178 THE POTATO. 



CHAPTER XIX. 



ON COOKING POTATOES. 



IT is one thing to grow the potato, but quite another to 

 cook it properly, so that the tubers shall be in the best 

 possible condition for eating. It is said, with a certain 

 amount of truth, that few people know how to cook the 

 noble tuber properly. We are not referring here to the 

 many fancy ways of " dressing " potatoes, but to the sim- 

 ple process of boiling or baking them. It is seldom in 

 our public restaurants that one can obtain a really good 

 boiled potato, and as for those cooked by the average ser- 

 vant, they are often worse, if anything. We consider it 

 quite as important to instruct the readers of this Hand- 

 book how to cook a potato, as it is to teach them how to 

 grow it, and hence we shall describe what we consider to 

 be the best methods of cooking the tubers in this short 

 chapter. 



The Wrong: Way is to peel off the rind very thickly, 

 and throw the tubers into cold water to soak for an hour 

 or so before cooking. The thick peeling is wasteful, and 

 means the loss of a considerable amount of the best part 

 of the potato, while the long immersion in water after peel- 

 ing means a loss of soluble food matter, and a predisposi- 

 tion to waxiness instead of mealiness after cooking. Start- 

 ing the tubers to boil in cold water is another common 

 cause of waxiness, and the absence of that nice floury 

 condition everyone appreciates in a well-cooked tuber. 



The Right Way to cook the potato is to remove the 



