The Foreign Invader

Back with the Spanish ships, that avoided the British pirates in the Caribbean, came a bounty of new world products including tobacco, tomatoes, chocolate and potatoes.

From the port city of Seville potatoes arrived in Ireland via Basque fishermen. They landed on the western tip of the Emerald Isle to dry their Atlantic cod catch. They were welcomed with open arms by the Irish women. They left. The potato stayed and was planted, fed, given nourishment and flourished.

Soon it was sneaked across the Irish Sea. Sometimes stowed on board boats crossing the border or in the possession of navvy’s coming to England to provide the sweat to plant the seeds of future empire.

On arrival the potato was greeted by natives (turnip, cabbage and asparagus) with suspicion, and they were proved correct when the potato started taking their nutrients, water and land. The indigenous vegetables were in outrage but what could they do? The potato was more versatile. It worked all year around unlike asparagus. It provided more nutrients in return for the investment of time and fertiliser compared to the low energy cabbage and offered better taste than the turnip. A counter campaign was started to combat this foreigner – ‘British land for British vegetables.’

But the potato was stubborn. It liked the peaty soils, wet climate and friendly insects of this land of no extremes. And despite the natives campaign the potato numbers grew and grew.

Four hundred years later and the potato is considered a native in its own right. A quintessential part of British culture. Without which we would have no roast potato in our Sunday lunch or chip beside our fish or creamy mash with our sausages.

It’s eaten on our beaches. It’s eaten in the fields, and on the streets and upon our hills, and it will always be eaten. And when in distant lands we eat our beloved potato we to will be reminded of home, of England.