The longstanding popularity of potatoes in Australia and New Zealand is explained by our inheritance of British eating customs. Already by the 18th century potatoes had become a cheap and plentiful British food. London potato sellers and their cries are described and illustrated in 18th-century and early 19th-century collections of street cries. This picture from 1804 shows an itinerant street trader selling potatoes. Her cry is: “New potatoes.” The accompanying text indicates that new potatoes were sold at a reasonable price from late June into July.
Variations of the street cry, recorded by Andrew White Tuer in Old London Street Cries; and, The Cries of To-day: With Heaps of Quaint Cuts… (1885) are: “Fyne potatos fyn!” or “Fine potatoes!” (“The History Collection”, University of Wisconsin.)
For almost two hundred years the popularity of the humble spud would hardly wane. It would remain a staple food in the culinary tradition we inherited from the British until the last quarter of the twentieth century, when foreign notions such as spaghetti and rice began to push it aside and, whether as cause or effect it’s hard to say, the supermarkets, which had long since ousted the neighbourhood greengrocer, began to put the price up.
But in the 1950s and 1960s, the spud was still in its heyday.
When we were kids in nineteen-fifties New Zealand we had potatoes very nearly every day: Dad was of the generation that didn’t think it was a hot meal unless it incorporated potatoes. And they had the twin advantages of being very cheap and of filling the kids up. They were nearly always boiled or mashed, or occasionally baked. Never chips—Mum thought fried foods were sinful. But no fancy sour cream to put on them—back then we’d never heard of it. Just a knob of butter.
Antipodean notions of what might constitute cuisine were very different back then, as you can see from the two cuttings above from The Australian Women’s Weekly. The “luxury dish” consists of a lamb roast placed—daringly—on top of sliced potatoes, with some onion and parsley! Normally of course you would place the whole peeled potatoes around the roast. The “family dish” uses leftovers, true, but it’s possibly more luxurious, in that it adds tomatoes to its chopped remains of the cold roast and potatoes. But the potatoes are essential to both.
By the time the 21st century rolled round the price of potatoes had shot up in South Australia, where I was living, and it went on rising till it became simply shocking—unless you wanted to buy in bulk. And if you do that, even if it’s only a 3-kilo bag, you run the risk of having the whole lot contaminated by a couple of stinking, greyish ones. What they’ve had done to them I don’t know: they smell as if they’re soused in weed-killer. Gee, maybe they are? All I can say is, I gave up buying them in any quantity from the Foodland supermarkets, because every single lot I had was contaminated. I’ve had to throw out not only the stinking ones but also those next to them, that had picked up the awful smell. I turned to selected individual potatoes, or a small packet of ready-washed “small” or “baby” ones—not cheap. So I got used to eating potatoes as a treat, not as a staple. Not that I could afford the fancy varieties that (coincidentally?) started appearing in the shops at the same time as the price of ordinary spuds reached a ludicrous level.
But if you’ve got a good source of plain spuds, great! Go for it. I’m in New Zealand now and have had lovely potatoes both in the greater Wellington area and with my brother up in Northland—even the ones he categorised as very ordinary were very tasty indeed compared to the South Aussie things I’m used to. Great for mashing. Chalk one up to NZ, eh? Good spuds are always lovely baked or roast—I’ve only got to think of a Jamie Oliver telly episode where he did roast spuds to start salivating—or, if new, simply boiled or steamed and served with the traditional knob of butter and a sprinkle of finely-chopped parsley.
Potatoes have been such a staple in the English-speaking culinary tradition that it’s hard to choose from the thousands of recipes that use them. The potato-based recipes I’ve selected include some favourites, and some that illustrate the culinary trends of the last couple of centuries, as tastes changed in the English-speaking world and foreign influences began to appear.
The simplest recipes I’ve got for potato soup are frankly horrible—very likely what households got served up to them in the War years. During the Second World War the British had to make do with what they could get—which wasn’t very much: most foodstuffs were rationed. The Ministry of Food encouraged home cooks to make the most of the few vegetables that were still cheap and readily available. Front gardens as well as back were dug up and great rows of cabbages, carrots and, of course, spuds were planted.
The sort of soup that you’d have made in response to this poster would not have been fancy! Cream was out, so was butter, except in very small quantities that you wouldn’t use for cooking.
Here’s an Aussie version from around 1949 that’s rather more palatable but still economical. During rationing, mind you, you’d have had to sacrifice the family’s bacon ration to it:
Potato Chowder
* six potatoes (sliced) * 1/4 lb. [125 g] bacon
* one tablesp of chopped onion * one pint [600 ml] milk
* one pint water * butter and flour * one teaspoon salt
Fry potatoes and onions till a pale brown.
