or mashed potatoes, the increase was a more modest 0.57 lb over the four year period.

Cue articles, such as this one, which tell you the frightening amounts of calories, fats and carbs in your average spud meal and warn that “potatoes are calorie dense, very calorie dense“. Clearly, the article implies, when it comes to spuds and my waistline, I should be afraid, very afraid. The premise and the conclusion are simplistic, to say the least. While potatoes are certainly calorie dense if you douse them in fat, a plain boiled potato (as I have mentioned on these pages before) actually has less calories than the equivalent weight of plain boiled rice, pasta or bread. Nutritionally, too, it has plenty to shout about.

These, my friends, are not the problem

Other quotes such as this found here are also, I think, unhelpful.

The problem, said study co-author Dr. Walter Willett, chairman of the nutrition department at the Harvard School of Public Health, is that “we don’t eat potatoes raw, so it’s easier [for the body] to transform the starch to glucose.”

With the greatest of respect Dr. Willett, the problem is not that we don’t eat potatoes raw, it’s that we’re probably eating a sizable burger and a sugary drink along with that order of fries. This is a view that would fit with Marion Nestle’s much more reasoned assessment of the study. The professor of nutrition and public health at New York University suspects that “people who eat potato chips and fries also tend to eat too much in general, making these foods markers for a diet leading to weight gain“.

The fact is that we are very fond of finding villains for the western disease that is obesity. We like to consign blame to, say, sugar one week and potatoes the next, culprits that allow us to abdicate responsibility for our own dietary actions (“’twas the spuds that did it, your honour”). The simple, uncomplicated truth is that a balanced, varied diet (spuds included), which avoids lots of heavily processed foods and includes a moderate amount of exercise will, in the general run of things, help to keep our waistlines on the straight and narrow(-ish). I know that I, for one, will be making no plans to steer clear of spuds and, fortunately, it looks like I’m not alone.

As my new twitter friend, Nancy, informed me, spuds have at least one avid fan stateside. She sent me this picture of the t-shirt that her ten year old son custom-made for himself. Now there’s a boy who has the right idea.

That's my kind of t-shirt

In France and in French cuisine, Parmentier is code for potatoes.

Find a dish adorned with that name and it’s bound to feature potatoes as its main ingredient. Antoine Augustin Parmentier, after whom such dishes are named, is somewhat of a hero when it comes to the potato in France. He was the man who, back in the late 18th century, was chiefly responsible for popularising the consumption of potatoes in that country. These days in Paris you’ll find an avenue and a metro stop which also bear his name. What’s more, if you’re a potato head like me, you’ll skip the Eiffel Tower and pay them a visit instead.

Avenue Parmentier, 11th Arrondissement, Paris

Taken prisoner by the Prussians for several years during the Seven Years War, Parmentier was fed almost exclusively on potatoes during his captivity. Far from being thoroughly sick of spuds by the time of his release in 1763, he took the fact that he was in very good health as a sign that potatoes weren’t half bad as foodstuffs go. A clever man and one of clearly excellent taste.

A pharmacist by trade, he later published several papers on the nutritional value of potatoes, including one entitled “Inquiry into Nourishing Vegetables That In Times Of Necessity Could Be Substituted For Ordinary Food”, which demonstrated that (a) he was not a man for short snappy titles and (b) spuds, at the time, were not considered ordinary food in France (and, in fact, by most of the French populus, not considered as food at all).

Around the Parmentier Metro Stop on Avenue Parmentier in Paris

At a time when food shortages were rife in Paris, Parmentier dedicated much time and effort to promoting the value of the potato as food, obtaining a royal seal of approval for the tuber in 1785 from the ill-fated Louis XVI. Potatoes were later declared to be the food of the French Revolution, available in quantity when all else was in short supply. For this, Parmentier was honoured by Napoleon, who made him one of the first members of his Legion d’Honneur.

Today he is still honoured, not just by the many places and foods which are named for him, but by the visitors to his grave in the Père Lachaise Cemetery. Look to the ledges of the tomb and you’re always likely to find some potatoes. Small but appropriate tokens of appreciation for the efforts of a true spud legend.

Parmentier's grave in the Père Lachaise Cemetery in Paris, complete with spuds

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Potatoes Parmentier

In a way, Potatoes Parmentier is almost like saying ‘Potatoes Potatoes’. The name typically refers to a dish consisting of small cubes of potato, fried or otherwise cooked in butter, with parsley and/or other herbs added. Bacon, onions or, really, whatever else you fancy, may be added too. This is fairly straightforward rendition of the dish, with plenty of fresh herbs and a bit of lemony zing.

