A HARTE APPETITE: A DISH MOST IRISH

Dan Quayle will probably not get a lot of invitations to be the Grand Marshall at St. Patrick's Day parades this week. Given the role the potato has played in Ireland's national history, someone who cannot spell it correctly is not likely to be accorded such an honor.

Ireland was the first European country where the potato became a major food source, a fact which would ultimately have tragic repercussions in the form of the devastating Irish potato famine. That event, according to Mary Robinson, former President of Ireland, "more than any others shaped us as a people."

It's not certain just who introduced the potato to Ireland (some suggest it was Walter Raleigh, others that it simply washed up on Irish shores following the shipwreck of the Spanish Armada), but it caught on quickly, more quickly than anywhere else in Europe. This was because, more so than other European countries of the time, around 1600, Ireland was struggling to grow enough food to feed its people and the potato promised more food per acre than any other crop. Moreover, the potato offered another advantage to Ireland, which was often torn by war during this time period. Growing hidden underground, the potato was not as often a casualty of war as other crops and livestock were. English colonization of Ireland further intensified dependence on the potato as a food source by forcing exportation of cash crops such as corn.

Thus, by the 1800s some parts of Ireland were entirely dependent on the potato for food. Indeed, it was so abundant that it figured prominently in Ireland's tremendous population growth. By 1840, thanks in no small part to the potato, the country's population had grown to 8 million, nearly triple what it had been before the introduction of the tuber, leading some to speculate that a potato-rich diet increases fertility and that the potato is an aphrodisiac.

But beneficial though it may have been in the short term, the potato dependent economy of Ireland eventually reaped a bitter harvest. In 1845, the fungus Phytophthora infestans, the potato blight, destroyed nearly half of the nation's crop and wiped it out entirely the following year. Then came "Black '47" and, incredibly, things got even worse. Black rot covered acre upon acre of Irish farmland and the people, so long reliant on the potato crop, no longer possessed the agricultural skills to save themselves. They could not pay their rent and were evicted, often ending up in overcrowded poor houses. They ate the rotten produce and entire villages were overtaken by disease. As many as a million citizens left the Emerald Isle making the Irish people their country's greatest export. Many did not survive the trip. In fact, conditions on the immigrant vessels were so bad that they were nicknamed "coffin ships." In the final analysis, the famine shrunk the nation's population by a million and a half and in the process profoundly influenced the social and cultural structure of Ireland and, through immigration, the history of our own country as well. In fact, the impact on America is judged so vital in some states, like New York, that the law requires that all public school children study the Irish potato famine.

Despite the experience of the famine, the Irish fondness for potatoes endures. As cookbook author Matthew Drennan writes about his native Ireland, "One thing that remains constant, wherever you go, is the potato. It is to the Irish people what pasta is to the Italians." No wonder an old Irish adage has it that there are two things too serious to joke about: marriage and potatoes. And though the Irish might well claim the potato as their national vegetable (the white potato is commonly referred to as the Irish potato), they are not alone in their admiration of the sensational spud. We Americans love them too. In the United States, one out of every three meals contains a potato. The average person in this country eats well over 100 pounds of them per year, broken down as follows: about 50 pounds fresh, another 60 pounds frozen, usually as French fries (Thomas Jefferson, by the way, is credited with introducing French fries to America by serving them at the White House), some 13 pounds dehydrated (instant potato flakes, for example), almost two pounds canned and 17 pounds as potato chips. In fact, potatoes are so popular in this country that they are grown in all 50 states. Idaho, of course, is the most well known, but Maine, whose potato industry is over 240 years old and during the first half of this century produced more potatoes than any other state in the nation, is trying to change that by marketing its crop of uniform sized tubers as the "other" potato. The potato is still Maine's number one agricultural commodity.

As deeply rooted as our appetite for potatoes is, Europeans eat even more. The typical German, for example, eats twice as many potatoes as the typical American. Europe is still the largest per capita consumer of potatoes, but there is hardly a country where they are not grown. As Dr. Robert Rhoades of the International Potato Center, appropriately headquartered in Lima, Peru, where the ancient Incas were the first people to grow and eat the potato, points out, "Cultures that may have very little else in common share the cultivation of potatoes." Its adaptability, a feature noted by Charles Darwin during his voyage on the H.M.S. Beagle, allows it to grow in a wide variety of climates. This has helped to make it the world's fourth most important food crop, eaten by more than a billion people and arguably, as noted food critic Jeffrey Steingarten suggests, "the most important vegetable in the world."