Put in a saucepan with the bacon, cut up finely, the water and the salt. Simmer till tender - about 20 minutes.
Mix the flour to a smooth paste and add. Boil for three minutes.
Add the milk, and serve hot.
Source: Green and Gold Cookery Book: Containing Many Good and Proved Recipes. 15th ed. (rev.), Adelaide, R.M. Osborne, [ca. 1949]
I was intrigued to find the word “chowder” being used in an Australian cookbook at this date. There is a recipe for “Potato Soup” next to this one in the book, and apparently what makes this a “chowder” is the fact that the vegetable pieces are left whole, not reduced to a purée. I’d assumed that “chowder”, being an American word, didn’t percolate through to Australasia until well into the later half of the twentieth century. Obviously I was wrong.
It is an American usage. These days we tend to assume its true application is in “clam chowder “ or “corn chowder”, but this isn’t so. Originally, it was merely used for any chunky thick soup that was close in texture to a stew. It was normally a fish-based concoction, because the word seems to have originated from chaudière, a big stew-pot used in the fishing villages of the Normandy and Brittany coasts, been exported to the corresponding Cornish and southern English coastal villages, and thence to the eastern fishing ports of northern America. You can find a very interesting examination of the word’s history and the history of the soups called chowder, with lots of really old recipes, at “History of Chowder”, What’s Cooking America.
Rationing during the War even hit the Antipodes, as David Veart explains in First Catch Your Weka: A Story of New Zealand Cooking (Auckland University Press, 2008). “At times even supplies of such staples as potatoes ran short as the details of managing wartime vegetable production, both commercial and domestic, were sorted out.” (p.168). Compared to other foods, however, potatoes were much more available, and many wartime recipes made use of them to eke out the other ingredients, perhaps as the topping for a shellfish “pie” on the pattern of shepherd’s pie, using toheroa, mussels, pipis, oysters or cockles that you’d gathered yourself. (Ibid, p.171). Today you can buy frozen seafood mixes in New Zealand, but they don’t include toheroa! It’s long since become a delicacy, not to say been greedily exploited to the edge of extinction.
When rationing was over at last (which wasn’t until some time after the War had ended), the British started to get butter and cream again. Partly because they were still under the influence of the cordon bleu tradition, and partly, I think, in simple reaction to the deprivation experienced during the rationing years, many writers of cookery books for the English-speaking public ran mad with butter, cream, and other dairy products. Even as late as 1978 Jane Grigson’s Vegetable Book is still laden with dairy products.
The popularity of this trend is exemplified by the contemporary recipes for Vichyssoise, that most delicious of potato-based dishes, in which leeks, potatoes and cream unite in a positive poem of a cold soup. Here’s the version from my paperback edition of Robin McDouall’s Cookery Book for the Greedy, which was first published in 1955 as Collins Pocket Guide to Good Cooking:
Crème Vichyssoise
“Crème Vichyssoise can be drunk hot, but is infinitely better cold. Do not, by the way, ask for it in Vichy: it was invented in New York.”
* 1 lb. [450 g] of potatoes * 1 lb. [450 g] of leeks
* 1 pt [600 ml] of chicken consommé or stock
* 1 pt [600 ml] of milk * 1/2 cup of cream * 1 dsp of butter
* salt and pepper * 1 tablesp of chopped chives
Cut the potatoes into cubes and the leeks into thin slices and cook them gently in the butter for about ten minutes. Season and cover with a little stock. As the stock is absorbed, add a little more.
Add the rest of the stock and the milk and simmer for half an hour, taking care that it does not boil over.
Put through a fine mill [or use a blender] and return to the saucepan with the cream. Bring nearly to the boil.
Allow it to cool. Before serving, add the chopped chives.
–Serves 4.
Source: Robin McDouall. Robin McDouall’s Cookery Book for the Greedy. Harmondsworth, England, Penguin Books in association with Michael Joseph, 1965
By the 21st century, anything goes. This American slow cooker (crock pot) recipe from 2003 is typical of what hot potato soup can be when you’re ignoring cholesterol and calories:
Slow Cooker Potato, Cheddar, and Chive Soup
“The combination of potatoes and cheese just can’t be beat, especially here, in this rich, filling soup.”
* 4 large potatoes, peeled and sliced * 1 large clove garlic
* 1 cup shredded sharp Cheddar cheese, or a mixture of sharp Cheddar and smoked Gouda
* 1 cup heavy cream, half-and-half, or sour cream (optional)
* 4 cups chicken stock, plus more as needed
* 1/4 cup chopped fresh chives
* salt and freshly ground black pepper
* 1/4 cup crumbled sharp Cheddar cheese, for garnish
Place the potatoes and 1 cup of the stock in the slow cooker.