You’ll need:

• 800g potatoes
• salt for parboiling the potatoes
• 2 cloves garlic, lightly crushed
• 3 tblsp melted clarified butter, divided
• 2 tblsp chopped flat leaf parsley
• 2 tblsp chopped coriander
• 2 tblsp chopped mint
• 0.5 tsp lemon zest
• squeeze of lemon juice, to taste
• coarse salt to taste
• freshly ground black pepper to taste

You’ll also need:

• One or more baking trays, large enough to hold the cubed potatoes in a single layer.

The Steps:

• Preheat the oven to 200C
• Scrub the potatoes and, leaving them unpeeled, chop into approx. 1cm cubes. Rinse well in cold water.
• Add the potato cubes to a saucepan, along with about 1.25l water, 1.5 tsp salt and the garlic cloves. Bring to a boil over a medium-high heat and, once boiling, lower the heat and simmer for about 2 minutes. Drain, removing the cloves of garlic, and return to the saucepan. Then either let them sit, covered by a tea-towel, for about 5 minutes or place the pan over a low heat and stir the potatoes gently for a minute or so while they dry out.
• Toss the potato cubes using about 2 tblsp of the melted clarified butter (reserving the rest of the butter for later). Spread the potato cubes onto baking trays and roast in the oven until lightly golden and crispy, around 30 minutes or so, giving the trays a good shake midway through cooking.
• When the potatoes are done, mix the chopped parsley, coriander and mint with the remaining melted butter and lemon zest and toss with the potatoes. Add coarse salt, black pepper and a sprinkle of lemon juice to taste and serve.

The Variations:

• Of course you can use olive or other vegetable oil in place of the clarified butter and add other mediterranean touches if you like.

The Results:

• Serves 3-4 as a side dish

“I’ve never had a good mushroom soup,” said Kev.

Bejaysus but it was quite the statement with which to launch into a lunchtime conversation at work.

It turns out that most of the people around the table had rather definite opinions on mushroom soup. While I would not, myself, have gone as far as to say that I had never had a good mushroom soup, I’ve certainly had my fair share of bad ones. Brian volunteered that he had once had a good mushroom soup from a packet, Dave that he once had a good mushroom soup experience, but it was somewhere exotic like Thailand. From the point of view of those seeking mushroom soup nirvana, it all sounded pretty grim, frankly. Except for the bit about being in Thailand. It also had the distinct whiff of a challenge, one that would more than likely find me whipping mushrooms and spuds into some kind of soupy frenzy.

Cue the return of Gorta’s Soup For Life campaign – where, for one week starting this coming Friday, April 8th, a range of restaurateurs in Dublin and Cork will be donating €1 per bowl of soup sold to fund Gorta’s work in Africa. The making of some decent mushroom soup seemed an appropriate way to follow on from my last year’s soupy contribution to their campaign.

Healing properties:
even more reasons to make mushroom soup

Not only that, but my newly acquired Everything Guide to Food Remedies informed me that mushrooms are a good source of anti-cancer compounds. The book is written by Lori Rice, a trained nutritionist whom I’ve gotten to know through her blog Fake Food Free. She has a practical and pragmatic approach to eating and wellness, and the book steps through the foods that can help to address and alleviate specific ailments, along with clear and accessible recipes. I was thrilled to receive a copy from Lori, it’s a worthy addition to my bookshelf.

What ails me right now, though? The fact that I am still lacking some quality mushroom soup. Fortunately, I have a remedy at hand.

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Mushroom, Celeriac and Potato Soup

So, the secret a good mushroom soup?

Well, you’d do well to start by using some tasty mushrooms. There are many wonderful varieties of wild mushroom that would do wonders to any soup but, unless you’re given to foraging, these can be expensive and difficult to come by. My solution to making more of an everyday mushroom soup was two-fold (1) use dried shiitake mushrooms, which I find reasonably priced if sourced from an Asian shop (2) use regular white mushrooms or their slightly more flavourful brown cousins (chestnut mushrooms), but concentrate their flavour by frying them in butter until well browned and add them to the soup at the end of cooking.

I will also say that this soup isn’t all about the mushrooms, as there’s plenty of body from the potatoes and celeriac, which is, I think, how I prefer it.

