Thursday, 3 November 2016

Ode to the Potato - Chips - Spud Gun

I am totally blown away by the versatility of the common spud. Yes the potato. In France it is called the pomme de terre, the ground apple. Did you know that the potato is the world's fourth largest food crop after corn, rice, and wheat? I didn’t but I do now.

The main point of my post today is to declare my love for the potato in all its delicious glory. One food item I could not live without the humble spud. What did we Britons do before the delicacy hit our shore I do not know, as I couldn’t contemplate life without them.

What other food item can be prepared in so many different manners? Boiled, fried, baked, braised, roasted, broiled, sautéed, mashed, raw (really?). Oh, I could go on. I get the feeling that butter and salt would be quite lonely if the potato had not been invented. A favourite is hard to pick but it must chips, listen America, fries are chips. Fries are what you get with a burger at McDonald.

Don’t have any culinary skills? No problem. The potato is easy to prepare for consumption.

However, our love and uses for the potato do not end in the kitchen.

As children, some of our fondest memories are playing with my spud gun, remember them those of the right age. Endless ammunition from one nice big potato and if you run out there was always a carrot or even an onion I remember trying one. If you could push your gun onto it then you could fire it.

To operate, puncture the surface of a potato with the gun's hollow tip and pries out a small pellet which fits snugly in the muzzle. Squeezing the grip causes a small build-up of air pressure inside the toy which propels the projectile. The devices are usually short-range and low-powered.

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