The dust is swirling in the air, the Pine-Sol is dripping down the cabinets, and the fake brownies are baking in the oven. While all of these are definitely the harbingers of our most intense Yom Tov, if there is one thing that says “Pesach is here” it is potatoes.
As each generation
has become increasingly vege-phobic, limiting their weekly intake of green
foods to pickles and mint chocolate chip ice cream, families feel lost without
flour to fill in most of their meals. During this challenging time when
pantries are bare and restaurants are closed, the community faces the threat of
starvation, whether real or imagined. After all, there is a limit to how many
nights in a row you can eat corned beef. (So I’ve heard; I have not personally
reached that ceiling.) Nothing is readily available except baby fingers (which
must be somewhat traumatizing for the children) and macaroons, which we buy
every year, despite the fact that no one likes coconut. My theory is that we
are so disoriented from the late-night arguments with our ovens and the
exposure to toxic cleaning chemicals that, by the time we do our shopping, we
honestly think that those macaroons will taste like the much-more-fashionable
macarons. (They won’t.)
There is also
nothing in the fridge except a pound-and-a-half of charoses – because you found a note that the family wrote the
previous year saying how everyone liked it so much you should double the recipe
(although you apparently didn’t remember to write a note to the family about
how much they liked it, so they forgot), a case of lebens (there is a limit on
those, trust me), and some string cheese. The Donner party had better prospects
of surviving the week.
Enter our hero:
the potato. This humble starch is the main reason we make it through Yom Tov.
The way that it can become almost anything is truly magical. Potatoes can be
boiled or roasted, deep fried or baked, mashed or hashed, and even “chipped.”
And now they can be smashed, too! (There’s nothing that lets out a little
cooking stress like smashing one of the side dishes.) With almost infinite
potential, potatoes can be made into a wide variety of products, from bagels
and pasta to cereal and jellybeans. (I am not making any recommendations here,
merely stating facts. Just because they can be made into any product, doesn’t
mean that they should.)
At some point you
are likely to find yourself desperate. You already used two or three dozen eggs,
and you’ve only been baking for 45 minutes. You have the distinct sensation of
dejà vu when you open a box, helpfully labeled “miscellaneous Pesach items,” to
discover six can openers just minutes after you sent your husband back to the
store to buy one because you couldn’t find yours anywhere. You sigh and make a
mental note to label the boxes more specifically the next time you pack them away.
(FYI: mental notes don’t work on Pesach.)
Origin
Story
Even though they
are featured on Chanukah, when we fry them to a delicious oily crisp, on Pesach
the potato stands alone in the winner’s circle. But where did these taters come
from? Potatoes first arrived in Europe from Peru in 1536 and were brought to
Ireland around 50 years later. They were planted on American soil in 1719, and
Thomas Jefferson was known to have served French fries in the White House! The
first potato was planted in Idaho in 1837, and at this point, there is about a
one-in-three chance that the starchy side you ate with your dinner last night grew
there. Idaho now exports roughly 13 billion pounds of “taters” per year! While
each U.S. citizen devours over 100 pounds of potatoes per year, researchers
suggest that Europeans actually eat twice that amount. The potato has traveled
around the world and beyond; it was grown in space in 1995!
When you hear the
word potato, it’s not likely that the word “innovative” comes to mind. But that
is exactly the right adjective for it. Potatoes made the first color
photography possible, which used colored starch granules to create pictures on
glass plates. They are used by wood, paper, and pharmaceutical companies as
adhesives, fillers, and texture agents, and have over 1,000 other industrial
uses.
The Real
Dirt on Potatoes
The potato is
extremely efficient at transforming the abiotic factors of our environment –
water, carbon dioxide, soil, and sunlight – into nutritious and tasty food. The
plant produces delicate, white blossoms on long slender stalks, while the tubers
grow deep underground, hidden from sight. Each potato has the potential to
produce many more, as new sprouts emerge from its “eyes” or shallow dimples.
