My editor recently informed me that September is National Potato Month. Being an Irishman of descent and a lover of all things – mashed potatoes, baked, fried and roasted, I eagerly offered to dig a little for dirt in the beloved veggie.
According to the US Department of Agriculture’s Economic Research Service, potatoes are the most popular vegetable in the US … hands down. Unfortunately, that’s a bit greasy because a lot of our processed potatoes end up as French fries.
The USDA states that the typical American chews more than 140 pounds of potatoes each year. That’s 50 pounds more than the per capita consumption of tomatoes, the second-place vegetable. And that second ranking is a bit ironic, as tomatoes are technically a fruit anyway!
Despite our love of potatoes, we are not the best when it comes to eating potatoes. We ended up somewhere around seventh place; Top honors go to our German friends who each year eat £ 200 each!
On average, Americans consume more than 16 pounds of French fries each year. That equates to over 2 million tons of poor potatoes found missing tied with strings or julienned and dipped in the fat from the boiling deep fryer!
By the way, France and Belgium are at war over which country invented French fries. Belgians claim that their street vendors sold “Belgian fries” on push carts before the French adapted the idea in the mid-19th century. My kids don’t care who made the fries – they’re just thankful that someone had the good sense to set sail for America with the not-so-secret recipe for fries!
POTATO JACKS: About one in 14 US grown potatoes ends up as McDonald’s fries! The fast food giant has no problem with the fact that it produces more than 1/3 of all the French fries sold in American restaurants.
Ok, here’s a potato puzzle that has haunted me for a long time: tuber, or no tuber … that’s the question. Stop moaning! Given that I am considered the Shakespeare of unstable eating anyway, I thought I would painfully distort the famous Bard’s phrase for my report on potatoes. For those of you who thought that a tuber was someone floating downstream on a gummy donut, I offer you this nugget: The part of the potato plant that we eat is called a tuber. And a tuber is actually an enlarged underground stem. Each potato plant produces multiple tubers that can come in a variety of colors. The most common are the red and white varieties.
MORE POTATOES TO EAT: Bet you didn’t know …
o A potato is approximately 80% water and 20% solids.
o Henry Spalding planted Idaho’s first potatoes in 1837.
o The Guinness Book of Records says that the largest potato of all time, an 18-pound, 4-ounce monster, was grown in England in 1795.
o French fries were invented in 1853 at a trendy resort in Saratoga Springs, New York, after railroad magnate Commodore Cornelius Vanderbilt complained that his fries were too thick and sent them back to the kitchen. To annoy his finicky guest, Chef George Crum sliced some potatoes into paper-thin slices, fried them in hot oil, and salted them. Vanderbilt loved the “Saratoga Crunch Chips” and the rest is history.
o Potatoes are the second most consumed food in America, only behind dairy products.
Despite its popularity, the poor potato has a bad reputation. But if you fry anything, it becomes bad food! In reality, potatoes are one of the most nutritious foods you can eat. A medium-sized potato has fewer calories than a grapefruit, more potassium than a banana, and more usable iron than any other vegetable. Potatoes are also high in fiber and loaded with complex carbohydrates. Best of all, potatoes are fat-free and extremely versatile.
When you think of potatoes, you can’t help but think of Idaho. While looking for information, I found many interesting things on http://www.idahopotato.com. Sampling …
o Bingham County in eastern Idaho produces almost as many potatoes as the entire state of Maine.
o Why are potatoes referred to as potatoes? One theory is that the term refers to a spudder which is a shovel-like utensil used to dig up potatoes. Spud can also refer to the wooden barrel in which the sorters would place the small potatoes when sorting the larger ones. The abbreviation for these unwanted vegetables: SPUD, which stands for Some Underdeveloped Potatoes.
o For the best looking baked potato, poke the potato with a fork, one time across the length and width. Press the potato on both ends and it will “bloom”. Never use a knife to open a baked potato; flattens the surface and alters the normal fluffy texture of an Idaho baked potato.
No one is about to alter the often repeated saying, “An apple a day keeps the doctor away,” but there are plenty of “Old Potato Tales” about the power of the potato. Chew these …
o A potato in your pocket will cure rheumatism and eczema!
o Potatoes should be placed on sore muscles and oozing sores for pain relief. If you have a wart, rub it with a cut potato, and then bury the potato in the ground. As the potato rots on the ground, the wart will disappear.
o Carrying a peeled potato in a pocket on the same side as a bad tooth would heal the tooth as soon as the potato fell apart.
But pregnant women might be advised to fight their potato cravings. Otherwise, the baby will be born with a large head, says the legend.