For the soup:

• 75g dried shiitake mushrooms
• vegetable oil for frying
• 1 smallish onion, about 125g, finely chopped
• salt
• 2 cloves garlic, finely chopped
• 0.25 tsp dried thyme
• approx. 300g potato, peeled and chopped into approx 0.5cm dice
• approx. 300g celeriac, skin sliced off and chopped into approx 0.5cm dice
• 150ml dry white wine (one you’d drink yourself)
• 200g chestnut or white button mushrooms, wiped clean and finely sliced
• butter for frying
• 2 tsp lemon juice or to taste
• freshly ground black pepper to taste

To garnish (optional):

• fresh sage leaves, fried in butter until browned and crispy
• chopped flat leaf parsley
• grated parmesan

You’ll also need:

• A blender or food processor for blending the soup – an immersion blender is handiest.

The Steps:

• Rinse the dried shiitake mushrooms to remove any dust, then soak in approx. 750ml cold water for several hours or overnight in the fridge, until softened. Alternatively, soak in warm water for 45 minutes to an hour. When softened, remove the stalks from the mushrooms and chop the mushroom caps finely. Reserve the soaking liquid.
• Place a large, heavy saucepan over a medium heat. When hot, add enough oil to coat the pan. Add the chopped onions and a pinch of salt. Stir and fry for 4-5 minutes, until they have turned translucent.
• Add the chopped garlic and the thyme and stir and fry for another minute or so.
• Stir in the chopped potato and celeriac, and add the white wine. Bring to the boil, then reduce the heat and let the wine simmer for a few minutes to reduce a little.
• Add the chopped shiitake mushrooms and the reserved soaking liquid and about 1 tsp salt. Top up with a little water, if needed, to just cover the vegetables. Bring to a boil, then reduce the heat and simmer, covered, for around 25 minutes or until the vegetables have softened.
• While the soup is simmering, fry the chestnut mushrooms. Place a large frying pan over a medium heat. You don’t want to crowd the mushrooms too much, so you’ll need to fry them in 2-3 batches, depending on the size of your pan. When hot, add about 0.5 tblsp butter to the pan. When that has melted add a layer of mushrooms. Fry for around 8-10 minutes, without stirring, until well browned on the pan-side. Stir and flip the mushrooms over to fry on the other side for a few more minutes, then remove to some kitchen paper and repeat for the next batch(es).
• When the vegetables in the soup have softened, remove from the heat and blend. The soup will be quite thick, so thin with additional boiling water as desired. Add the lemon juice, black pepper and additional salt to your taste.
• Roughly chop the fried chestnut mushrooms and stir into the soup.
• Ladle into bowls and garnish with some crumbled fried sage leaves or chopped flat leaf parsley and a little bit of grated parmesan if you like. Enjoy along with the rest of that bottle of wine you had to open. You know you want to.

The Variations:

• If you want a soup that’s more overtly mushroomy, then you could add more shiitake mushrooms here or perhaps some dried and soaked porcini. You could also add a little dried sage along with the dried thyme.

The Results:

• Makes around 4 hearty servings of soup

That title was kindly bestowed by Aoife McElwain (she of I Can Has Cook) in her brand new Foodie News column in the Irish Independent weekend magazine. Needless to remark, it is a moniker that I will wear with pride (and perhaps even, as suggested by some, with an accompanying superhero-style cape).

From yesterday's Irish Independent Foodie News

So, as Guardian (not to mention Promoter) o’ the Spud, it seemed as good a time as any for a no-holds-barred, down ‘n’ dirty nutritional profile of what is, after all, the world’s most widely cultivated vegetable. So brace yourselves, folks, you’re about to find out that there’s a whole lot more to this tuber than starch. Let the facts begin.

• For one thing, there’s water, and lots of it. H₂O accounts for about 80% of a typical potato tuber, though this percentage can vary significantly depending on the type of potato. Waxy varieties will have a higher water content, floury types, less.
• The rest of the potato is mostly starch, though I’m guessing you knew that already. Your average potato also contains small amounts of simple sugars, which are important for developing the golden-brown colour of fried and roasted potatoes. Overall, a potato has a lower carbohydrate content than other roots and tubers and a plain boiled potato has less calories than the equivalent weight of plain boiled rice, pasta or bread. Honest.
• Over time, some of a potato’s starch will convert to sugars when stored below about 10°C, and markedly so at 6°C and below. So it’s best not to store your spuds in the fridge, unless uncharacteristically sweet potatoes are what you’re after.
• While only 2% of a potato is protein, the protein is high-quality and the potato boasts a good carbohydrate to protein ratio. When compared with rice and cereals, it has a higher lysine content and lower concentrations of other amino acids such as cysteine. For those not averse to a bit of carb-on-carb action, this means that putting rice or pasta on your plate alongside potatoes will actually provide a better quality protein than either one or the other. Who’d-a-thunk-it?
• Fat content is very low, as is, consequently, the occurrence of fat-soluble vitamins. If your spuds are fried or roasted, however, that’s a fatter matter entirely.
• Both the flesh and the skin of a potato contain dietary fibre, though (unsurprisingly) there’s a greater concentration in the skin. The skin also prevents or reduces the leaching of vitamins and minerals into cooking water when boiling, so it is better (nutritionally) to peel after boiling, if you’re going to peel at all.