Cover and cook on high for 2 hours [or more], or until the potatoes are just tender.
Transfer two-thirds of the potatoes to a food processor or blender, along with the cooking liquid [or use a stick blender]. Add the garlic. Blend to the desired consistency: a blender will yield a smooth texture, a food processor a rough, rustic consistency.
Return the potato purée to the slow cooker and stir in the shredded cheese, the remaining 2/3 cup stock, and the chives.
Cover and cook on low for 30 minutes, or until the soup is well heated.
Add extra stock or water if the soup is too thick. Break up the whole potato slices with a fork to achieve a texture that suits you. Season with salt and pepper.
Stir in the cream just before serving. Ladle into soup bowls, sprinkle with the crumbled cheese, and serve immediately.
–Serves 4-6.
Source: Lynn Alley. Epicurious.com, Jan 26, 2007,
https://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/potato-cheddar-and-chive-soup-237290
My slow cooker must be a lot slower than the American ones: potatoes take more than 2 hours to start to cook through. But the advantage of a slow cooker is of course that you can leave it on all day, without worrying about exact times. I’d do this soup for a much longer time than the recipe suggests: I think it must be rather carelessly adapted from an ordinary stove-top recipe. Nevertheless, it’s tempting!
I loathe potato salad with commercial mayonnaise or raw onion—in Australasia the onions, whether red or white and whatever name they’re masquerading under, are inevitably strong and horrible, dominating the dish, unlike the real “Spanish” sweet onions you can get in America, which are very, very mild. So I won’t give you any of the hundreds of recipes which use either or both of them. Instead, here are some that take a different approach.
With the growth of vegetarianism and the desire for natural foods amongst the affluent middle classes of America, Britain and, following the trend, Australia and New Zealand, yoghurt became ever more popular during the 1970s and 1980s (Karen Cross Whyte’s The Complete Yoghurt Cookbook came out in 1970). By 1983 the trend was still going strong, as the publication of Arto der Haroutunian’s book for English readers shows. Most of his recipes are Middle Eastern, like this easy Iranian potato salad. If you fancy a bit more of a sour touch, add a teaspoon of sumac with the dressing: it comes from the same area and goes really well with potatoes and yoghurt.
Salade Sib Zamini Ba Mast - Potato Salad with Yoghurt
* 3-4 large potatoes * 3 hard-boiled eggs, peeled and chopped
* 1/2 pint (300 ml) yoghurt
* 1/4 pint (150 ml) soured cream (or use more yoghurt instead)
* 4 large dill pickles or 1/2 fresh cucumber, thinly sliced
* 1 tablesp fresh dill or 1 tsp dried dillweed
* 1/2 tsp black pepper * 1 tsp salt
* fresh tarragon as a garnish (optional)
1. Cook the potatoes in a large pan of boiling water until tender.
2. Allow to cool; peel and cut into small cubes.
3. In a small bowl mix the yoghurt and soured [i.e. sour] cream together, then stir in the salt, black pepper and dill.
4. Put the chopped potatoes, eggs and pickled or fresh cucumber into a large salad bowl.
5. Pour the dressing over the top and then stir gently.
6. Garnish and place in the refrigerator for at least 1 hour before serving.
–Serves 4.
Source: Arto der Haroutunian. The Yoghurt Book: Food of the Gods. Harmondsworth, England, Penguin, 1983
This next recipe dates from the 1990s. I was thrilled to find a recipe in a New Zealand cookbook belonging to my friend Susan that avoids gluey mayonnaise entirely! The author writes: “An absolutely fabulous-tasting, quick-to-prepare potato salad which can be served hot or cold.”
Extra-Herby Potato Salad
* 4-6 good-sized potatoes
* 2-3 cups finely-chopped fresh herbs
* 2 tablesp butter * 4 tablesp olive oil * 1 tablesp herb vinegar
* salt and pepper to taste (optional)
Cut potatoes into cubes. Steam until just cooked (boiling will make them mushy). Tip into large bowl. Add chopped herbs, butter, oil, vinegar and seasoning while still hot and mix through. I’ve found it works well to tip potatoes from one bowl to another two or three times.
–Serves 4: 1 large potato per person plus 1 or 2 extra for second helpings.
Source: Julia Geljon. The Herb Gardener’s Pantry. Albany, N.Z., Viking, 1997
Now, here’s my version of a potato and carrot salad that I saw in Australia on an episode of Better Homes and Gardens. The basic approach is the same but I’ve changed the flavouring ingredients a bit and left out the hard-boiled eggs and radishes that the original featured. And I always use the vinaigrette that I learned from Gégé in Paris in the 1970s—I’ve never seen a decent one on Aussie TV.
