MALIGA, THE POTATO?

Photo credits: www.map.seedmap.org & www.myrecipies.com
Memory tags: Besides, Darwin’s account of the potato fields of Los Region Lagos. Besides, I was blown away by the fact that the even a potato chip had a recorded history and how easily the label of being the first is claimed. Nobody, simply nobody made a potato chip before this? Seriously??

Chip, chop, boil, mash! It remains the world’s favourite vegetable! Boiled or mashed with dollops of ghee, butter or cream! Over the festive seasons just past, it must have appeared in various avatars. Before the food is blessed during festivals and then served to mortals, the ubiquitous saviours packed as crisps, help us manage hunger pangs . We are told the original potato chip recipe was created near Saratoga Springs, New York, on August 24, 1853 by chef George Crum at Moon's Lake House . Customers kept sending back fried potato slices that were too soggy. Craftily, he sliced them so thin they could not be eaten with a fork!The dinners loved this new version and the potato chip or crisps was born! Whatever the history, or its claim to being the “first”(!!); a holiday without a large obese packet/packets of chips with a mayonaise or tomato dip, a book and thou, it cannot be paradise enow! Curried, stewed, caressed in gravy with poppy seeds or in a hundred combinations or just by itself, it has become an indispensable part of food pedestrian, everyday or royal!

Where did this tuber spring from? To the south of Central Chile in a region called Los Region Lagos where the Chilean coastal range runs parallel to the Pacific coast and the Andes Mountains is the home of the potato. The land wet, misty, impenetrable, peat covered and the fertile volcanic soil has little cultivation due to the lack of sunshine. On thick beds of sandy soil with broken shells wherever the shade of trees is not too dense potatoes are grown. This is Solanum tuberosum tuberosum, indigenous to Chiloe Archipelago, its cultivation by the local indigenous people dating back 10,000 years. The wildest of Indian tribes seemed to have original names for it, like Maliga, which supports the fact that it was indigenous to these islands. Modern day DNA analysis extends this support through the entire potato genetic map published in September 2009 DNA. European travellers to the new world brought it back to Spain. Today it is the world's fourth largest food crop with average global citizen eating about 33 kg of potato in one year.

If crops travel so do their names. The ‘batata’ of the batata vada on the Mumbai streets goes right back to is native root. The English word potato comes from Spanish patata. This in turn is a compound of the South American native words batata (sweet potato) and the papa (potato). No where is the potato more alluring than in street food. Fish and chips in England, aloo chaat on chowpati, hot pakoras in Shillong on Keating Road. Samosas anywhere, anytime ! To order, wait impatiently, juggle smoking hot pakoras, swirl them in fiery hot chutney,and- the soul couldn’t want more on Earth! Unless of course you have begun the day in with mouth watering ghee slathered aloo paratha with a tangy pickle and cool curd on the side. It is a cold weather crop whose nutritive value is actually far better than a lot of similar starchy foods. Packed with a host of vitamins -B and C included, iron, some insoluble starch, 26 g of starch and only 0.1g fat on average makes it excellent food value!

It becomes the proverbial waist-liner thanks to additives. So here is a perfectly delectable waistliner, when you feel reckless! Boil small potatoes in lightly salted water. Drain, saute in olive oil. As they gently brown, throw in finely chopped garlic and chilli flakes. Let the garlic soften but not burn. Remove from fire. Grate in cheese to your heart’s content. Generosity is the name of the game ! Put under hot grill or microwave to just let the cheese not appear so generous . Serve. Don’t use forks. Toothpicks are a slower way to waist-linning!

Main reference:

1. Gaurangi Maitra and Veena Tandon, “Travelling With Darwin: Evolution Of An Evolutionary” Published by National Academy for Sciences, India 2009 ISBN:978-81-905548-1-7.
2. Charles Darwin, “ Voyage of the Beagle” Published by Penguin Books, 1989.ISBN 0-14-043268-y-91101
3. Wikipedia