• It’s said that when men were dying from scurvy during the Klondike Gold Rush, potatoes were sold for their weight in gold. This had everything to do with the fact that potatoes were, and are, a very good source of vitamin C. 100g of freshly harvested spuds, boiled in their skins, gives about 50% of an adult’s typical recommended daily intake. Long term storage (which is increasingly common) and cooking, especially if potatoes are peeled beforehand, will, however, deplete vitamin C levels.
• Spuds have much else in their nutritional vitamin arsenal, being well-equipped with B complex vitamins, especially B1, B6 and niacin.
• There’s a goodly array of minerals, such as magnesium and phosphorous, residing spudside too. They’re particularly rich in potassium, the consumption of which, if this recent article is to be believed, may predispose a woman to conceive male children. Many’s the royal spouse who could, no doubt, have done with that information.
• Sodium quantity is low, which is good for those who need, or want, to avoid excessive amounts in their diet.
• You’ll find a host of trace elements in a potato, from aluminium to zinc, and its iron content can contribute significantly to daily requirements.


• Highly-coloured potato varieties – those with blue, purple, red or even just yellow flesh – are rich in antioxidants, though specific concentrations will vary with different varieties. Recent research has shown that their consumption may lower susceptibility to certain chronic diseases, when compared with eating white-fleshed potatoes.
• Overall, potatoes are an alkaline food source, with high levels of potash and alkaline salts. This makes them a good thing to eat if you’ve got a hangover, when acidity levels in the body are elevated.
• While the focus of the book Potatoes, Not Prozac is about managing biochemical imbalances brought about by sugar sensitivity, consuming complex carbohydrates, such as potatoes and their skins, is part of its dietary solution for mental health and well-being.
• All potatoes contain glycoalkaloids, which can be toxic if present in large quantities. Whilst levels are safe in our cultivated varieties, concentrations will increase with exposure to light. This exposure also results in greening of the potato and, although it’s a separate process, it acts as a useful indicator of increased glycoalkaloid content. What I’m trying to say is, don’t eat the green bits, ok?
• Finally, If you’ve eaten potatoes for long enough, you’ve probably come across those that show browning or a hollow at the heart of the spud (which occurs due to abrupt changes in growing conditions). These browned centres are known in Irish as cuasán (pronounced coo-a-sawn). My father’s mother’s mother, I’m told, regarded it as a delicacy, while my mother’s father’s father maintained that the best part of the potato was that found around the cuasán. All I can say is that, if it was good enough for them, it’s plenty good enough for me.

Swisssh, whirrrr, swisssh, whirrrr, swisssh, whirrrr, …

There was I, newly enslaved to the relentless motion of the exercise machine, with its glowing display of strides per minute and calories per hour. After what was my first visit to a gym in quite some time, I was, frankly, rather aglow myself. No prizes for guessing that, with the onset of a brand new year, I had made a resolution of the get-fit-and-healthy variety.

Somewhat ironically, the view across the road from my gym window included outlets of Four Star Pizza, Subway and McDonalds, not to mention an off-licence advertising a six-pack of beer for a tenner (which, to be perfectly honest, is the only kind of six-pack I’m ever likely to possess). That’s modern urban living for you, though – a juxtaposition of services offering fatness and fitness. One wonders if it might not, perhaps, be just as well to cut to the chase and have the exercise machines report effort expended as slices of pizza and cans of beer.

Still, today at least, I have to say that I wasn’t particularly tempted to follow my workout with a beer-and-pizza chaser. I was going straight home for another kind of fast food entirely.

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Raspberry Scones

Now here’s the kind of fast food I prefer. Scones that take less than ten minutes to prepare and not much more than that to bake.

If you’re after the recipe, you’ll find it here, because – except for the addition of some raspberries to the dough – it’s one that I’ve covered before in these pages. However, as Jenni noted the other day when she re-blogged her tasty goat’s cheese crostini, some things bear both re-eating and repeating.

Our 21st century edibles are awash with low fat, vitamin-enriched, cholesterol-free labels. As consumers demand more and more bang for their grocery buck, it gets ever harder for an unadorned fruit or vegetable to just be. It seems that they must be both new and improved to attract our attention.

Perhaps that’s why scientists at Japan’s Obihiro University have been subjecting potatoes to electric shock treatment.

