Ireland's flirtation with rice and pasta is a far cry from the 18th century when potato mania swept the island and people literally ate potatoes for breakfast, dinner and tea.
It will come as a surprise to many to hear that, although we consider the spud to be our national dish, potatoes did not originate here. They were first grown on the coast of Chile more than 13,000 years ago.
Potatoes might have remained a dish only eaten on exotic holidays, were it not for the Spanish who brought it from South America to Europe in 1570.
While the manner of its arrival on these shores is hotly debated, Cork of course takes the credit for importing the first potato.
The most common story is that the explorer, Sir Walter Raleigh, introduced the potato to Ireland in the 1600s when he arrived at Youghal. Other stories claim that potatoes were washed up on the shores of Cork after the wreck of the Spanish Armada.
The potato was initially treated with a cautious hostility and was just used as a supplementary vegetable until about 1780 when people realised that it could provide plentiful and cheap supplies of a nutritious and filling food.
It gradually replaced other foodstuffs in many diets and its popularity escalated so much that the average adult male was eating 10-12lb a day, mostly with skimmed milk or buttermilk.
This improved nutrition helped the population to grow from 1.5 million to almost 9 million before the Famine struck in 1845 after crops were affected by potato blight.
At that time, more than 2.5 million acres were tilled with potatoes. This fell to just over 1 million acres in 1846 and 248,000 acres in 1847. Today, there are just over 600 potato farmers growing almost 30,000 acres of potatoes.
The red Rooster is the most popular potato in the State but the traditional Golden Wonders, Kerr's Pinks and Records are still trying to beat off the competition from those fancy pastas and exotic rice varieties.
