Potato

I’ve never been into rice. I know it’s the staple for over half the world. I know that can be used to make mats, oils, bricks and alcohol. I understand that it’s something special. I just can’t take it. All those little grains that fall through my tines from plate to palate. The so-called sticky clumps that sub-divide like little white hydras between my chopsticks. Rice is so frustrating. I like potatoes.
When the Spanish brought the potato back to Europe with the rest of their plunder, it took a while for the spud to catch on. But even back in the 1500s, saavy marketers knew that you could sell anything if you could somehow link it to sex. So the word went out that the lumpy tuber had hitherto unknown aphrodisiac qualities and suddenly everyone was all about the Latke (or as my Baba would say, oladka). A little while later and the potato and the Irish became linked as tight as mosquitos and blood. Russia called potatoes the ‘second bread’ during world war double eye. Yes, wars have been fought over them. Lies have been told for them. They’ve spawned affectionate diminutives, vice-presidential gaffes and mass exodus. Just like rice, potatoes have been swapped for guns and murder. There are actually people who make guns that can shoot potatoes. I remember when the A-Team once made a gun that could shoot cabbages.

Despite all that, it’s sometimes hard to think of the potato as an icon of romance, but for me, the potato is like the Casablanca of crops. I suppose wheat has a golden cadence to it. Swaying fields and sunset farmers. Cotton’s got the blues and the old South. There’s maize and soy beans and sugar and poppies and bananas. But I’m for the potato.