Potato

            Potatoes did not enter the international cooking scene until the sixteenth century, when Spaniards in Peru came across Incas eating this all-American vegetable. The potato was enthusiastically adopted in Europe. By the nineteenth century the economy of Ireland had become so dependent on the potato that a failure of the potato crop brought the famine that started an enormous migration of Irish to North America.

            Potato flour (also known as potato starch) is made of the entire cooked, dried, and ground potato. It is very useful item to have in the kitchen. An ideal thickener for sauces, gravies, and soups, it cooks quickly and smoothly, leaving no raw taste (as wheat flour has a tendency to do). One teaspoon of potato flour will do the thickening work of 3 teaspoons of wheat flour. Potato flour can serve as a binder for ground meat and vegetable patties. It can also be used in bread making to condition the dough and to give added nutrients (potato flour is rich in vitamin C, potassium, and iron); as much as one-quarter of the wheat flour in any bread recipe can be replaced with an equal amount of potato flour.