Zapping a potato with ultrasound
(photo: Kazunori Hironaka / Press Association Wire)

They say that the rush of antioxidants produced by the application of either electric shocks or ultrasound makes the potato more nutritious. That’s as maybe, but what’s more important, surely, is what you do with the potatoes afterward. If their final destination is the deep-fat fryer, then what matter that you’ve got a “healthier” potato to begin with.

Meanwhile, if it’s higher levels of antioxidants that you’re after, those of you in the UK could simply switch to the newly available “healthy purple potatoes.”

Purple Majesty, a non-GM variety developed at Colorado State University, reportedly contains up to ten times the level of antioxidants found in white potatoes, and are now being grown in Scotland. I’ll happily admit that I’m as fond of a nice purple potato as the next person, but they’re not always what I want on my plate (and just you try feeding funny coloured spuds to my father and see how far you get). In the end, whatever potatoes you eat (and I do suggest you eat at least some, purple or otherwise), surely it matters more that they are part of a balanced diet which includes a rainbow of other vegetables and fruits.

Purple - it's the new healthy

And, finally, what can I say about the so-called Protato?

Scientists at India’s Central Potato Research Institute are working on a spud which will have 60% more protein, resulting from the insertion of protein genes from amaranth into potatoes. It’s aimed at addressing issues of malnutrition in Indian children, with plans to incorporate the new potato into the government’s free midday meal programme in schools. Many commentators note that this is at the expense of promoting amaranth and pulses, the most important sources of protein in the Indian diet. I can’t help but wonder what Jamie Oliver, hero of the healthier school dinner, would think.

“We need to tighten our belts.”

Just how often have we heard that one lately?

The fact is, however, that when it comes to our national diet, belt loosening is the order of the day. As a nation, it seems we’re getting a little chubby around the middle, with 60% of us overweight or obese according to this report. And Michael O’Shea, CEO of the Irish Heart Foundation (IHF) reckons that obesity levels in Ireland are rising at the rate of around 1% per year. Yikes.

Given that about one third of premature heart disease relates to poor diet and that about 10,000 Irish people die each year from heart disease and stroke, the IHF, whose mission it is to reduce cases of preventable heart disease, have a vested interest in what we eat. In fact, whatever it is we’re eating, they’d like us to eat less of it.

That, at least, is the focus of their Happy Heart Eat Out campaign, which runs for the month of June. Given that many of us are prone to dining out, they are encouraging us to show a little restraint when we do so. They have the help of 500+ restaurants and catering establishments, who will be offering healthier, right-sized options on their menus.

One such participant is Saba, the popular Thai and Vietnamese eatery in Dublin, which was the venue for the launch of the campaign. And the launch, well, that involved lunch…

Lunch at Saba, clockwise from bottom left:
seared yellow fin tuna with wasabi coriander mayonnaise; steamed seabass fillets with Xao Shing wine sauce; hot and sour prawn soup; fruit platter with passion fruit and mango sorbet

Ok, I grant you, that does look like a lot of food but, truth be told, the individual courses were light, and I skipped the rice offered (because, let’s face it, rice is not potatoes) – so I didn’t need to engage in any belt adjustment afterward. Result? One happy Spud. So happy, in fact, that I went straight home and made some hot, sour and heart happy soup for you all to enjoy too.

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Thai Hot And Sour Soup

The IHF recipe booklet mentioned above includes Tom Yum Goong, the hot and sour prawn soup we had at Saba. The recipe here, though similar, is not Saba’s version, but is adapted from a recipe resident sis learned while staying at Eagle House in Chiang Mai in Thailand, a place that will be familiar to many Irish backpackers.

It’s a firm favourite Chez Spud and, though classically made using prawns, we have always just made it using veggies. The formula is simple: heat the water or stock with flavourings for a few minutes to infuse, then add the rest of the vegetables/seafood/meat, the order determined by how long each takes to heat through or cook, followed by some final seasonings.

You can use a vegetable or chicken stock if you like, though we generally just use water as the base – it’s still plenty flavoursome and (not that I worry about these things overly), low in fat and (yes) a good heart healthy option. The only trouble with keeping portions small here is that its more-ish nature will mean that you inevitably want second helpings.