Tunisian-Style Potato & Carrot Salad
* 5 medium-sized waxy potatoes * 2 or 3 large carrots
* 1/4 cup Spanish black olives * 1 1/2 tsp ground cumin
* black peppercorns, freshly ground
* 3-4 tablesp vinaigrette dressing (below)
Wash the potatoes and chop into chunks about 1 1/2 cm square. Peel the carrots and chop into pieces about the same size. Boil or steam together until tender.
Drain the vegetables. While still hot, mix them and cumin powder together in the salad bowl. Add the vinaigrette with a good grinding of black peppercorns and mix gently. Then allow to cool.
Add about 1/4 cup well drained, pitted Spanish black olives. Mix gently.
The top may be decorated with a little “smoky” paprika & more ground cumin if liked.
–Serves 4.
* * * * * *
Gégé’s Vinaigrette
Gérard never bothered to measure the quantities, of course. The proportions are about 5 to 1, and this amount (about 1 1/2 cups) may be kept indefinitely in a cupboard. Never put it in the fridge.
* 1 1/4 cups olive oil
* 1/4 cup good wine vinegar (e.g. Belgian red wine vinegar)
* 1 rounded tsp salt * 1 1/2 good tsp Dijon mustard (e.g. Maille)
Use a bottle (or jar) with a really tight lid. Put in the vinegar, then the salt and mustard. Put the lid on and shake hard until ingredients are amalgamated. Then add the oil. Seal tightly to keep.
To serve: Shake the bottle hard until the oil and vinegar mix to what looks like a cloudy amalgam.
Many of the potato-based vegetarian dishes could be served either as a main dish, accompanied perhaps by a green vegetable or a salad, or as a side dish if you’re having meat or pulses as your main.
They can be very tasty, but it’s hard to find any that aren’t soused in cholesterol from dairy products—mixed dairy products, very often! Anna Thomas’s “Potatoes Romanoff” is typical. Yummy, but if you’re not a vegetarian like her, watch the animal fats. Actually, I omit the cheddar cheese, anyway: I think it’s better without:
Potatoes Romanoff
* 6 large potatoes * 1 large carton cottage cheese
* 1/2 pint [300 ml] sour cream * 4 oz grated Cheddar
* 2-3 spring onions, finely chopped
* 2 cloves garlic, crushed * paprika * 1 teaspoon salt
Boil potatoes till barely tender.
Cut into rather small cubes and combine with cottage cheese, sour cream, garlic, salt and spring onions.
Turn into a buttered casserole and sprinkle grated cheese on top. Add a little paprika. Bake at 350 deg. [F], [180 C] for about 1/2 hr. Serve hot.
–Serves 6-8.
Source: Anna Thomas. The Vegetarian Epicure. Harmondsworth, England, Penguin, 1974
Originally published in 1972, Anna Thomas’s book, which was hugely popular, exemplifies a trend of the time away from the conventional British meat and three veg and towards a healthier diet that was based on pulses, grains, vegetables and nuts rather than meat. But even she, as you can see, can be very heavy on the dairy side. This next recipe is also one of hers, but it shows that it is possible to avoid cheeses and cream, sour or not, in a substantial potato-based dish:
Potatoes in Wine
* 4 large mealy potatoes * 8 tiny white onions
* dry white wine (at least half a bottle)
* 1 bay leaf * 3 tablesp butter * salt and pepper
Floury, brown-skinned potatoes are essential; waxy potatoes will ruin the dish.
Melt the butter in a large skillet. Peel the onions and slice into thirds, sauté them a few minutes in the butter. Peel the potatoes and cut them into 1/4-inch thick slices. Put them [all] in the skillet with some salt and pepper and a small bay leaf. Pour dry white wine over until they are just covered.
Cover the pan and let it cook gently at least 1 hour. Check that the wine is still covering the potatoes; add some if it is needed, and carefully move them around a little so that they cook evenly.
When they are done, remove the potatoes and onions into a serving dish, bring the sauce to the boil quickly and pour it over.
Serve very hot. Beware only of eating too much, for it is easy to do.
–Serves 4 to 6.
Source: Anna Thomas. The Vegetarian Epicure. Harmondsworth, England, Penguin, 1974
Alongside the growing interest in alternative, heathier vegetarian cuisine, English-speaking cooks began to look abroad for inspiration. Coupled with the late 1960s-early 1970s fad for Eastern mysticism, Indian sitar music, Indian muslins and the ashram life, came a spate of English-language Indian cookbooks. By the early 1980s, when publishers had realised they were onto a good thing, they were often brightly illustrated, like Khalid Aziz’s The Encyclopedia of Indian Cooking, 1983.
