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Not Potatoes Again!
17 November 2006. Okey-Dokey explores the British love affair with potatoes.
"What did you have for dinner last night?"
"A dish made with potatoes and..."
"Potatoes again?!"
For an international student in Britain, this might be a familiar conversation. Our tendency to eat potatoes virtually every day is one of the first things visitors to the UK notice. It seems that, despite the fact that Britain is famous for fish and chips, it often comes as a surprise that we eat potatoes with so many other dishes too.
How many potatoes do the British eat every year?
A lot! A survey of eating habits found that the average person in British eats an incredible 103kg of potatoes every year. That's around 500 medium-sized potatoes! Out of all the countries in Europe, only the Portuguese and the Irish eat more.
But it wasn't always like that
There was a time when no potatoes at all were eaten in the Britain. Potato plants are not native to this country. The Inca people of Peru were the first people known to grow potatoes, several thousand years ago. When the Spanish invaded South America in the 16th century, they brought potatoes back to their country and the vegetable spread throughout Europe and the rest of the world. Because of its cool climate, with plenty of rain, Britain was an ideal place for growing them and the potato (or 'spud' in informal English) soon became part of our staple diet.
So, what can you do with potatoes?
Well, the basic ways of cooking potatoes, British-style, are:
ROASTING - Roast potatoes are an important part of our traditional Sunday lunch. They are cooked in a hot oven on a baking tray covered in oil.
MASHING - To make mashed potatoes, peel the potatoes, boil them, and mash them with a little butter, milk, salt and black pepper until they are soft and fluffy.
BOILING - New potatoes, boiled and served with fresh mint or chives, are great with a salad.
BAKING - Baked potatoes or 'jacket potatoes' are cooked in the oven. The potato skin is not peeled but left on so that it goes brown and crispy. That is the 'jacket'. When cooked, you cut the potato down the middle, add butter and a filling (such as cheese or meat), and serve with a salad.
FRYING - As everyone knows, this is how we make chips.
For more information on these techniques and for recipe ideas, visit the website of the British Potato Council.
Chips? Fries? Crisps?
Ok. Here is the confusing part. What we call 'chips', the Americans call 'fries'; and what we call 'crisps', the Americans call 'potato chips'. So, if you go to a British supermarket and ask an assistant, "Where are the chips?" you will not be taken to the snacks but to the bags of frozen, sliced potatoes.
Now you know your 'chips' from your 'crisps', try some of the links below to learn more about these foods.
Chips: Recipe for the perfect chip
And finally...
You've now learned about one of our most important foods, and through reading this article you will have picked up lots of potato-related vocabulary. However, did you know that Quechua, a Peruvian language, has over a thousand words relating to potatoes and potato varieties? Learning that language would make a British person feel very hungry!
Happy eating!
