Life Is Meals_ A Food Lover's Book of Days - James Salter [96]
The author of more than seventy books, many of them with collaborators, and including twenty-four volumes of La France gastronomique, in addition to an atlas and an anthology of French gastronomy, he lived to the age of eighty-four and died in an accidental fall from the window of his Paris apartment in 1956.
POTATOES
The ordinary potato, a member of the nightshade family along with the tomato and eggplant, was first brought to Europe in the mid-16th century by the Spanish explorers of South America. It had been cultivated in the Andes of what is now Peru for at least two thousand years. At first potatoes were regarded with suspicion and even thought to be poisonous, but by the time Shakespeare mentioned them in The Merry Wives of Windsor between 1597 and 1601, they were in better repute.
Captain Cook took the potato to Australia in 1770, but its popularity oddly skipped over India and the Orient. Since potatoes grew so abundantly, with an acre of land producing up to five or six hundred bushels, and were seeded simply by cutting them into small pieces, each containing one or more eyes, the monarchs of Europe recognized their usefulness. In the late 18th century, Frederick the Great tried to popularize them in Germany by eating potatoes publicly himself, and Louis XVI and his queen, Marie Antoinette, together endorsed them, although Diderot, in his famous Encyclopédie, called the potato tasteless no matter how prepared, and Brillat-Savarin said simply, “None for me.” In Ireland, however, where they were either first introduced by Sir Walter Raleigh or had washed ashore amid the wreckage of the Spanish Armada in 1565, they had become the mainstay of the diet, destroying, it is said, the art of cooking there.
Potatoes are rich in potassium, iron, and vitamin C. The skin can be eaten but is not nutritious, and most of what is valuable is found in a thin layer beneath it, often pared away if the potato is peeled. Potatoes can be stored for two or three weeks if kept in a cool, dry place and not refrigerated. The cold converts the starch in them to sugar and makes them too sweet, though the process can be reversed by letting potatoes stand for several days at room temperature. Sunlight can turn the skin green, making the area beneath bitter or even toxic.
The floury potatoes—russets and Idahos—bake, mash, and fry well. Red potatoes boil better but don’t mash well afterward. None of these freeze well except French fries and mashed or stuffed potatoes. If frozen raw, they become soft. If cooked, as in a stew or soup, they turn mushy and grainy when thawed.
Baked potatoes can be rubbed with a little vegetable oil before being placed directly on the oven rack. They should never be wrapped in foil, which holds in the moisture and essentially steams the potato, resulting in a wrinkled skin and soggy interior.
There are few things that taste better than rosti, as the Swiss cook them, or a potato gratin. Just as good are potato pancakes and potato salad. When Waverly Root brought his French wife to the United States for the first time, and they toured eastern cities for a month, he asked her which was the American food she liked best. The Idaho baked potato, she said. According to Root, this potato is unique and doesn’t grow in any other place in America. With melted butter and some salt, it almost possesses grandeur.
BERLIN DINING
2002, Berlin. Rainy night, brightly lit restaurant on a corner of the Kurfurstendamm. White tablecloths, a high ceiling, walls filled with pictures, and newspapers in a rack near the bar. In the mirror along the banquettes, every face is visible. The waiter is tall, in white shirtsleeves and a vest.
We had steak with Kaiserhof