90 THE BOOK OF VEGETABLES 



puddings and pies, and boil or roast them for bread ; 

 and we like them better than your bread. ... In 

 my family we keep them always boiled in the house, 

 and in the morning my people eat milk and potatoes. 

 At dinner they have generally bacon or hung beef 

 and potatoes, and for supper we mash our potatoes 

 and add milk and salt to make a pudding ; and 

 sometimes for change we have potatoes fry'd in 

 the fat that is left in the pan after frying bacon or 

 beef; and we also make pies with potatoes and mutton 

 or other meat. . . . Many of my neighbours eat 

 nothing but potatoes the year round, and are very 

 healthy and strong. A bushel of potatoes generally 

 sells with us for about eightpence or ninepence, and 

 is sufficient to keep a man a fortnight who eats nothing 

 else." Here, is indeed enthusiasm. 



From about the date of this letter onwards potatoes 

 grew steadily in popularity. Hanbury, in his " Complete 

 Body of Planting and Gardening," published in 1771, 

 wrote that "they are universally admired. High and 

 low, rich and poor, covet them at their tables. In Ireland 

 and some other countries they are become the staple 

 sustenance of the common people. With the former 

 they seem perfectly to agree, though all will not allow 

 them to be entirely wholesome ; and a dullness is said to 

 attend the constant eating of them. Most allow that 

 they are a cloy to genius ; and the Irish, who are 

 undoubtedly hardy in the field, are said to be an 

 heavy sort of people, probably on account of their 

 immoderate use of potatoes." 



To boil Potatoes 



Ability to boil potatoes as potatoes should be boiled 

 has been wisely proposed as the index of a good 

 cook. Poor sorts of potatoes, or poor specimens of good 

 varieties, cannot by any culinary ingenuity be converted 