You’ll need:

• 800ml light vegetable stock or water (or use chicken stock if you like)
• 1 stick lemongrass, cut into 2cm pieces
• 50g galangal or root ginger, peeled and cut into 0.5cm slices
• 4 dried kaffir lime leaves
• 2-3 dried red chillies, crushed
• 0.5 tsp shrimp paste (optional)
• 1x400g tin straw mushrooms (about 240g drained weight), or substitute button or oyster mushrooms
• 1x400g tin baby corn (about 240g drained weight), sliced into 1cm widths
• 200g cherry tomatoes, halved
• 4 spring onions, finely sliced
• 4 tblsp lime juice
• 1 tblsp soy sauce or more to taste
• 3 tblsp Thai fish sauce (or substitute with additional soy sauce)
• 0.5-1 tsp sugar

To serve:

• fresh coriander
• steamed rice (optional)

The Steps:

• Bring the water or stock to a simmer in a saucepan. Add the lemongrass, galangal or ginger, kaffir lime leaves and chillies. Return to a simmer and cook for around 3 minutes.
• Add the shrimp paste (if using) and stir to mix, then add the mushrooms and corn and simmer for about another 3 minutes.
• Add the cherry tomatoes and simmer for 1-2 minutes, then add the spring onions, lime juice, soy sauce, fish sauce (if using) and sugar. Stir to mix, taste and check seasoning, adding more of whatever you think it might need.
• You can serve this on its own as a broth or spoon some steamed rice into a bowl and then ladle the soup over it. Garnish generously with sprigs of fresh coriander and remember that the pieces of lemongrass, galangal or ginger and kaffir lime leaves are for flavouring only and not actually for eating.

The Variations:

• Prawns, of course, are a classic inclusion in this soup, though I don’t see why you couldn’t try other seafood or meats here too. Change the vegetables to suit what you have – anything that doesn’t need long to cook or heat through is fair game. You can try bamboo shoots, water chestnuts, mange tout and french beans to name but a few.

The Results:

• 3 dinner servings, along with rice, or 4 smaller servings.

It’s fairly safe to say that, back in 1742, people didn’t spend too much time obsessing about saturated fat or trying to reduce their carb intake. If anything, they were far more concerned with ingesting whatever carbs they could lay their hands on, spuds included.

I mention 1742 because that was the year of the first public performance of George Frideric Handel’s Messiah, which took place in Fishamble Street in Dublin, an event which will be commemorated on April 13th next in Temple Bar, with their Handel’s Day celebrations.

Handel had been invited to perform by the Charitable Musical Society, who wanted to raise funds following the Great Irish Famine of 1741 – an event perhaps lesser known, but equally as devastating as the later Potato Famine of 1845-47 – a combination of bad weather and poor harvests that froze potatoes in the ground and left a nation dying of hunger.

It is an indescribably long way from that famine to a world where, within the past few weeks, I have been sent notices about applications aimed at helping people to reduce their intake of saturated fat and carbs. Somebody has perhaps noticed the frequency with which spuds and butter are combined on this site and would like to do something about it, I fear.

The Sat Fat Challenge from the UK Food Standards Agency, for example, prompts the user to take different challenges which will reduce their saturated fat intake, some of which I can get behind and some of which – like the recommendation to use low fat milks and yoghurts – I can’t. That we have issues with over-eating and excesses of certain foods in our diet, I don’t deny, but I happen to be a big believer in sticking to full-fat-as-nature-intended when it comes to dairy products. And just because a yoghurt is labelled low-fat, doesn’t mean that it’s not laden with sugar.

That’s the thing, you see.

My real problem is with identifying one specific thing in isolation as the culprit of our dietary woes – yesterday salt, today saturated fats, tomorrow carbs and so on. Salt, fat, sugar – these are not the enemies per se, but highly processed foods – which can have excessive quantities of all of these – are. I’m not saying that we need to return to the privation of Handel’s day, but cutting down on highly processed foods, eating a goodly amount of whole foods and adopting an everything-in-moderation approach is more my style (Jamie Oliver’s style too it seems). Drip-feeding people with narrowly targeted applications (which themselves seem a little highly processed to me) seems like it manages to sidestep the broader question of what it takes to have a well-balanced and sane approach to eating and so, for me, falls some way short of the mark.

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Musical Spuds

Well, after that little rant, here’s a bit of sat-fat-and-carbs action for you – with due acknowledgement to Handel for inspiration in the musical shapes department. Musical shaping aside, these are basically duchesse potatoes, made when an egg-enriched mash is piped into shapes and baked.

The classic formula – as described in the likes of Escoffier’s Le Guide Culinaire and Larousse Gastronomique – calls for butter, egg and egg yolks to be added to the mash, though you’ll see plenty of variants which add milk, cream and/or cheeses to the mix. Really, you can add whatever you like – I’ve used goat’s cheese and mint here – as long as you keep the mixture fairly stiff, which makes for firmer shapes that are that bit easier to pipe.

