CONNOISSEUR:Potatoes are at their health-giving buttery best, writes Hugo Arnold.
BAKE IT, boil it, roast, chip or mash the humble spud and you get immense satisfaction, not to mention luxury, in around 20 minutes. Cream, butter or olive oil may significantly help its smooth, creamy flesh on the path to deliciousness but from our own colcannon to the sheer sexiness of butter-infused pomme purée, this is heaven in a nugget of neat nature.
This is fast food of the best kind and yet the potato has been marched off the catwalk by upstarts such as pasta and rice. As we settle into the season for new potatoes with gusto, it is time to hear it for the humble spud. And with good reason.
This the year of the potato, a UN initiative to focus attention on our favourite tuber, which has spawned the likes of Meet the Spuds, an Agri-Aware competition for schools which, since February, have been growing their own potatoes and charting the progress in scrapbooks. The winners were announced at the end of last month and, with any luck, more than a few schools will keep their gardens going.
With the economy in a downhill spiral, there is much to recommend a refocus: pasta may smack of Mediterranean sophistication, but where pasta can contribute only 7 per cent of our daily requirement of iron, potatoes leap in with 19 per cent. And that is before you have even considered the food miles involved with both rice and pasta.
The health message doesn't stop there. A potato contains more nutrients than rice or pasta, including potassium, which helps to lower blood pressure, more vitamin C than an apple, as well as vitamins B6 and B1. Potatoes are also low in calories and, at least before you add the butter, fat free.
What really is a shame is how few of the literally scores of potato varieties we get to eat. Earlier this year, Superquinn sold a limited quantity of indigo blue potatoes. The colour comes from the presence of the naturally occurring antioxidant, anthocyanin. They sold out in days with their delightful waxy texture and soft, buttery flavour.
So while we may all claim to love the joys of roosters and desirees, let's face it - these are the work-horses of the potato world. Loved by growers for their ease and yield and by us punters because that is what we get to choose from. Compare these to the joys of salad varieties such as Charlotte and the charmingly named Ratte and you'll see what I mean.
Duncan Healy, whose fruit and vegetable stalls grace a lot of the Dublin markets, despairs at the difficulty of encouraging shoppers to try new varieties because it is so difficult to get beyond waxy and floury. We have an in-built preference for floury spuds, apparently, despite our fondness for new potatoes, which tend to be waxy enough.
Yet the idea that a potato might have other characteristics, be buttery or nutty in flavour, or have a big, rounded earthiness, is not easy to convey. Nor indeed is the history associated with many of these older varieties as much of it is being overlooked or has been forgotten with the lack of availability.
If you are in search of the health-giving benefits of the potato, bear in mind that most of the minerals and vitamins lie in or just under the skin, so peel with care if at all. A new potato needs only a damp cloth and a gentle hand. And if you think it takes an hour to bake a potato, think again. Slice in half, sprinkle the cut side with salt and roast to a golden finish in a moderate oven in less than 30 minutes. The starch on the surface will crispy up to a golden finish.
Salad varieties to look out for include Pink Fir Apple, Charlotte, Carlingford, Belle de Fontenay and La Ratte.
For information on Meet the Spuds, see www.agriaware.ie. For more information on the Year of the Potato, see www.potato2008.org