They mature very quickly and are already edible after only two months, although
still small. Large, brown potatoes just begging to be made into kugels are
ready 90 to 120 days after planting. They thrive in many climates and countries
and have become a staple worldwide. Malnutrition is basically unheard of
wherever potatoes are grown, as they provide more nutrients than rice or wheat.
Potatoes are
starchy vegetables, which means they have more calories and less fiber than
other produce. This is not necessarily a bad thing as they also contain vitamin
C and potassium. Sadly, deep frying knocks most of the nutritional value out of
them. Their abundance of carbs makes them very filling, so you’re less likely
to be reaching for the brownies hiding in the fridge behind the corned beef.
(Not unlikely, just less likely. Brownies are still brownies, even if they’re
made out of potato starch.)
The Name
Game
Although first
mentioned in a written text in Paris in 1775, ironically, French fries may not
even be French. During the winter of 1680, villagers in Belgium had to find
another food source when the Meuse River froze over and they didn’t have access
to their usual diet of fish, which they often ate cut into strips and fried. As
a substitute, they prepared the potato the same way they had cooked the fish.
Three hundred
years later, the American soldiers stationed in Belgium during World War I
tried the local delicacy and loved it! Since the official language of the
Belgian army was French, the soldiers coined the name “French fries,” and we’ve
been giving credit to the wrong country ever since. (France did not invent
French toast either; it was given that name because the French immigrants in
America made it popular. Recipes for pan-searing egg-drenched bread date back
to before France was even a country, around 300 CE in Rome. In fact, the French
have been calling this breakfast favorite “Roman toast” for centuries.)
Belgium has not
yet called for a correction of the misnomer, but it is the only country in the
world that has a French Fry Museum (maybe next Chol Hamoed).
Potatohead
Puttering around
in his kitchen in 1949 (perhaps avoiding Pesach cleaning), Jewish inventor
George Lerner created a toy that children could design themselves: Mr. Potato
Head. Originally, he only sold the pieces – eyes, arms, accessories, etc.
together with long pins – and you had to provide your own potato (or carrot or
beet!). Hasbro bought the rights to the Mr. Potato Head in the early 1950s and
has sold more than one hundred million toys (now with a plastic potato) in over
30 countries.
Disaster
In the early 1840s,
Irish families were eating up to 10 pounds of potatoes per day! In 1845, a mold
caused a plant disease that quickly spread throughout the countryside,
destroying most of the potatot crop and leaving the Great Hunger in its wake.
For seven years, the people did not have enough food to eat, and an estimated
one million Irish died from starvation and another million left Ireland as
refugees, many settling in America. Sadly, since it was one of Great Britain’s
colonies during that time, Ireland was actually exporting large quantities of
food, while its own people perished. Thus, the Irish Potato Famine was as much
a man-made disaster as a natural one. There was an attempted rebellion in 1848,
but it was not successful, and Ireland did not gain its independence until the
20th century.
Kartoffel
The “meat and
potatoes” of any good meal is…well…the potatoes. They represent the
undefeatable spirit that allows plants to keep growing in darkness. Weighed
down with the pressures of the world, both on a personal and global scale, we
can also persevere past our own obstacles to bring forth blossoms in the
sunlight and nourishment from the depths. Potatoes offer a kind of deep-fried
inspiration that you don’t really find in other foods. Perhaps it’s the last
great equalizer, enjoyed by everyone from peasants to presidents. It’s one food
that people can all agree on, available in many varieties with thousands of
uses both in and out of the kitchen. With this unassuming spud, the table is
complete, and we can eat our fill together with family and friends. Potatoes
are the primary comfort food; you can trust a potato. You know what it will be
like, and you like it for what it is: simple and satisfying.
Debbie
Glazer lives in Pikesville with her husband and seven children and teaches
Language Arts in Bnos Yisroel High School. She can often be found either
writing or reading and loves to share her passion for the written word with
others.
