Potatoes - Solanum Tuberosum
Euan McIntyre
A staple of the Scottish diet, and arguably the most versatile vegetable of them all.
"Only two things in this world are too serious to be jested on - matrimony and potatoes"- Irish saying
A few years ago, in a second hand shop in Belfast, I bought a book. It was first printed in 1997, and by the looks of it, had been in that same shop since. It must have been flicked through dozens of times, but never bought, doomed to sit on that shelf for eternity. Until I took it home. The front cover was faded almost beyond comprehension, and more or less every page was dog-eared. It cost 89p. For some reason, it didn’t pass the coffee table test, and under strict instruction from my partner, it settled onto a low bookshelf, well out of sight. It was called “The Potato World”, by John Webster.
I love potatoes. They’re one of the first things I can ever remember planting with my dad in the garden when I was small. We used to take day trips over to Mull to pick them during the October holidays. Potatoes belong to the plant family Solanaceae, which also includes tomatoes, aubergines, peppers and cape gooseberries. I love the fact that they’re closely related to these finicky, greenhouse grown vegetables, when tatties themselves are amongst the hardiest of crops.
Evidently I’m not the only fan - potatoes are consistently the most popular crop to grow in Scotland, and their industry is worth £180 million per year. Potato aphids - the biggest spreader of viruses - are not suited to our cool climate, so the humble tattie thrives here. Our seed potatoes have built up a reputation for consistent quality and disease resistance. We have some of the most rigorous testing for seed potatoes in Europe, The Scottish Agricultural Science Agency (SASA) have a grading scheme for seed potatoes with three main directives:
- Land - Soil from the land must be tested for all manner of diseases, and potatoes must not have been grown on the land for the previous 5 years.
- Growing Season Inspection - All plants are inspected mid growth to ensure that they are free from viruses and bacteria that may have been latent in tubers.
- Tuber Inspection - Classified potatoes must be labelled and sealed with an official SASA grade tag. If a container does not carry one of these labels, then it doesn’t contain classified seed potatoes.
We haven’t always had such a rosy reputation with potatoes however. Sir Walter Raleigh supposedly brought them to the British isles in the 16th century, and before long they had taken off in Ireland as a significant food crop. But it wasn’t for another 100 years or so that the rest of us followed suit. There is ongoing debate that Englishman John Hawkins was actually the man who brought potatoes to Britain, but most are in agreement that what he brought back was actually the sweet potato. The sweet potato was welcomed a good few years before we warmed to their paler counterpart. The first recorded English depiction of the potato came from John Gerard’s Herball (1597), in which he wrote that he was cultivating both sweet potatoes, and - in his own words - the ‘bastard potato’. Potato prejudice.
For a brief time, potatoes were a symbol of religious contention - to grow and eat potatoes was seen as a Catholic practice, so Protestants refused to eat them. In North Uist, clansmen were jailed for refusing to plant them. Over time, crofters clocked on to the fact that potatoes could grow in poor soil, needed relatively little maintenance, and would store well through the winter. With starvation a harsh (and all too common) reality, they finally relented, and by the early 19th century, most Hebridean crofters were getting more than 80% of their nutrition from potatoes. As they were such a heavy cropper, there were often large amounts left over to sell as well. Sadly, this heavy reliance on spuds proved costly. In the 1840s potato blight (a fungal disease that spreads rapidly through plants, causing collapse and decay) swept through Ireland and Scotland, wiping out entire crops. Almost half the population in Ireland died, or fled in the years that followed.
Things are a little less bleak nowadays however. In the last 150 years, Scotland has played a vital role in breeding commercial potato varieties. Many varieties bred here are now huge names on the potato circuit, because of their quick ripening in summer, and resistance to pests and diseases. William Paterson was an amateur breeder who had potatoes sent to Scotland from all over the world to use in his programme. In the mid 1800s, he raised the variety we now know as ‘Victoria’, a famously good frying potato. If you’ve ever enjoyed chips from a chip shop or van, you have Paterson to thank.
Shopping for seed potatoes is probably my favourite admin task that I have to do. There are a multitude of varieties to choose from, and there is no shortage of Scottish ones, making it very easy to grow potatoes that have been eaten in this country for generations. The heritage varieties we had at Fhior last year included Arran Victory and Shetland Black. In case the names weren’t enough of a giveaway, these tatties both have their origins in Scottish islands - Arran and Shetland, respectively. Bred by Donald McKelvie of Arran in 1918, Arran Victory was named to celebrate the end of the First World War. One of several varieties grown on Arran, they are set apart by their deep purple skins, which lose colour on cooking. A popular legend states that Shetland Black can trace its origin to 1588, when a wrecked Spanish armada ship washed up on the island's shores. Sadly there is no evidence of its existence before 1923. As you would expect from a potato that has its roots in Shetland, it has an extremely tough, deep purple skin, with floury flesh mottled with a purple ring. They make very pretty crisps.
This is the first vegetable spotlight piece I’ve written - I thought it made sense to start with my favourite crop - and I promised myself I’d try and keep it short. I can’t spend the entire winter typing up the life story of the potato. I’d love to though.
