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How The Uber Tuber Changed Britain

Press release: 23/07/2008

From their arrival on these shores in the 16th century to the current day, potatoes have played a crucial role in both the lives and diets of the British people.  From the desperate days of WWII to today’s problem of soaring food prices, people have relied on potatoes as a healthy and cheap way to enjoy a healthy, balanced diet.

Food historian Ivan Day sheds some light on the nation’s long-term love affair with the store cupboard staple:

Tudor Viagra – Potatoes Encouraged Greedy Bodily Lust

Early medical writers refer to the aphrodisiacal effects of both common potatoes and sweet potatoes.  In the first English description of the tubers there is a summary of their properties, “They comfort, nourish, and strengthen the body, procuring bodily lust, and that with greedinesse." (i)

Shakespeare had this in mind when he scripted a flirtation scene in The Merry Wives of Windsor (c.1600). “Let the sky rain potatoes”. (ii)

Earliest English Potato Recipes Were For Sweet Dishes

Many early cookery books have recipes for potatoes. Nearly all of these are for sweet dishes. How about a “Potato Pie” with a filling of potatoes, raisins, dates, mango, citron, sherry and sugar? In a 1744 recipe “To fry Potatoes”, slices of boiled potatoes are coated in egg, fried and served with a sauce of butter, sugar and rose water. (iii)

Potato Sausages Anyone?

Another 1744 recipe instructs the cook to fill sausage skins with mashed potato – a minimalist, bangers and mash combo that might appeal nowadays to the Heston Blumenthal school of cookery. (iv)

Potato Pete – Forgotten War Hero

“Potato Pete was the war-time hero you could eat”.  Pete was a cartoon character dreamt up by the Ministry of Food in the difficult days of World War II.  He led the campaign on the home-font to encourage the population to both cultivate and eat more spuds.

Originating in the Andes of South America 8,000 years ago, the potato landed on the shores of Britain in the 1590s and by 1597 was being grown in London, soon becoming popular the country.
In those early days, potatoes fulfilled a need for a food which was cheap, nutritious, easy to grow and would crop well, even on small pieces of land available to rent – much like today.
Kathryn Race, from the Potato Council, commented: “Potatoes have played a crucial role in the diet of Britons and over many centuries have been one of the most flexible foods in our kitchen.

“Potatoes are very rich in vitamin C - a single medium-sized potato contains about half the recommended daily intake and contains a fifth of the recommended daily value of potassium.


“In the current economic climate, there is an extraordinary heritage of value for money potato recipes that is crying out to be rediscovered and the future of the potato looks bright.”

Home-grown potatoes were vitally important during the two World Wars in supplying the population with essential nutrients.  With a medium sized potato providing more than a third of your daily Vitamin B6 intake, careful planning of agriculture, especially potato growing, became a key plank in the British strategy for survival
From 1939-1945 the acreage of potato production in Great Britain doubled and the government conscripted Potato Pete - the Ministry of Food’s cartoon superhero - to encourage the nation to eat more potatoes as their health benefits for war ravaged population became paramount. 
By 1948 production in Britain was peaking with almost 400,000 hectares under cultivation.
Today potatoes are celebrated as versatile, inexpensive and are increasingly the choice of hard-pressed mums feeling the pinch during the current credit crisis.

The Future…

A key challenge facing Britain is ensuring food security for present and future generations, while protecting the natural resources on which we all depend. The potato will be an important part of efforts to meet those challenges.

According to the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the UN, the potato produces more nutritious food quicker, on less land, and in harsher climates than any other major crop - up to 85 percent of the plant is edible human food, compared to around 50% in cereals.

The UK trend consultants, Future Laboratory’s new report into future trends in the food industry predicts a fertile future for the potato.  Their Futures Report 2008 predicts the rise of new 21st century attitude to thrift that harks back to the canny approach of our grandmothers, and places economical yet high-quality and healthy produce at the heart of our diets. 

The ‘New Thrifter’s’ identified in the report confronts the economic downturn by committing to more considered shopping, eating with integrity and pro-actively avoiding waste. 


Since their introduction to the British plate in the late 1600s, potatoes have played a continual role as one of the nation’s favourite staple foods.  Good value for money, quick and easy to cook, and providing a wealth of essential nutrients, British potatoes are the ultimate taste sensation that have stood the test of culinary time.