Open Writing

It's getting on for 70 years since Philip, who had ginger hair, decided to call me Carrots. I had brown hair. He said Carrots rhymed with Barratt. I told him it didn't but, as he was my best pal at infant school, and came to my aid when other boys picked fights with me, I accepted this nickname.

Charles Dickens gave one of his young characters an even more unfortunate nickname. When the boy David Copperfield was obliged to work at the warehouse of his dreaded stepfather Mr Murdstone, a friend told him our 'principal associate would be another boy whom he introduced by the—to me—extraordinary name of Mealy Potatoes. I discovered, however, that this youth had not been christened by that name, but that it had been bestowed upon him in the warehouse, on account of his complexion, which was pale or mealy'

In 1859, about a year after David Copperfield was published, the first edition of Mrs Beeton's Book of Household Management appeared in bookshops. Mrs Beeton has a lot to say about potatoes. They appear 28 times in her Analytical Index, in entries such as bread, fritters, pasty, rissoles, salad, snow, soup, baked, fried, mashed and boiled. She even has a recipe for potato pudding which has sherry and the juice and rind of a small lemon as ingredients.

According to Mrs Beeton:
'This valuable esculent, next to wheat, is of the greatest importance in the eye of the political economist. From no other crop that can be cultivated does the public derive so much benefit; and it has been demonstrated that an acre of potatoes will feed double the number of people that can be fed from an acre of wheat.'

They were grown in Europe from around 1570 but John Gerard's Historie of Plants (1636) seems, on first sight, to be a little confused about them. He also shows that there has been confusion about the use of the apostrophe from the time it was first adopted in English. There are two separate descriptions of potatoes.

'This plant (which is called of some Skyrrets of Peru) is generally of us called Potatus or Potato's... The Potato's grow in India, Barbarie, Spaine, and other hot countries... [it is also called] Batata, Camotes, Amotes and Ignames... These roots may serve as a ground or foundation whereon the cunning Confectioner or Sugar-Baker may worke and frame many comfortable delicat conserves and resorative sweet-meats.'

Sweetmeats? Is he really talking about potatoes? In the next section, he writes:

'Virginian Potato... groweth naturally in America, where it was first discovered... The Indians call this plant Pappus, meaning the roots; by which name also the common Potatoes are called in those Indian countries... Because it hath not only the shape and proportion of Potato's, but also the pleasant taste and vertues of the same, we may call it in English Potatoes of America or Virginia.'

In the first extracts, Gerard is writing about sweet potatoes, hence their use by Confectioners and Sugar-Bakers. It seems that potatoes and sweet potatoes arrived in Europe at about the same time, during the 16th century. The sweet potato was supposed to have aphrodisiac powers, presumably because of its shape and size.

Mrs Beeton has no recipes for sweet potatoes. She comments, 'The sweet potato is but rarely eaten in Britain; but in America it is often served at table, and is there very highly esteemed'.

I don't know if they are now eaten in Britain, 150 years later, but they're certainly popular in Australia.

William Shakespeare, writing at around the same time as John Gerard, mentions a few vegetables in his plays, including:

2 times each: cabbage, lettuce, pea, potato, radish, turnip
3 times: bean
4 times: garlic
5 times: onion

His references to potatoes are not straightforward. They could have erotic implications — just think of the shape and size of the sweet potato.

The Merry Wives of Windsor, Act 5, Scene 5:'My doe with the black scut! Let the sky rain potatoes; let it thunder to the tune of Greensleeves, hail kissing-comfits, and snow eringoes; let there come a tempest of provocation, I will shelter me here.'

Troilus and Cressida, Act 5, Scene 2:
'How the devil luxury, with his fat rump and potato finger, tickles these together! Fry, lechery, fry!'

The Bard does not mention carrots. Perhaps that's just as well, when you consider the bawdy jokes he could have made about their shape and size. But my pal Philip and I had no idea about that sort of thing when he named me Carrots, I assure you.

And I'm glad he didn't call me Spud, one definition of which is 'a short or stumpy person or thing'.

© Copyright Brian Barratt 2011