Hurrah for the Potato

It's hard to imagine a great holiday dinner without a side dish featuring potatoes. From candied yams to mashed spuds to appetizers featuring chips and dips, U.S.-style festive eating requires plenty of this versatile vegetable. Regular meals too are often not considered complete without a variation of this starchy tuber. Moreover, U.S. meal preparers are not alone in relying on the potato to complement entrees, as diners across the globe are paying increasing attention to the taste and nutrition potentials of the potato. In fact, the United Nations has even declared 2008 to be the Year of the Potato.

Although the potato originated in the New World, probably in Peru, the plants are now under regular cultivation in Europe and Asia as well as everywhere in the Americas. China and India are major producers. One of the reasons the U.N. opted to celebrate the vegetable, much as it previously highlighted another foodstuff in 2004 (International Year of Rice), is because of the potato plant's adaptability to a wide range of climates and soil conditions, with some varieties thriving despite short growing seasons or tolerating rocky ground. The potato is seriously welcomed in global efforts to address famine and poverty in developing nations.

Here, in the U.S., some homemakers bring out cherished family recipes while others search for novel ideas in supermarket magazines or online recipe collections in anticipation of big meals and guests with hearty appetites at year-end parties and family reunions. Resurrecting Aunt Tillie's steamed potatoes or trying out Saveur Magazine's Potatoes O'Brien, a hash brown version that isn't just for breakfast, are as good choices as any. Recipe compilations often include stuffing and salad options as well as standard advice on baked, boiled, broiled, creamed, fried, mashed, and scalloped versions. Sweet potato recipes can range from fancy flambes and liquor-spiked suggestions to the more usual baked and mashed dishes.

My grandmother's recipe for candied sweet potatoes, like many typical alternatives, calls for a boiled brown sugar sauce, pecans, and plenty of butter. While the high-calorie and high-fat content of such a dish may not matter for one meal, some would probably prefer to search for healthier sounding ingredients. In this case, most of the calories are added by the sauce and not by the basic vegetable. Potatoes, both the regular and sweet varieties, are full of nutritional value, including vitamins, fiber and complex carbohydrates, and contain no fat or cholesterol. Additionally, thanks to the popularity of the microwave, potatoes are a snap to cook, as even the big Idaho Russets can be ready to eat in just a few minutes. Greater patience is required, of course, for recipes with multiple ingredients or special gravies.

The current U.S. potato crop is about average, although this summer's hurricanes did damage the Louisiana sweet potato fields. Still, there should be plenty of these brown-, tan-, or red-skinned veggies, whether small salt or new potatoes or big baking spuds, to fill up platters and serving bowls all across the country during this year's holiday season.

Lucy Conger, "A Quest for the Perfect Potato", Newsweek

"Year of the Potato: Bringing spuds back" Emerald City (blog)/ L.A. Times

"2008 Idaho potato harvest forecast - Plentiful, high-quality spuds " Potato News/Life Science Weekly

Tobie Blanchard, "Hurricanes wipe out half of Louisiana sweet potato crop", Delta Farm Press