Potatoes

They reckon three of anything makes a collection.  I have included two things recently relating to potatoes.  Sweet Potatoes and Potato Peeler.  One thing more and I have a collection.  Why does that matter?  It doesn’t really.
But I did think I had one more in me relating to potatoes if I talked about the heritage of Merril and I.  Merril has Irish in her background.  Irish/German.  I have Prussian/English.  Talk about opposites attracting (I don’t have to talk about it, but I am am.)
When it comes to our heritage, we could not be more different.  One was Catholic, Holden, Labour and the other was Protestant, Ford and Liberal.  That does not say what we are now, but that was our heritage (though the car thing may be a bridge too far). We have our faith in common big time.  While we acknowledge there is good in each other’s traditions, we feel our faith transcends all of that, and is the only thing that can impact for eternity.
It is the Irish background where the potato’s come in.  Ireland has heaps going for it, but historically I associate Irish with potato’s.  I am amazed they can sustain.  We have mashed potato’s often but always with something else.  They are an addition that goes with the beans and carrots or other vegetables.  Never is tonight’s meal “potatoes.”
Yet the impression I get is that for the Irish there was a time when life revolved around potatoes.  So much hung on the potato harvest.  Though with them growing under ground and all that would be a problem for me.  I’d be tempted to dig them up all the time to make sure all was well.
I am led to believe the potato famine was the reason for many Irish going to the US.  The lack of food is a great motivator.  To this point I have not done a fact check and what I think maybe totally wrong.  Still, I have gotten this far, and I live in hope that the information I have held has not adversely affected me (though it may explain a lot of things).
I do not think our heritage means we have a predisposition to eating potato’s.  It is never “I don’t know why I am doing this, but we are going to have potato again.”  I do not have an Irish heritage but enjoy potato on the side.  I would not be as sanguine if we had potato for breakfast, lunch and dinner every day, but I enjoy it.
I think the takeaway joints like potatoes too.  The difference in the size of the meal is often the size of the serve of chips.  No wonder they say, “cheap as chips.”   Potatoes are inexpensive but can fill a person up really easily.  We like the Hungry Jack’s chips better than the McDonalds chips.  The Hungry Jacks ones seem to be better cooked.  Crispy and brown.
Though these days we have more choice with our meals at home.   We can have rice or pasta instead.  When Merril and I order fish it is always with potato scallops instead of chips.  Potato in a different form.
I am glad there are potatoes.  Not in a “I exalt you mighty potato, giver of life” kind of way but in a “potatoes with this meal.  Cool.”  The Irish were onto something.