Dig This – It’s National Potato Month!

My editor recently informed me that September is National Potato Month. Being both an Irishman by descent and a lover of all things mash, baking, chips and roasting, I eagerly volunteered to do some digging for dirt on the beloved vegetable.

According to the US Department of Agriculture’s Economic Research Service, potatoes are the most popular vegetable in America… hands down. Unfortunately, that’s kind of greasy because a lot of our processed potatoes end up as French fries.

The USDA states that the typical American eats more than 140 pounds of potatoes each year. That’s 50 pounds more than per capita consumption of tomatoes, the second-ranking vegetable. And that second place ranking is a bit ironic since tomatoes are technically a fruit anyway!

Despite our love of potatoes, we’re not the best when it comes to eating potatoes. We finished somewhere around seventh place; Top honors go to our German friends who every year eat 200 pounds each!

On average, Americans eat more than 16 pounds of French fries each year. That translates to over 2 million tons of poor potatoes that met their demise shoelace or julienned and dipped in bubbling fat to fry!

By the way, France and Belgium are at war over which country invented French fries. Belgians claim that their street vendors were selling “Belgian fries” from pushcarts before the French adapted the idea in the mid-19th century. My kids couldn’t care less who made the fries, they’re just thankful someone had the good sense to set sail for America with the not-so-secret fries recipe!

POTATO TAKES: About one in every 14 potatoes grown in the US ends up as McDonald’s fries! The fast food giant has no problem with the fact that it produces more than 1/3 of all French fries sold in US restaurants.

Ok, here’s a potato puzzle that has haunted me for a long time: tuber or no tuber…that is the question. Stop moaning! Since I’m considered the Shakespeare of shaky eating anyway, I thought I’d painfully distort the bard’s famous line for my potato report. For those of you who thought a tuber was someone who floats down a river on a rubber donut, I offer you this nugget: The part of the potato plant that we eat is called a tuber. And a tuber is actually an enlarged underground stem. Each potato plant produces multiple tubers that can have a variety of colors. The most common are the red and white varieties.

MORE POTATO SHOT: Bet you didn’t know…

o A potato is approximately 80% water, 20% solid.

o Henry Spalding planted the first potatoes in Idaho in 1837.

o The Guinness Book of Records says the largest potato in history, an 18-pound, 4-ounce monster, was grown in England in 1795.

o French fries were invented in 1853 at a fashionable resort in Saratoga Springs, New York, after railroad magnate Commodore Cornelius Vanderbilt complained that his fries were too thick and sent them back to the kitchen. To annoy his fussy guest, chef George Crum cut potatoes into paper-thin slices, fried them in hot oil, and salted them. Vanderbilt loved “Saratoga Crunch Chips” and the rest is history.

o The potato is the second most consumed food in America, only behind dairy products.
Despite its popularity, the poor potato has a bad reputation. But fry anything and it makes for bad food! Actually, potatoes are one of the most nutritious foods you can eat. A medium-sized potato has fewer calories than a grapefruit, more potassium than a banana, and more usable iron than any other vegetable. Potatoes are also high in fiber and loaded with complex carbohydrates. Best of all, potatoes are fat-free and extremely versatile.

When you think of potatoes, you can’t help but think of Idaho. While searching for information, I found a lot of interesting things at http://www.idahopotato.com. A sample…

o Bingham County in eastern Idaho produces almost as many potatoes as the entire state of Maine.

or Why are potatoes known as potatoes? One theory is that the term refers to a spatula, which is a shovel-like utensil used to dig up potatoes. Spud can also refer to the wooden barrel that the graders would put small potatoes into when grading the larger ones. The abbreviation for these unwanted greens: SPUD, which stands for Some Potatoes Under Developed.

o To make the baked potato look better, pierce the potato with a fork, once across and across. Press the potato at both ends and it will “bloom.” Never use a knife to open a baked potato; it flattens the surface and alters the normal spongy texture of a baked Idaho potato.

No one is about to alter the oft-repeated adage, “An apple a day keeps the doctor away,” but there are plenty of “Old Potato Tales” about the power of potatoes. Chew these…

o A potato in your pocket will cure rheumatism and eczema!

o Potatoes should be put on sore muscles and oozing sores to relieve pain. If you have a wart, rub it with a cut potato, then bury the potato in the ground. As the potato rots in the soil, the wart will disappear.

o Carrying a peeled potato in a pocket on the same side as a bad tooth would heal the tooth as soon as the potato broke.

But pregnant women can be advised to fight their potato cravings. Otherwise, the baby will be born with a big head, the legend says!