You’ll need:

• 800g potatoes (about 4 medium-sized specimens), preferably a floury variety
• 50g butter
• 100g fresh goat’s cheese
• 3 tblsp finely chopped fresh mint
• salt to taste, plus more for boiling the potatoes
• freshly ground black pepper to taste
• 2 eggs

You’ll also need:

• A piping bag, star-shaped nozzle and a steady hand. If you don’t have a piping bag, you can use a clean plastic bag with a small opening snipped away from one corner.
• A potato ricer is useful, though not essential, for mashing the potatoes.
• You’ll need several large baking sheets on which to bake the shapes.

The Steps:

• Peel your potatoes and cut into roughly even-sized slices, around 1-2cm thick. Rinse them under cold water.
• Bring about 1.5l of water to the boil in a saucepan, add about 2 tsp salt and the potato slices.
• Bring back to the boil and reduce to a simmer. Simmer gently, covered, for around 12-15 minutes or until just fork-tender.
• Meanwhile, you can preheat your oven to 180C and grease your baking sheets.
• When the potatoes are done, drain well and return them to the saucepan. Then either let them sit, covered by a tea-towel, for about 5 minutes or place the pan over a low heat and stir the potatoes gently for a minute or so while they dry out.
• Place the butter in a small heavy saucepan over a medium heat and allow to melt.
• Put the cooked and still warm potatoes through a potato ricer, if you have one, or mash with a potato masher or, if all else fails, a fork.
• Pour in the melted butter and stir through the mash.
• Crumble the goat’s cheese, add to the mash and stir well to combine.
• Mix in the chopped mint and add salt and black pepper to taste.
• Lightly beat the eggs and stir into the mash.
• Now spoon enough of the mash into your piping bag to half-fill it, twist the top and, with a steady hand, squeeze the contents out onto your baking sheets and into whatever shapes take your fancy. You can just make shapes by hand if you prefer.
• As soon as you have a baking sheet filled with shapes, bake for around 12-15 minutes or until the edges are golden, and get to work on piping the next lot. I probably baked 6 trays-worth with this amount, though treble clefs do take up a lot of real estate. Simpler shapes can probably be done more efficiently.
• Serve as a side-dish – with the mint, I’m inclined to think this would be nice with lamb – or serve as party finger food.

The Variations:

• You could certainly add some garlic here if you fancied – throw a couple of whole cloves in when boiling the potatoes – and you can replace the goat’s cheese and mint with different dairy and herb combinations, such as, say, sour cream and chives or gruyère and thyme.

The Results:

• This amount probably feeds 4-6 as a side-dish, though the actual number of shapes you get will obviously depend on the size of your piping bag and the kind of shapes you’re after.

no matter what some people will tell you – salt in indispensable to good food and good cooking

Jeffrey Steingarten in his essay ‘Salt’, taken from The Man Who Ate Everything

To salt or not to salt, that is the question

I never met a potato that didn’t respond warmly to the addition of a bit of salt. I suspect that there are few, if any, who would disagree. Salt is an essential addition to spuds, as well as to many other foods. However, there are those who would contend that you can have too much of this particular good thing.

The other day I received two separate communications about campaigns afoot both here and in the UK which aim to “raise awareness … that our diets are still too high in salt and that the majority of dietary salt is from processed foods such as processed meats, sauces and bread”. They have introduced salt calculator applications to help the consumer to identify high-salt products, and also provide advice on reducing our consumption of salt in the home. The impetus for such a reduction, of course, is the apparent correlation between high-salt diets and high blood pressure, which leads to an increased risk of, among other things, stroke and heart disease.

That much of our salt intake comes in the form of highly processed foods is true, and that these campaigns should encourage us to eat less of these foods is no bad thing. If it’s a case of arguing for more boiled spuds and less instant mash, then I am absolutely on the side of home-cooked taters.

However, I am less convinced about the need to make drastic reductions in the use of salt when it comes to home-cooked foods. That there is a correlation between high salt intake and high blood pressure would appear to be the subject of much debate. A 1998 article in Science magazine entitled “The (Political) Science of Salt” discussed in detail the state of the research on both sides at that time and observed that:

While the [U.S.] government has been denouncing salt as a health hazard for decades, no amount of scientific effort has been able to dispense with the suspicions that it is not.

That there was even any debate on the matter was something that I came upon by reading Jeffrey Steingarten’s essay ‘Salt’ and, more recently, through Nina Planck’s excellent book Real Food: What To Eat And Why. Both note that 20% or so of the population is salt-sensitive, meaning that blood pressure goes up when they eat salt and down when they don’t, but the rest of us are not. Meanwhile, there are other factors which appear to be more clearly linked to high blood pressure, such as lack of potassium, stress, smoking, lack of exercise and obesity.