Earlier efforts to introduce the British and Americans to Indian cuisine, however, didn’t get colour: cookbooks of the 1950s and 1960s seldom rated more than a few line drawings, usually more decorative than helpful, and the ethnic ones, which were far from popular, certainly didn’t. Their recipes, however, were often excellent.
Potatoes are used a lot in Indian cookery. I know they’re not native to Asia—nor are chillis, but both have long since been adopted with enthusiasm; in fact chillis date back to the early days of the Portuguese ventures to the east coast of India. You’ll find a fascinating article on the East India Company’s determined introduction of the potato into India on Gastro Obscura: “In India, the British Hyped Potatoes to Justify Colonialism”, by Julia Fine.
The first recipe below is for a simple fried dish, and it’s from one of the earlier English-language cookbooks, published well before the Beatles discovered the sitar, the guru, and the ashram. (Note that vegetables are usually smaller in India than we’re used to, so quartering the potatoes might leave them too large: cut them into chunks about 1 1/2 cm square.)
Sukh Alu (Dry Sautéed Potatoes)
* 2 pounds [1 kg] potatoes * 2 onions * 1 tsp turmeric
* 3/4 tablesp ground coriander * 1/2 tsp ground cumin
* strong pinch of cayenne * 4 tablesp butter * salt
Wash, peel and dry the potatoes. Halve or quarter them.
Heat the butter and fry the onions to a pale gold.
Add the turmeric, coriander, cumin and the potatoes. Mix well and fry for 10 minutes.
Then lower heat and stir occasionally, cooking uncovered till the potatoes are done. Add salt and cayenne 10 minutes before they are cooked.
The potatoes may also be cooked tightly covered. As all vegetables have much moisture, they will steam in good time.
–Serves 4.
Source: Dharam Jit Singh. Classic Cooking from India. London, Arco, 1958. (Originally published: Boston, Houghton Mifflin, 1956)
I often do a version of this dish, sometimes varying the spices, and using oil instead of butter: I cut the potatoes (usually “baby” ones) into bite-size pieces, and I always finish it with the lid on.
This second recipe, dating from the later coloured ethnic cookbooks phase, combines potatoes with cauliflower in one of the most popular (and most published) recipes of northern India. Indian cauliflowers are typically much smaller than the ones we get in Australia or New Zealand. The recipe takes about half a large cauli. Try to choose one with nice tight florets. As Khalid Aziz advises, don’t overcook it. If serving fewer people, reduce the quantities, don’t try to save leftovers: warmed-up cauliflower is horrid.
Potato and Cauliflower Curry: Aloo Gobi
“It is … relatively unusual to find cauliflowers in all parts of India, which is why this particular recipe tends to be restricted to the rather more temperate northern region, where they can be grown in a climate that sometimes approaches that of southern Europe. The dish itself is fairly dry and quite spicy.”
* 1 small cauliflower * 900 g waxy potatoes * 2 onions
* 1 tsp chilli powder * 1/2 tsp ground ginger * 2 tsp ground coriander
* 100 g/4 oz ghee or 120 ml/4 fl oz cooking oil * 2 tsp salt
* 450 ml water * 1 1/2 tsp garam masala [below]
Wash the cauliflower and trim away any leaves. Cut into florets.
Peel the potatoes and cut them into 2.5-cm cubes.
Heat the ghee or cooking oil in a large saucepan. Peel and slice the onions and fry them gently for 2-3 minutes.
Add the chilli powder, ginger and coriander and stir for a further 1 minute.
Add the potatoes and cauliflower and, using a wooden spoon, gently turn them so that they are coated by the spice and oil mixture.
Now add the water and salt and bring to the boil. Cover the saucepan and simmer gently for 20 minutes until the potatoes and cauliflower are soft.
It is important not to overcook this dish because the idea is to have discernible pieces of cauliflower and potatoes without them becoming mushy.
As soon as the potato and cauliflower are cooked, add the garam masala and simmer for a further 5 minutes.
If there is too much water left over reduce this by boiling rapidly.
–Serves 4.
Source: Khalid Aziz. The Encyclopedia of Indian Cooking. London, Michael Joseph, 1983
******
Garam Masala
Recipe (1)
* 100 g/4 oz coriander seeds * 5 bay leaves * 25 g/1 oz cloves
* 100 g/4 oz cumin seeds * 25 g/1 oz cardamoms
* 1 x 5-cm/2-inch stick of cinnamon * 1 tsp freshly grated nutmeg
* 50 g/2 oz chilli powder * 50 g/2 oz black pepper
Preheat the oven to 200°C/400°F/Gas Mark 6. Put the coriander seeds, bay leaves, cumin seeds, cardamoms and cloves together with the cinnamon stick onto a flat baking tin, and roast in the hot oven for 20 minutes.
