Potatoes

 Read more Oily Rag articles by Frank and Muriel Newman

Potatoes are thought to date back about 2500 years and have been a staple part of the diet of many civilisations for centuries. Fortunately modern households are less dependant on spuds than once was the case so a potato crop failure in your back garden is not likely to have the dire rebellious consequences of old.

There are endless ways to serve potatoes: baked, boiled, in soups, creamed, as dumplings, fried, roasted, mashed, in salads, in casseroles, or stuffed. In fact there are so many ways to cook potatoes that the family feasting off the smell of an oily rag could have a different and delicious potato dinner every night of the week for months on end.

Unfortunately the retail price of this staple has been on the rise recently. Apparently potato supplies have been affected by disease, and that has contributed to the normally frugal potato price rising 11.4 percent in January. That’s another reason why those living off the smell of an oily rag should be growing their own!

Many oily rag gardeners would have already harvested their crop or are about to do so. Planting of early varieties starts from July/August, so it’s something to think about for the other side of winter. They are easy to grow in a bucket or containers, or a tyre ring.

The potato industry has gathered together a lot of information about our humble friend and our relationship with it. Here are some snippets of information published it on their website www.potatoes.co.nz:

• 93 percent of households cook potatoes at least once a week, 83 percent at least 2 times per week, and 44 percent at least 4 times per week. In other words, it’s still a basic part of our diet. The majority of people mash, roast, or boil their spuds.

• Most people buy their spuds in 4kg or 5kg bags.

• In the past year the average NZ household purchased frozen potatoes products 9 times.

• Households spent three times more on fresh or frozen potatoes than any other substitute (i.e. rice, pasta or kumara), and for every $1 spent on rice, pasta and kumara combined, $1.15 was spent on fresh and frozen potato products.

• A large number of people (43 percent) shopped at fruit and vegetable specialist stores for fresh potatoes, but at 82 percent, supermarkets commanded the vast majority of sales.

• People said they bought from supermarkets because of the convenient location and the fact that everything is in one place. They bought from fruit and vegetable specialist stores because of the low price, freshness, and quality.

Because oily raggers use lots of potatoes, they tend to have lots to say about growing and cooking. Here are a couple of suggestions.

• KW from Auckland has a favourite potato recipe to share with others. You need 6 large potato, 1 pkt cream of chicken soup mix, 250 gr sour cream, 1/2 cup grated cheese, 1/2 cup melted butter, 1 cup milk, 1/2 cup chopped spring onions, and Salt and Pepper to taste. Partly cook then grate potatoes. Combine butter, soup, milk, sour cream, onions and grated cheese.  Combine with seasonings and potatoes. Pile into lightly greased pie dish, top with a thin layer of breadcrumbs and a little more grated cheese and bake for about 45 minutes at 180 degrees.

• Lil from Whangarei writes, “If I need to bake potatoes fast I precook them in boiling water for about 10 minutes. I coat them with cooking oil before placing on a roasting dish. It reduces the baking time to less than ten minutes. Another trick is to put a metal skewer through the potato. The skewer acts as a heat conductor that delivers heat to the centre of the potato.”

If you have a favourite potato recipe send it in to us so that we can share it with others. You can contact us via the oily rag website (www.oilyrag.co.nz) or write to Living off the Smell of an Oily Rag, PO Box 984, Whangarei.

* Frank and Muriel Newman are the authors of Living Off the Smell of an Oily Rag in NZ. Readers can submit their oily rag tips on-line at www.oilyrag.co.nz. The book is available from bookstores and online at www.oilyrag.co.nz.