In Paris
THE HUMBLE potato is at the centre of a virulent debate between French gastronomes, with prices for the most highly prized variety reached €10 a kilo (about ₤ 3.30 per pound) this week, smashing all previous records. In so doing, La Primeur de l’Ile de Ré – a new potato grown in the sandy soils of Ré island, off the Atlantic coast – became a mustering point for the country’s food snobs and a cause of consternation at markets across the country.
Once dismissed as unworthy of Gallic cuisine, the potato has enjoyed a transformation over the past decade and La Primeur de l’Ile de Ré in particular is now an essential ingredient at Parisian dinner parties. However foodies, who agree on the quality of the variety, are divided as to whether any potato is worth the current prices. “This is a wonderful new potato. It has a slight hazelnut taste and an iodized flavour that makes it so good, ” said Clé mentine Virault, a cookery writer and the author of Ten Ways to Prepare Potatoes. But the spiraling cost of the Ré potato has provoked uproar from Paris to its native western France. Many commentators argue that the popularity and prices are insufferably bound in snobbery. Jean-Paul Thorez, a potatoes specialist who writes books about them and grows them, was in no doubt. “It’s all about snobbery. The Ré potato is of very good quality, that’s obvious. But if I was to plant the same varieties in my garden, they would probably be just as good. At the moment, when I go to the market I buy new potatoes from Morocco. They cost €2 a kilo and I find them excellent.” Such talk would verge on heresy on the island, where 200 members of the Confré rie de la Pomme de Terre Primeur march through Ars-en-Ré, one of the biggest towns on the island, every year and pledge allegiance to their favourite vegetable. They say it is best boiled and eaten with a sprinkling of salt from the island. They have even persuaded the French Government to award their potato the coveted appellation d’origine controlé e status.
(from The Times)
Notes € - euro (the unit of money used in most European Union countries) mustering point – (in this context) an integral part, necessary product La Primeur de l’Ile de Ré – (фр.) новый обитатель острова Ре Confré rie de la Pomme de Terre Primeur – (фр.) братство молодого картофеля appellation d’origine controlé e – (фр.) сертификат качества Gallic – French (or typically French)
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Its supporters say the 3, 000 tonnes produced each spring by 35 of the island’s farmers are of a quality unmatched by any other tuber. They have created a brotherhood to worship the Ré potato in an annual ritual held each May in the spud’s home town.