Then put the spices into a grinder and grind very finely. Combine them with the powdered ingredients, the chilli powder, black pepper and nutmeg, and store in an airtight jar. If the jar is kept well sealed and out of sunlight the spices will last for several months.
Recipe (2)
The second recipe uses the same ingredients except black pepper and chilli powder. This makes a far blander Garam masala, which consists purely of aromatics. The effect of this is to produce a far more fragrant dish when the Garam masala is added to the dish, usually 5 minutes from the end of cooking.
Source: Khalid Aziz. The Encyclopedia of Indian Cooking. London, Michael Joseph, 1983
In New Zealand and Australia our cookbooks got rather more adventurous in the 1970s and 1980s, too, and so foreign ingredients like garlic, a variety of herbs rather than just the traditional British parsley, and even chilli began to appear in our potato recipes. We still weren’t giving up our meat, though! This first recipe is very typical of its period—and you don’t need to serve it with meat!
Potato Caraway Cream
“A warm and comforting dish in cooler weather, and an excellent accompaniment to grills, rissoles or meat loaf. When quantities are doubled it may be eaten as a light main meal with poached smoked fish, or with slices of cold cooked meat.”
* 1 pound [450 g] potatoes * a few caraway seeds * 1 egg yolk
* 1/2 pint [300 ml] hot milk * 1 oz [25-30 g] butter or margarine
* 1 tsp herb or vegetable salt * freshly ground pepper
Garnish: * chopped parsley
Boil the potatoes in their skins until nearly cooked but still firm.
Remove the skins and slice the potatoes thickly.
Melt the butter or margarine in a heavy shallow pan and add the potato slices, turning them gently over medium heat until golden.
Sprinkle with the caraway seeds, salt and pepper, then pour in the hot milk.
Turn the heat down very low, place the lid on the pan, and simmer for 15 to 20 minutes, or until the potatoes are soft but not broken up.
Just before serving, whisk a few tablespoons of hot liquid from the pan into the egg yolk and stir into the potatoes, turning the heat off at the same time to prevent curdling.
Sprinkle liberally with chopped parsley just before serving.
–Serves 4.
Source: Rosemary Hemphill. Herbs For All Seasons. Sydney, Angus & Robertson, 1972
I’m always doubtful about frying grated raw potato: maybe I’m too impatient, but my efforts never seem to cook through. But this next is a very nice dish if you can manage it!
Potato Herb Fritters
* 500 g old potatoes, peeled and grated * 1 large rasher of bacon
* 1 shallot or small onion * 2 eggs * 4 tablesp flour
* 2 tablesp mixed chopped herbs (parsley, rosemary, marjoram, tarragon, lemon thyme) * freshly-ground black pepper
* 1/2 tsp salt or garlic salt * cooking oil for frying
In a basin mix the eggs, finely-chopped bacon and shallot, herbs, salt, garlic salt and pepper.
Add the potatoes and the flour. Mix thoroughly.
Avoid allowing the mixture to stand before cooking.
Fry spoonfuls of the mixture in hot cooking oil until they are browned on both sides. Drain on absorbent paper. Serve hot.
–Serves 6.
Source: Mary Browne, Helen Leach & Nancy Tichborne. The Cook's Garden: For Cooks Who Garden and Gardeners Who Cook. Wellington, [N.Z.], A.H. & A.W. Reed, 1980
You’ll find a contrast to this version of savoury fritters in the recipe that ends this blog post: it uses cooked potatoes in fritters and it’s a 19th-century dessert recipe.
The next recipe is one of my favourite combos with potato, though I usually serve it as a main with a green vegetable or a salad, not with meat as advised.
Fried Potatoes with Garlic and Rosemary
* 3 potatoes (large), raw and peeled * 3 cloves garlic (large), crushed
* 6 cm-long sprig fresh rosemary or 1 tsp dried
* 1 dried chilli or 1/2 bigger fresh chilli * 3 tablesp olive oil
* salt and fresh ground black pepper to taste
1. Peel potatoes, dry well with paper towel and slice medium thin.
2. Heat oil in large pan until it is hot. Put in enough potatoes to cover base of pan. Wrap the rest in wet towel to keep them white.
3. Scatter the garlic, rosemary leaves, salt and pepper and chilli over potatoes and stir well.
4. Cook quickly until browned on both sides. Push cooked potato to one side of pan and add another layer of potatoes. Stir well. Cook these, add to the first cooked pile and proceed until all potatoes are browned and tender. Do not put too many potatoes in at one time and cook quickly.
