Potatoes: when they are still good

Potatoes in my house live in the dark, not in the sun by the window and not in a plastic bag in the warmth. In the light they turn green and decide it is time to grow. I break off sprouts if there are few and the potato is still firm. If the sprouts are a forest and the tuber is soft and light — that is no longer supper, that is a story about the bin. I do not keep apples next to them: apples breathe in a way that wakes potatoes faster. Let apples live in a bowl, potatoes in the dark.

At the shop near home I take ones with dry skin, without black pits, without a wet sack. A wet sack smells of cellar in the wrong way. Small potatoes — for frying whole, large — for mash and soup, so I am not peeling a hundred. New potatoes, in spring and summer, I wash more firmly, sometimes peel very thinly: the skin is thin there and smells of the field. Green patches I cut away generously, not “a little scrape”. Bitter green I do not need on the table. Black spots inside I cut out; if the potato is all hollow I do not rescue it for three spoons of mash. Mash should smell of butter and warmth, not of cellar.

Different potatoes cook differently. Old ones fall apart by themselves, new ones hold their shape. For salad I do not take the kind that collapses into porridge. For mash — the opposite, let them collapse. Salt in the water, sometimes a bay leaf; bay leaf loves potato. I drain, give a couple of minutes for the steam to leave, then butter and milk. Milk warm, not icy from the fridge: otherwise the mash is grey and offended. Fried potatoes love a dry surface and a dislike of crowds in the pan. A mountain will stew. I cut, I dry, a spoon of oil, I do not touch them for the first minutes. The smell of crust will say when it is time to turn. For the children this potato is often dearer than any “proper” sides. I put a cucumber beside it and that is all. I do not peel new potatoes until they are stripped white: a scrape of the skin, butter, dill — and they are already food, not a store for mash. Old ones I do not fry unpeeled: too many eyes, and bitterness likes to hide. Jacket potatoes on a Sunday are sometimes simply with salt and dill: the skin crunches, the kettle boils, butter on the table. I check the sprouts in the cupboard once a week, not when the whole kitchen already smells of raw earth.

Potato in my house is food you do not have to explain. Do you keep it in the dark — or does it sometimes turn green on the windowsill too, “until there is somewhere to put it”?