Open Writing

I often fancy myself as an amateur sleuth. In fact you could say I spend a lot of my time collecting clues and confronting culprits.

Whodunnit? Is a byword in our household, but I confess this latest and outrageous potato scandal has me completely baffled. Not too surprisingly, actually, seeing that even the experts are getting their alibis confused.

Exorbitant prices were first blamed on the rain, then on the sun. Last week I read a balsamic report that potato prices are likely to drop later in the year. ‘Growers are planning to produce crops three times as big as the national record average – with the help of a new planting system called ‘Blueprint.’

This was developed at the Ministry of Agriculture experimental farm near Selby and simply means that crops are planted close together with heavier fertilisation and extra attention at each stage. This method enabled one farmer to harvest twenty-five tons an acre – sounds promising!

At a recent National Power Farming Conference at Bournemouth, Professor Dickson, of Newcastle University, went along with this. ‘Future profits depend on higher yields of crops and livestock,’ he said.

Other ‘experts’ agreed that factory-made foods were forcing farming prices down. Someone else was frightened into admitting that ‘dearer farm products will lead to a drop in the amount housewives buy.’ Ah, a vital clue here – so we do help to control prices, then?

Does this mean a heavier crop will satisfy everyone? You could be forgiven for asking. Just as we all start reaching for the potato masher we are then informed that someone is holding back two million tons in order to keep the prices high! We can expect one million surplus spuds at the end of the year.

A touching scene, one lot feverishly fertilising while the other lot is waiting to make a mountain out of their ‘molehills.’ Sounds like a load of compost to me. ‘Someone somewhere is making a killing,’ says one MP.

As the mother of a growing family, I try to avoid any cuts in food, though luxuries are the first to go. But it seems that the potato, once considered a vital part of our daily diet, is now a luxury we can no longer afford. In future our intake will be considerably reduced, and after seeing a tray of what looked like old pebbles half buried in the sand hiding behind a ticket marked 20p a pound in a shop this morning – giving them up is going to be easy.

It wouldn’t do my ‘spares’ any harm to cut out this starch friend altogether. But although it’s ‘pasta’ joke I will even eat spaghetti before paying this ransom. Yorkshire puddings and savoury rices will accompany our weekly meat.

Once I could look at my bulging trolley and ask, do we really eat all this? Now when I compare the bulging cash total with my few scattered items, my temperamental outbursts must be entertaining for everyone.

‘I shop anywhere, prices don’t bother me,’ boasted one shopper as I steadied myself against a supermarket freezer after seeing the coffee prices. Current prices would bother me, even if I could afford them.

For a good wholesome economical stand-in you can’t beat home-made bread. Ignore the agnostics – believe me it is cheaper and it tastes better. Your man will adore its yeasty flavour: a whiff of hot bread has saved me from many a telephone bill explosion. It’s so easy a child could tackle it. If I didn’t enjoy baking it so much, mine probably would.

To help wean you from the potato I’m even prepared to pass on my coveted recipe. It takes up very little time. I usually mix mine after lunch then place it in the top of the airing cupboard to double its size while I attack something else.

When it looks all swollen and about to give birth, you start bashing it about the kitchen table. Pretend it is a potato grower, knock all the wind out of it. When you start feeling better, form it into whatever shape you fancy, place on a greased tray for another half hour, then bake in a blistering hot oven.

From three pounds of flour I make sixteen small baps, two elongated French loaves and two pizza bases - filled with onion, cheese and tomato topping, these are delicious with a winter salad. Or given the mood, I knead a few currants, a handful of sugar and a sprinkling of spices into some of the dough for hot cross buns. With a syrup glaze on top and butter oozing out generously from their middles they make a satisfying dessert – when I am not on a diet, that is.

Bread Recipe: 3lb plain flour; 3 teaspoons salt; 3 teaspoons sugar; 1oz yeast; 1½ pints tepid water; ¼ milk; 2oz lard.

Mix one-third of liquid with sugar and yeast, leave 15 minutes in a warm place. Rub lard into the flour and salt. When yeast mixture is frothy, pour into well in centre of flour and mix well. Knead for ten minutes, place in covered bowl in warm place for approximately ninety minutes. Knead again, shape, leave another thirty minutes. Small rolls in top of hot oven for fifteen minutes, loaves twenty minutes, on one side then turn over for a further ten.