THE POTATO AT HOME 307 
Other memories connected with the potato 
come back to me. I had a small brother, and one 
day we were discussing that most important subject 
to small boys, the things we liked best to eat, when 
it occurred to us as very strange that certain 
articles of food were only eaten in combination 
with certain other things; some with salt, and 
others with sugar, and so on, and we agreed to try 
and discover a new and better way of combining 
different flavours. We started on our boiled eggs 
and ate them with sugar or treacle and cinnamon 
instead of salt, and found that it wasn’t very nice. 
By and by we found that peaches cut up and eaten 
with cream and sugar tasted delicious. And after 
that we broke the peach-stones and made a mash 
of the kernels in a mortar and ate that with cream 
and sugar, and agreed that it was a great success. 
By and by one of our elders told us that the peculiar 
flavour of the peach-stone pip which delighted us 
and was so good with cream and sugar was due 
to the presence of prussic acid, and that if we went 
on with this dish it would certainly kill us all in a 
little while. That frightened us, and we started 
experimenting with the harmless potato. And here 
we met with our greatest success; let all gourmets 
make a note of it. Select a good-sized egg-shaped 
baked potato and place it in a small cup and treat 
it as you would an egg, cutting off the top. Then 
with your spoon break it up inside, pour in oil and 
vinegar, and add pepper and salt. A delightful 
combination! We tried to improve on it by 
