Potato – the comfort of cold weather

By November the weather turns, and jacket potatoes feel like the right kind of food again. They’ve long been my favourite. During my second pregnancy I lived on them: jacket potato, grated cheese, and raw onion. The child in question has avoided potatoes and cheese ever since, and I doubt raw onion would ever make it onto his plate. Still, the smell of a baked potato brings that time straight back, a simple meal that fills the house and takes the edge off any day.

It’s an ordinary food with a long and far-travelled name. ‘Potato’ began as the sweet potato, a word that crossed oceans before settling in English for the white tuber. Across Europe, people called it an ‘earth apple’ or compared it to a truffle. Its story is tangled, like its roots, but it ends up in the same place — on the table, dependable and warm.