Kartoffel King (Potatoes)

Member Name: MALU

Product:	Potatoes
Date:	05/11/06 (829 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: tasty and healthy

Disadvantages: none

When John F. Kennedy visited Berlin in 1963, he said in German, “Ich bin ein Berliner” (I am a Berliner) which people liked a lot because a Berliner is not only an inhabitant of Berlin but also a kind of doughnut filled with jam. If the President of the US of A can confess being a food item, I can do the same, here is what I have to say: “Ich bin eine Kartoffel” (I am a potato). I love potatoes, I can eat them every day and I’d suffer if I had to live in a country with a potato-free cuisine.

Let’s look at the different terms for this member of the nightshade family thus learning something about its history. The English term ‘potato’ comes from the Spanish word ‘batata’ which really means ‘sweet potato’, the potato and the sweet potato have only a distant relationship but because the edible part of both plants is underground, the plants and the names have often been confused.

The place of origin are the lower Andes in what is now southern Peru, according to archaeologists they have been cultivated there for more than 7000 years; when the Spaniards conquered the Inka Empire in the 16th century, they got to know potatoes and took them back to Spain from where they gradually spread across Europe. The Quechua word is ‘papa‘, the Spanish speaking people in South America use this term, the Spaniards from Spain say ‘patata’. When the potatoes reached Italy, people likened them to truffles (mushrooms growing underground), although the Italians say ‘patata’ just like the Spaniards, the Italian word for truffles, tartufoli (diminutive of tartufi), moved north and east and became ‘Kartoffel’ in German and ‘kartofel’’ in Russian.

The term ‘spuds’ found in English speaking countries may refer to a ‘spudder’, a shovel-like tool used to harvest potatoes. Interestingly, in the USA people sometimes use the term ‘Irish potato’ thus referring to the fact that Irish immigrants introduced the potato into the British North American colonies. With them the potato moved back to the continent where it had originally come from.

The potato is now so firmly rooted in the European cuisine that we can’t believe it had a difficult start in some countries, not all people were happy about the new food from the start. The problem was that they had to learn not to eat the fruit of the potato which contains poisonous substances but the tuber: to eat something growing underground seemed unhealthy and even un-Christian, in Russia potatoes were even called ‘Devil’s apples’ in the early days.

But wise rulers recognised the value of potatoes, during periods of warfare when grain crops could be burnt down, potatoes lying underground were safe, so they told their subjects to grow them. King Frederic the Great of Prussia (he reigned from 1740-86) used a trick: he made soldiers guard the potato fields day and night to convey the impression that potatoes were extremely valuable, the peasants fell for it and it didn’t take long until they clandestinely crawled onto the fields to steal them the soldiers looking the other way, of course; this earned Frederic the Great the nickname Kartoffelkönig, Potato King.

Ah, harvesting potatoes! My mind goes back to the 1960s, two friends and I worked in the fields for a week in autumn moving on our knees behind a potato harvester picking up all the potatoes the machine hadn’t hauled out. How our bodies ached and all that for about 70p an hour! Yet it was a sensuous pleasure to grub in the warm soil of the peatland typical for the area. I earned enough to buy my first pair of jeans.

How do I eat my beloved potatoes? Mostly I boil them skin-on and peel them when they’re done which is normally after 20 minutes. My mother used to peel them first and then boil them in salted water, there were eternal squabbles on the subject, never mind, done either way potatoes serve as accompaniment for meat, fish or eggs.

When I make fried potatoes I boil them first, peel them, cut them into pieces, fry them in oil and season them with salt and pepper, some people slice raw potatoes and fry them - again a topic for discussion.

Potato soup: some potatoes (peeled) and a carrot are boiled together with a cube of vegetable stock until soft, then they’re mashed, the liquid from the pot is added so that the mash becomes a soup, for seasoning I take salt, pepper and marjoram.

I also like jacked potatoes but I can only make them when I find big specimens, the potatoes are wrapped in aluminium foil, baked in the oven and when they’re ready, the upper part is cut open, butter, cheese and/or cottage cheese are filled in which then melt into the potato.

When on Tenerife we always eat ‘papas arrugadas’ (wrinkled potatoes), the Spanish term from South America is used there. Small potatoes are boiled in salted water, how much salt must one use so that the skin wrinkles? I asked a cook and he answered, “Oh, several handfuls!”. Now you know.

Potato salad: boiled potatoes cut into slices, mixed with onions and gherkins and in certain parts of Germany also with an apple cut into tiny pieces, seasoned with oil, salt and pepper. Some people use mayonnaise, yuck!

Mashed potatoes: boiled potatoes are mashed and seasoned with butter, salt and some milk, a good dish when you’ve got stomach ache or want to make a child happy.

Potatoes don’t only taste good, they’re also healthy, they have a high carbohydrate content and include protein, minerals and vitamins (vitamin C). But they also contain glykoalcaloids and other toxic compounds, glycoalcaloids may cause headache, diarrhea, cramps and in severe cases coma and death, however, poisoning from potatoes occurs very rarely. To die from eating potatoes, what an idea, what a death! Cooking at high temperature partly destroys the toxic substances, obviously enough for me because I’ve never felt bad after eating potatoes.

When I go to the market , I can choose between different kinds of potatoes but I must say they all look more or less the same in size and colour. The most exotic potatoes I’ve seen so far were offered in Cyprus, if we hadn’t come by plane, I would have taken some home with me. I’ve never seen such gigantic specimens, but I couldn’t admire them wholeheartedly because I had to think of the German saying, “The stupidest farmers have the biggest potatoes.” :-)

Summary: a vegetable I wouldn't want to live without