5. Drain all cooked potatoes on a paper towel.
Serve very hot, with pork, chicken, steak or fish.
–Serves 4.
Source: The New Zealand Kitchen. Auckland, N.Z., Burgess Friedlander Publishing, [between 1984 and 1989]
Potatoes have been used in baked goods for many years, but they more typically appear in scones rather than in sweetened dishes. There are lots of recipes available for potato scones, so I’ve chosen some more unusual dishes for you.
In the 1970s collections of early colonial recipes began to be published in Australia and New Zealand more as curiosities than cookbooks seriously intended for use in the kitchen. An example is Early Settlers’ Household Lore, which first came out in 1977 as a fundraiser for the Gold Museum at Sovereign Hill Goldmining Township in Ballarat, Victoria, under the auspices of the Ballarat Historical Park Association. No sources are given, and many of the recipes clearly do not date back to the time of the “early settlers” at all. I’d say Mrs Pescott, the author, collected favourite recipes from all her friends and acquaintances. As a result the book represents the food that was eaten at the time, all mixed up with genuine or rewritten early recipes. My copy is the “revised edition”, issued in a further fundraising effort: it’s probably just a reprint, as with many cookery books’ so-called editions.
This recipe, a version of a scone dough, is typical in that it lacks exact instructions: do you shape the dough into buns, as its name would indicate, or just fill the “sandwich tins”? (The former, I think.) The sprinkling with coconut indicates it could date from almost any part of the 20th century up until well into the 1950s: during this period desiccated coconut was immensely popular with Australian home cooks.
Aunt Bessie's Buns
* 1 cup mashed potatoes * 1 cup dried fruits
* 2 cups self-raising flour *1 cup sugar * 1 cup milk
Mix potatoes and sugar to a cream, add the fruit, mix well, then add the milk and the flour gradually. Put into well greased sandwich tins and bake in a moderate oven for half an hour.
When cool, ice lightly and sprinkle with coconut.
L. Pescott. Early Settlers’ Household Lore. Rev. ed., Richmond, Vic., Raphael Arts, 1980
The next recipe, which claims to be Portuguese, is from a Woman’s Day, round about the 1970s. It was probably the American edition of the magazine, as the expression “cookie sheets” is used.
Portuguese Sweet Bread
* 1 cup warm mashed potato * 7 to 8 cups all-purpose flour
* 2 packages active dry yeast * 1/2 cup lukewarm potato water
* 7 eggs * 1/2 cup milk * 1/8 tsp ginger * sugar [about 2 cups]
* 1/2 cup butter or margarine, melted and cooled * 2 tsp salt
Add 3 tablespoons sugar and the yeast to potato water [from the cooked potatoes] and stir until dissolved. Blend into potato and ginger. Set aside in warm place until light [risen].
Scald milk and salt and cool to lukewarm.
Beat 6 eggs until light. Gradually beat in 1 3/4 cups sugar. Stir in the butter. Combine yeast and egg mixtures and blend well. Stir in 2 cups flour, add milk and beat until well blended. Add 2 more cups flour and beat 5 minutes. Gradually stir in more flour until dough is stiff enough to knead.
Turn out on floured board and knead, adding only enough flour to prevent sticking, about 10 minutes. Put dough in an oiled large bowl, cover and let rise until doubled in bulk.
Punch down, put on floured board and divide in 4 pieces. Shape in round loaves and put on oiled cookie sheets or into 8-1/2" x 4-1/2" x 2" loaf pans. Let rise in warm place until doubled.
Beat remaining egg with a few drops of water and brush on loaves. Bake in preheated 350°F [177 C] oven 40 to 50 minutes.
Source: Woman’s Day, [1970s?]
Since potatoes are fairly well known as a baking ingredient, those two recipes aren’t so surprising. There, potato is really just used as an extra starchy ingredient. But once upon a time it could be used as the main ingredient in a sweet dessert. Right up to well into the 18th century you could still add sugar or honey and spices to almost anything, just as in Mediaeval times, and it would have been accepted as normal.
While the practice died out in Britain during the next hundred years, American cooks retained the habit of mixing vegetables, sugar and spices much longer than the British did, perhaps because of their native pumpkins, squashes and sweet potatoes: the old Mediaeval recipes are in fact the ancestors of the famous American pumpkin pie. Similarly, the Americans serve sweet dishes with a meat course still: sweet potatoes baked with a topping of marshmallows are a favourite accompaniment to the Thanksgiving turkey.
