Food the World Over

I swear I didn't know this on Monday when I declared this to be Mashed Potato Week, but the United Nations has officially declared 2008 to be the International Year of the Potato. Is that a coincidence, or what? That just goes to show how important the spud is. The Spanish brought it to Europe from South America in the 1500s, making it a staple in diets all over the continent. But now, China and India harvest more than anybody else, and the UN is hoping it will become an important food in developing countries as their population explodes beyond their food supply.

The spud has become a universal food, which makes sense to me—I have had potatoes in their many forms all of my life. A few years ago, we hosted an exchange student from France for three weeks. The poor girl, Sophie, barely spoke English, and we only knew a handful of French words—hello and pen and book and window are about all I could remember from my single semester in college, and you can't have much of a conversation with those. We did a lot of puzzles and watched movies with subtitles and stared at each other in awkward silent moments. But then I made what I called a "traditional American meal" for Sophie—meat loaf, buttered peas, and mashed potatoes—and the meal translated. It was as familiar and comfortable to her as it was to us. Later, when I told my friends that I had made a traditional American meal for our guest, they said, "what did you make? Meatloaf and mashed potatoes?" See, I thought. Everybody knows mashed potatoes.

It's the year of the potato, and the world is harvesting 315 million tons a year. To enjoy with some mash, I suggest we ship a boatload of Mr. Potato Heads to every member nation in the UN and see if they think we're all insane. Or maybe the little guys with their removable features will translate.