Uncle Badger had a farm, E-I-E-I-O
a youthful primrose yellow colour which cooks to a pale honey. Once cooked, the papery skin rubs off easily, while underneath the flesh of this salad potato usefully keeps its shape when cut or squeezed.
Let the potato cool slightly after cooking and then squeeze it lightly. There’s an immediate hint of fresh cut grass and a delicate earthiness. This is followed by deliciously buttery aromas, as if the potatoes had already been topped with sweet, unsalted butter.
In the mouth it is full-bodied, and tastes equally fresh and buttery, with a lingering note of sweetness. The flavour is remarkably long and persistent. The texture is firm to bite, but it gives way immediately to a supple, velvety melting quality.
That near-pornographic potato tasting comes to you from the British Potato Council. They are referring to a potato called Charlotte, which we will be growing next. The crop in the picture is a variety called International Kidney. And very nice they are too, even if they haven’t got a “hint of fresh cut grass and a delicate earthiness.”
Or maybe they have. How the fuck would I know?
We’ve done very well out of the garden this year, considering he has very little actual land under cultivation. We’ve had potatoes, peas, spinach, carrots, onions, broccoli, lettuces of several varieties, green beans, tomatoes, chili peppers, gherkins and cukes, with cabbages and cauliflower and godnose what else yet to come. And that’s not counting the fruitcage, with rhubarb, red currants, black currants, white currants, strawberries, loganberries, raspberries, gooseberries (two kinds!) and blackberries. Or the herbs in pots. Or the flowers, which I only eat when he’s not looking.
We could be entirely self-sufficient for the summer, if we had a taste for runnybabbit and I didn’t mind disemboweling and skinning adorable fluffy buns in the sink.
I’m not a very good weasel 🙁
Posted: July 13th, 2009 under britain, food.
Comments: 15
Comments
Comment from dfbaskwill
Time: July 13, 2009, 7:36 pm
I live in the Potato Chip Capital of the world here in Central Pennsylvania (Herr’s, Utz, Martin’s ….). Thinly slice those beauties and fry them in lard! (Or save some for proper British Chips.)
Comment from Gromulin
Time: July 13, 2009, 7:40 pm
I would kill to be able to grow Rhubarb…too damn hot here.
Nothing like a big slimy pile’o rhubarb. No berries, just rhubarb, and enough sugar to keep your face from puckering into itself.
Comment from scubafreak
Time: July 13, 2009, 9:34 pm
Personally, I like the blue potatoes you can buy at the local garden shop. They come from a farm in western Colorado that was featured on ‘Dirty Jobs’….
Comment from gnus
Time: July 13, 2009, 10:48 pm
Blue potatoes? No offense, Scuba, but that’s just wrong.
Appears to me you’ve solved the job situation, Sweasel. There’ll be a need for farmers in this new age.
Comment from apotheosis
Time: July 13, 2009, 11:00 pm
You say dinner, I say ammunition.
Comment from Dawn
Time: July 13, 2009, 11:38 pm
Lucky! This summer my garden is producing squash and kohlrabi and aphids. Lots of aphids. We had a sunless June and a wet July.
Comment from jw
Time: July 14, 2009, 7:12 am
POTATOE GUN!
Comment from lauraw
Time: July 14, 2009, 11:34 am
Even though it’s been raining stupid for over a month, and the night temps fall into the 50’s, everything seems pretty happy and growing well.
Giving credit to planting Winter Rye last Fall and building tall raised beds.
In our clay soil there’s no doubt everything would be rotting now if I didn’t do that.
…and I’m shocked you don’t like rabbit. Yum.
Comment from Randy Rager
Time: July 14, 2009, 11:51 am
Rabbits have nearly zero nutritional value, anyhoo. Try dicing those potatoes and frying them, then add some freshly chopped herbs a couple of minutes before plating them.
Had that at my parents this past week in Oklahoma (vacation!), and it was damned near orgasm inducing.
Comment from David Gillies
Time: July 14, 2009, 12:41 pm
I would never clean a bunny indoors. Best way is behead them, make a ventral cut, peel the skin back off over the neck-stump like taking off a pair of rubber gloves, then whirl bunny round your head by the pelt until the guts fly out and stick on a bush for the crows. Rabbit is good lean protein. Anyway, cleaning game is a bloke’s job. Can’t you claim girly squeamishness and get Uncle B to do it?
Comment from lauraw
Time: July 14, 2009, 4:39 pm
http://michaelscomments.wordpress.com/2009/07/14/get-together-lauraw/
Comment from Scubafreak
Time: July 14, 2009, 6:32 pm
Here ya go…
http ://coloradosprings.yourhub.com/Central/Blogs/Family-Community/Community/Blog~632688.aspx
Comment from SDN
Time: July 26, 2009, 9:15 am
In my neighborhood, self-sufficiency would involve the local tree-rat population. And there’s plenty to go around.
I wouldn’t mind the ones that come up to the window and drive my Fuzzy dog nuts; it’s the ones that break into the attic and floss with the wiring until the house catches on fire (had one of those on the next block last month) that have me testing out various varieties of subsonic .22 to see what I can use to thin the population without attracting too much attention.
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