This is quite an achievement for a plant which was virtually unknown to the Old World until 1532 when Spanish conquistadors came across it in the Andean Mountains of Peru. (Columbus had earlier encountered yams and sweet potatoes, but not the white potato, which is from a different botanical family.) Ironically, this vegetable, which when combined with milk supplies nearly every element required for a healthy diet, was initially greeted with suspicion if not downright fear. Because it was classified as a member of the poisonous nightshade family, it was thought to be toxic. It was even reputed to cause leprosy. At best it was thought fit only for pigs.

Today, thanks to the pioneering work of people like Antoine-Auguste Parmentier (whose name is still affixed to most any French potato dish), Luther Burbank and Gary Johnston (inventor of the Yukon Gold) we can readily agree with the 18th century dramatist Mercier that the potato has had "the greatest influence on Man, his liberty and his happiness." And here are some tips to keep it that way: avoid light exposed green potatoes (even on St. Patrick's Day), do not refrigerate potatoes lest their starch turn to sugar, whenever possible cook potatoes with the skin on to preserve all their nutrients, never mash potatoes with a food processor as it makes them gummy (a ricer is the preferred tool) and finally never bake a potato in aluminum foil because it seals in moisture, steaming the potato and making it pasty.

Keep these guidelines in mind as you prepare the following recipes, all designed to illustrate how foolish the 18th century English garden designer Stephen Switzer was when he said potatoes were "a food fit only for Irishmen and clowns."

Lemon Roasted Potatoes

This is my favorite way to prepare potatoes. They're even good cold, and you can't say that about French fries. The recipe is based on one in the best potato cookbook I know, "Beyond Burlap," compiled by the Junior League of Boise.

Ingredients:

4 medium potatoes

2 tablespoons olive oil

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/8 teaspoon pepper

2 lemons, sliced very thinly

2 sprigs fresh rosemary

1 garlic clove, minced

Directions:

Wash and pat dry potatoes and cut into 3/4-inch pieces. Mix with remaining ingredients, spread in a shallow pan, and bake at 450 degrees for 45-60 minutes or until tender, turning every 15 minutes.

Colcannon

This dish, typical of southern Ireland, would make an excellent St. Patrick's Day feast served, as it traditionally is, with grilled sausages and bacon. The recipe is adapted from one in Matthew Drennan's wonderful tribute to Irish home cooking, "Classic Irish," a book my wife brought back as a souvenir from a recent trip to Ireland.

Ingredients:

2 pounds potatoes

1 savory cabbage

4 tablespoons butter

1 small onion, finely chopped

1 tablespoon chopped parsley

salt and pepper

Directions:

Peel and cut potatoes into even pieces. Place in pan, cover with cold water, bring to a boil, and simmer for 20 minutes. Drain and dry out over high heat for 1 minute. Mash. Meanwhile, trim cabbage and tear into pieces. Cook in boiling water just until tender, about 15 minutes, and drain. Heat butter and saut onions until soft. Add mashed potato and cabbage and fry for 5 minutes, stirring occasionally, until brown around edges. Sit in parsley and season with salt and pepper.

Chocolate Orange Potato Pound Cake

If you love desserts as I do, this spud's for you! Potatoes can make for a wonderfully moist cake, a richly dense fudge, and, with the aid of crushed potato chips, a provocative chocolate chip cookie. This recipe comes from the Idaho Potato Commission.

Ingredients:

3 cups sugar

3 sticks butter

3 cups flour

1 cup sour cream

1 cup mashed potatoes

1/2 cup cocoa powder

1/2 cup orange juice

1 teaspoon baking soda

2 teaspoons orange extract

1/4 teaspoon salt

5 eggs

Directions:

Cream butter and sugar. Add remaining ingredients and beat until well blended. Beat at high speed for 2 minutes. Bake at 350 degrees in greased 10-inch tube pan for 1 and 1/2 hours or until tester comes out clean. Cool 15 minutes, remove from pan and glaze with favorite icing.

A Harte Appetite is now on the air. Listen every Saturday at 11:59 a.m. following "Whad'ya Know" on KRCU, 90.9 on your FM dial. Send suggestions for this column to A Harte Appetite, c/o The Southeast Missourian, P.O. Box 699, Cape Girardeau, Mo., 63702-0699 or by e-mail to tharte@semovm.semo.edu.