The Twelve Ingredients of A Christmas Dinner - Potatoes

The Twelve Ingredients of A Christmas Dinner - Potatoes

The humble potato is that thing staring at you from the dinner plate - be it bashed, boiled, bubble and squeaked, creamed, diced, fried, mashed, roasted, unpeeled and velouted. The variety of ways you can cook a potato is unrivaled by the worldwide number of potato varieties - with approximately five thousand cultivated species.

Three thousand of them are found in the South America mountain region of the Andes in Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador and Peru. It is also thought that there are around 200 wild species and subspecies. These species can and have been introduced to the cultivated species to create resistances to pests and diseases (see below for those diseases).

For a food stuff that was brought to the English shores from the Americas, it is the fourth largest food group, following rice, wheat and maize. It is thought that it may very well change the Asiatic diet as, according to the United Nations FAO's (Food & Agricultural Organisation) figures for 2010; China produced 74.8 million metric tonnes. The annual diet of the average global citizen includes 33 kilogrammes or 73 pounds of potatoes according to this pdf.

But before you complain about the price of a potato before you drown your par-bolied potato in molten duck fat; think of what that potato and the potato producer had to go through. The PCL Information Sheet IS02, published by the Potato Council, found here reports that 2012 was a year of contrasts with an early drought followed by low levels of sunlight and then high rainfall that leads to low yields and a late harvest. It was reported that 71% of the harvest was complete by the end of October. And with water, there always comes problems - the cost of the production of a potato has increased by 13% (over 2011) due to the increase in fungicide use and other chemicals.

To think that the potato, a vague relation of deadly nightshade, is attacked by 7 bacterial diseases including brown rot; 30 fungicidal diseases; 6 Nematode parasites; 3 Phytoplasmal diseases; 39 Viral and Viroid diseases; and 13 Miscellaneous diseases and disorders (source). It is a miracle of agriculture that it actually makes it to your plate.