Potatoes of all sorts are of course native to the Americas, and perhaps we shouldn’t be surprised to find that the cooks of North America made a potato pie as a dessert dish using the good old spud. But I must admit I was astonished! Read all about it, in the Gastro Obscura article, “White Potato Pie”, which tells us:
“This velvety, vintage treat still has a fan base in Maryland. … The pie filling is made with mashed potatoes, eggs, butter, condensed milk, and a hint of nutmeg, with some (optional) lemon juice to give it a citrusy freshness.
“Many believe the pie originated in the Maryland/Delaware region, and some recipes also call it the Eastern Shore White Potato Pie. But white potato pie may well have arrived with the first English settlers. Hannah Glasse’s The Art of Cookery Made Plain and Easy was one of the most popular cookbooks in 18th century England, and found its way to the colonies, including the home of George and Martha Washington. It contains three recipes for what Glasse terms ‘Potatoe [sic] Pudding,’ and two of those recipes call for a base of puff pastry. Glasse’s versions were richly flavored pies, with currants simmered in wine, the juice of a seville orange, and indulgent amounts of butter and sugar.”
The genuine old recipe below dates back to well before over-sweetened condensed milk penetrated the cookery scene and perverted palates from Washington to Wellington and from Hoboken to Hobart. It’s called a “pudding” but it is in fact a pie, with a crust: the usage, if rather old-fashioned, nevertheless wasn’t unusual at the period. The preliminary list of ingredients has been provided by the editors of the book; the instructions are the verbatim original recipe.
Potato Pudding
* 1 pound [450 g] potatoes * 1/2 pound [225 g] butter
* 1/2 pound [225 g] sugar * 6 egg yolks * 3 egg whites
* 1/2 cup cream *1/2 cup wine * 1 tsp mace * 1 tsp nutmeg
* puff pastry
One pound of potatoes, boiled, half a pound of fresh butter, half a pound of sugar, the yolks of six eggs, and whites of three, one gill of cream, one gill of wine, one teaspoonful of mace, and one of nutmeg. Bake in puff-paste.
Source: S. Annie Frost. The Godey’s Lady’s Book Receipts and Household Hints. Philadelphia, Evans, Stoddart, 1870. In Yvonne Schofer (ed.). A Literary Feast: Recipes and Writings By American Women Authors From History. Madison, Wis., Jones Books, ©2003.
A Literary Feast is one of my favourite books. The recipes, mostly 19th-century, and fascinating in themselves, are accompanied by excerpts from women writers' works—many novels but also other works—which illuminate the everyday lives of the women who both wrote and used these recipes. If you were ever baffled by some of the culinary references in Anne of Green Gables or the works of Louisa May Alcott, this is the book for you!
Like the above, the recipes all have a list of ingredients in a standardised format provided by the editor and her assistants, plus the original wording of the instructions.
Let’s end with a sweet Australian effort from the late 19th century: this recipe by Mrs Wicken would have been a good dish for a day when the Aussie housewife had nothing on hand for a pudding for Dad and the kids except leftover potatoes and a couple of eggs the chooks had laid:
Potato Fritters
From Chapter 22: “Fifty Recipes for Sweets.”
* Cold Potatoes [cooked] * 1 Egg * 2 oz. Sugar
* Nutmeg or Lemon Peel * Hot Fat
Total Cost—1 1/2 d. Time—5 Minutes.
Mash up the potatoes very smoothly, beat in the sugar and a flavouring of nutmeg or grated lemon peel. Beat up the egg and pour over the potatoes and mix into a paste; form into small round cakes. Fry in very hot fat till brown; pile high on a dish, sprinkle with sugar and serve. One egg is sufficient for about 1 lb. [450 g] potatoes.
Source: Philip E. Muskett and Mrs H. Wicken. The Art of Living in Australia, by Philip E. Muskett; Together With Three Hundred Australian Cookery Recipes and Accessory Kitchen Information by Mrs. H. Wicken. London, Eyre and Spottiswoode, [1894]
Worth trying? Why not? Even in the 21st century, we can still afford a few spuds and an egg! And I think it’d work better than the more modern recipe for the savoury potato fritters that uses raw grated potato.
Enjoy your spuds! I hope you can source some good ones. But I have to say it—nothing can match the small new ones straight out of the garden that I had with my friends in Waikanae, on New Zealand’s Kapiti Coast. Just boiled, with butter. Thanks, Simon (grew them) and Susan (cooked them), they were great!
I failed to find a suitable hymn to the spud to do them justice—so here’s one of the hilariously incongruous efforts from the pen of Elizabeth Gordon. To the point? Absolutely not!
Said Dame Potato: “Hurry, Pat!
And wash your face and feed the cat,
Then run to school, or you’ll be late;
Just see! It’s nearly half past eight!”
(The scanned book is available online – if you can stand it!)
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