Will’s World: In praise of the not-so-humble spud

There are a few crucial things that you need when cooking the quintessential British Sunday roast.

First there are the various high-quality ingredients that you and your fellow farmers have worked so hard to produce.

Second is a nice glass of red wine to drink while you’re doing the cooking (or possibly two, depending on whether you have young children and how they’re behaving that day).

See also: 4 tips for successful potato establishment this spring

About the author

Will Evans

Farmers Weekly Opinion writer

Will Evans farms beef cattle and arable crops across 200ha near Wrexham in North Wales in partnership with his wife and parents.

Read more articles by Will Evans

And third is an eager sense of anticipation of being surrounded by good company as you enjoy the finished product together in a few hours’ time.

But when one of those essential ingredients is missing, the whole thing catastrophically falls apart. 

So it did for us last Sunday, when we realised at the very last minute that we didn’t have any potatoes in the house. And what’s a roast dinner without the roast potatoes?

A false promise. A fraud. A complete and utter disappointment. A Boris Johnson. Roast dinner? More like ghost dinner.

Getting a roasting

So, what did we do? Well, obviously we did what all decent and long-married couples do and blamed each other.

I was supposed to have picked some up from the bloke who sells them in the market, she said, while she was supposed to have picked them up from town, I said.

But neither of us did, and that’s how we ended up furiously arguing across the kitchen table over a lack of potatoes, as if it was an episode of The Good Life.

I half expected Margo and Jerry to come strolling through the door at one point. (Ask your parents, younger readers.)

Still, once we’d calmed down and reluctantly agreed that we were equally to blame, we set to work with what we did have.

She’d deal with the gravy and an array of vegetables, while my job was to cook a beautiful silverside beef joint and the Yorkshire puddings.

There aren’t many things in life I can do better than the present Mrs Evans – almost none, in fact – but making Yorkshire puddings is one of them, much to her extreme displeasure.

For some reason, she can never get them to rise, and they always come out of the oven as flat as they went in.

So much so, in fact, that our daughters and I have taken to calling them “Cambridgeshire puddings” (oh, how she laughs!).

While I don’t like to brag, mine are a thing to behold. Golden brown and crunchy on the outside, light and fluffy on the inside, and just the right shape.

A phone call from the team at MasterChef will surely be coming soon – if I don’t get murdered in my sleep first.

Spudless wonder

A short time later, with the cooking done, beef carved, marital harmony fully restored, and children rounded up, we all sat down together to eat. 

But while it was all undoubtedly delicious, with the leeks in cheese sauce a particularly big hit (yes, she outdid me once again), without the roast potatoes it just wasn’t the same.

This got me reflecting on the value of the humble spud, and how they improve our lives.

Not only are they one of the best bits of a roast dinner, without them there’d be no sausages and mash, no fish and chips, no neeps and tatties, no cottage pie or shepherd’s pie, no hash browns, no crisps, no bubble and squeak, and no French fries. It’s almost unthinkable.

Humble? No, they’re a superfood. And all for £10 for a 25kg bag. You just need to remember to buy them in the first place…