Let's Talk about Potatoes!

[u/AutoModerator]

As part of our weekly "Let's Talk" we want to talk all about taters! Let’s here all you have to say about Poh-tay-toes! Gaufrette, pont-neuf, puree, duchesse, croquettes, darphin, Anna, dauphinoise, souflee, aligot....Oh my! Obscure varieties? Got rattes? What’s the best way to make mash and why is it by baking the potatoes?

[u/texnessa]

Years ago, The American Museum of Natural History in NYC used to do cocktail party previews of their special exhibits if you were a member and I dragged some of my wine swilling friends to one about the origin of potatoes. We were a few bottles deep when we wandered around a corner to find an entire wall full of plastic replicas of hundreds of varieties of potatoes. Of course, I exclaimed: "Why, yes, that does look like a wall of shit."

I find so many people don't realise, especially in the US, what a huge variety there truly is because of the marketing and distribution of the Idaho Potato Commission founded in 1937. That prominent "Grown in Idaho" seal has been their calling card since the 1950's. They basically flooded the playing field and pushed out Maine as the largest grower and suppressed other varieties.

The potato has been cultivated for at least 7,000 years and originated in the Andean highlands. We call these purple potatoes Peruvians. In the UK, we have russets of course, but like apples, we also have a considerably larger variety of 'named' potatoes in regular grocery stores than in suburban US. Our main potato is the Maris Piper- which is equivalent to a US Yukon Gold. Agrias are the favourites for general use in restaurants and make superior mash. We got King Edwards, Vivaldi, Charlottes, Anya, and that's just in Sainsbury's.

Fingerlings also come in a variety of colours like purple, pink and blue. I love the intensity of fingerlings including the Robuchon famous rattes vs. new potatoes- they are a great addition to salads. I always use them in salade niçoise. They are outstanding roasted.

As for how to make mash, this video from the boys at Fallow is how I have been making them forever. Toss in some gruyère or comtè for aligot, the Lamborgini of potato dishes.

I am also a potato salad fanatic. Years ago I dragged my NYC born and bred best friend to Sugar Land, TX, for July 4th with all my cousins and little brothers. I made a vat of potato salad that got hoovered up by my friend. Ever after, she has complained that I have never made it again as good as I did that day. She insists I am wrong when I tell her its because I used good old American yellow mustard and probably some Miracle Whip because my mother didn't exactly have a sophisticated palate.

I make it every summer when I need a cold side. Fingerlings if I can find them or baby new potatoes. Finely chopped celery, scallions, bit of red onion, fresh tarragon, tarragon vinegar, Maille stone ground mustard and good old Hellman's. I usually chop enough veg to also make chicken salad and then I add toasted pecans and green grapes.

Worst burn I have ever gotten in a professional kitchen was when I had pommes Anna on my menu. Thats the one where you slice rounds of potato on a mandoline and then layer them in a small oiled stainless steel fry pan until you have a perfectly tiled rose, add some butter and shove it into the oven, flip it once to crisp up, then serve it with our cold smoked salmon, crème fraîche and chives cut so thinly that I split atoms. They took forever to assemble and they sold like wildfire. There was no way I would sacrifice one of them to the floor. I reached in to get one out of the oven and my towel slipped. I raw dogged that damn pan onto the table and basically seared my entire palm to the metal. Good times.

[u/throwdemawaaay → u/texnessa]

One of the truly mind blowing things we've learned in recent years using genetic technology as part of archeology, is that ancient polynesians occasionally ended up in peru, and even more shockingly, enough made the trip back to polynesia that they left genetic evidence, both human and plant.

It is wild to me how resourceful and resilient ancient peoples were, and how much of these stories we don't know because their societies didn't leave behind stone buildings in an arid landscape.

[u/texnessa → u/throwdemawaaay]

The Cambridge World History of Food has a good section on both the physical evidence of New World foods like the sweet potato found across Micronesia and Polynesia as well as the linguistic evidence.

" The primary evidence available today suggests that the sweet potato had a prehistoric introduction into Polynesia and Micronesia at around the time of Christ, while the linguistic evidence points to its presence during Proto-Polynesian times. If Proto-Polynesian was the language of the Lapita culture populations, then the sweet potato was present in Oceania possibly as early as 1500 B.C. Given these new data, the next question must be about the mechanism that facilitated its transfer into Oceania at this early date, since the plant is definitely a New World species.

In attempting to answer that question, a number of researchers over the years have been struck by the similarity between the Polynesian words for sweet potato (kumala, kumara) and the word cumara found in some Quechua language dictionaries (Brand 1971: 343–65).This, in turn, has led to the suggestion that the sweet potato came to Polynesia from Peru, with Quechua speakers playing some role."

Some very cool research going on out there for this chef nerd to enjoy; )

[u/Cesia_Barry]

Lived in the UK for a few years & loved the many varieties of potatoes we could buy, including locally grown. Boilers, bakers, roasters, mashing varieties.