| The potato, the humble spud formerly and Irish favorite |
My father and his generation are surely turning in their grave.
My Dad was a spud specialist, a man who could tell with one bite what part of Ireland a potato came form and what kind it was.
It was the Irish equivalent of a French wine connoisseur, and he was noted for it.
He was not alone, for most of the last century before new-fangled food like pasta came in the spud was the common denominator a in every Irish household rich or poor.
Now it seems the spud is on its way out --along with the pub, the Catholic religion etc.
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These are distressing times!
Irish families in the modern world are preparing pasta which takes about ten minutes rather than potatoes which take far longer the newspaper reports.
The paper quotes Bord Bia the Irish food marketing board as stating that potato consumption has dropped 25 per cent in Ireland.
“We believe that, emotionally, most Irish consumers still love to eat their potatoes, but several key issues negatively impact on their consumption,” the board said
Irish mostly believe potatoes are fattening which is also a myth but the Atkins diet has remained very popular and that forbids potatoes.
“In terms of overall nutrition and including vitamin C, the potato is head and shoulders above pasta and rice,” said, a Paula Mee a Dublin dietician “But pasta will often win out, particularly when you’re busy. I don’t know any child who doesn’t eat it. The packaging is more colorful, you don’t have to peel it, and it’s quick and fast to prepare.”
“There is a legacy attached to the potato, and it obviously isn’t a happy one,” she said. “It is in our DNA to regard the potato as a peasant food linked to a past we would obviously all rather leave behind us.”
Vicky Leahy, a lecturer and single mother said spuds simply didn’t cut it any.
“To state the obvious, spuds take half an hour to prepare, while pasta takes 10 minutes and rice slightly longer,” she said. “But it’s deeper than that. Potatoes personify the Ireland of my father’s generation, where meat and two vegetables were on the table at 6 o’clock every single night. That’s what I associate them with, but we’ve all traveled and we’ve moved on.”
Liam Glennon, president of the Irish Potato Federation, said potatoes have a poor image.
“We have to tackle the ‘poor relation syndrome’ where potatoes are associated with the pre-Celtic Tiger times,” he said, referring to Ireland’s decade-long economic boom that began in the mid-1990s. “I would hope we are not in terminal decline — and I don’t believe we are. Because potatoes are so strongly associated with Ireland, such a scenario would be unthinkable.”
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