We Say Potato

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DATE : Wed, 28 Jun 2006 19:00:00 +0500
Entered in Database : 2006-06-28 14:00:00
length : 24951399
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It's the entire spectrum of cooking, of eating, of life itself can be represented by the potato.

Jim Leff

Steamin' Spud[Roboppy / Flickr]

Snack food, phooey...these things are STEAKS! So huge and thickly cut, you'd think them comical if you weren't moaning in ecstasy. Massive roasty potato flavor, deep dark brown, snatched from the oil just in time by an omniscient hand. Paul Bunyon eats 'em. Greasy as all get-out. Every other chip seems anemic.

Jim Leff

Like all soul foods, this is a dish born of poverty. But creativity flourishes under impediment, so destitution frequently leads to deliciousness -- and there are few things in this world as delicious as a well-baked kugel. It's a delicacy anyone even remotely fond of potatoes must adore. I'm nuts about it. Though starchy, inelegant kugel is the trashy underside of Jewish cooking, it's long been one of the things I most crave. Of course, this might not have been the case had I been born a century ago over there, where potato-centricism stemmed from necessity rather than choice. There's an old song that goes "Monday, potatoes; Tuesday, potatoes. Wednesday and Thursday, potatoes. Saturday... maybe a potato kugel, then Sunday potatoes again." It's only recently that I've come to understand that this was a blues sung from poverty, not a hopeful song for a future utopia.

Jim Leff, Cuckoo for Kugel

Jim Leff

Jim Leff didn't know it at the time but he actually wrote one of the first food blogs What Jim Had for Dinner. This is now part of his popular website, known as the Zagat guide of the 21st century, www.Chowhound.com. Leff is a food critic who has eaten everything from every corner of the world.

Michael Pollan

Author, The Omnivore's Dilemma and The Botany of Desire, among others Professor, UC Berkeley School of Journalism

Susan Tolman

Public Relations Executive for The British Potato Council

Extra Credit Reading

The Potato Museum Roy Finamore One Potato, Two Potato: 300 Recipes from Simple to Elegant, Houghton Mifflin, 2001. Redcliffe Salaman, The History and Social Influence of the Potato, Cambridge University Press, 1949. Michael Pollan, The Botany of Desire, Random House, 2002. Lisa Tanner, The Potato Experience: Wonderful Ways With Potato Outers and Innards, Ten Speed Press, 1986. Larry Zuckerman, The Potato: How the Humble Spud Rescued the Western World, North Point Press, October 1999. Dymphna, Father's Day 2006, The Neighborhood of God, June 19, 2006.

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