I appreciate that the salt-reduction campaigns are well intentioned and if they succeed in moving people away from processed foods and towards home cooking, then that is to be applauded. However, their suggestions for salt avoidance in the home are not going to do anyone’s home cooking any favours. One campaign suggests using freshly ground pepper instead of salt. I would respectfully argue that these two are not the same thing and that your dishes will simply end up tasting peppery and under-salted. Another suggestion advocates choosing foods which have been flavoured with herbs and spices “so you shouldn’t need to add any salt”. Of course herbs and spices will impart flavour but, more often than not, they will need at least some salt to marry those flavours together.

The fact is that I feel distinctly uncomfortable where such campaigns portray salt as the ultimate villain of the piece, rather than the highly processed foods, from which most of our dietary salt emanates and which probably contain other ingredients that aren’t exactly poster children for a healthy diet. Just because a food label indicates that a food is low in sodium does not automatically mean that it is good for you. As far as I am aware, the campaigns do not attempt, for example, to direct us towards using unrefined salts, which, as Nina Planck points out, will contain many other vital trace elements and, as it happens, generally taste better too.

Now, anybody for some spuds cooked on a bed of salt?

The usual thing would be to spread the love and pass these on to other worthy blogs. However, there are so many blogs that I read and enjoy that it makes it a hard task to choose some and not others, so I think you should all share a piece of the glory. Just keep writing and I’ll keep reading.

The Potato Eaters by Vincent Van Gogh - image from www.vangoghgallery.com

The other usual thing in the case of the Honest Scrap would be for the recipient to enlighten the reader by telling them ten things about themselves that the reader might not know. I’m going to turn this somewhat on its head and tell you ten things that you may not know about potatoes and potato eaters (or perhaps you’re like me and you do know these things, in which case get in touch, we should start a club). Much of the following comes to me by way of John Reader’s excellent book Potato: A History Of The Propitious Esculent. Here goes…

(1) People were eating potatoes as far back as 12,500 years ago. Yep, we’re talking late Ice Age. The remains of potatoes from this era were found preserved at a site in Monte Verde in Southern Chile along with the bones of the now-extinct mastodon, a relative of the equally extinct woolly mammoth. Who knows but that the favourite meal of the ice age chilean was mastodon burger and chips.

(2) It’s estimated that domestication of the fairly toxic and bitter wild potato started in Peru around 8,000 years ago and, even today, farmers in the Andes grow at least 400 distinct varieties of potato.

(3) Papa Llunchuy Waqachi is one such Andean potato, whose name translates as “potato that makes the daughter-in-law weep”. The story goes that if the bride-to-be does a good job of peeling this potato, she is allowed to marry her man…

Papa Llunchuy Waqachi - image from www.foodcultura.org

(4) All of the cultivated potatoes that we are familiar with are members of a single sub-species developed in the Andes, solanum tuberosum tuberosum (so good they named it twice).

(5) Cultivation has significantly reduced the level of toxic glycoalkaloids found in potatoes, but some varieties in common use today, including Home Guard and British Queen, still have dangerously high concentrations during early tuber growth, only passing the danger zone once the tuber matures and the foliage dies.

(6) Listen to what your mother may have told you and avoid eating any part of a potato that has turned green. It’s an indicator of those glycoalkaloids, which can be concentrated by too much exposure to light during growth.

(7) While we mostly tend to think of the potato in carbohydrate terms, it’s got some high quality protein too, especially if you eat them skins and all. The biological value of potato protein – a measure of nitrogen absorbed and retained by the body for growth and maintenance – is second only to that of eggs. In controlled experiments, people have sustained active lives for months, subsisting on potatoes and a little margarine, maintaining perfect health and without weight loss or gain. Probably not having much fun though.

(8) Someday, we will have spuds in space. Potatoes are one of the mainstays of NASA’s Bio-regenerative Life Support System, a self-sustaining food system, in which astronauts on long missions will grow their own vegetables. So, if they should ever undertake that mission to send people to Mars, they’ll be eating spuds all the way.

(9) Back down to earth and you’ll no doubt be shocked and horrified to learn that this here potato eater wasn’t actually that keen on boiled spuds as a kid. I’m over that now, as you can probably tell.

(10) That other great potato eater in my life, my Da, ain’t that keen on crash hot potatoes. He told me so the other day. He doesn’t get the slightly-mashed-but-with-skins-still-on thing. So family take note and stick to mash.