The Potato: A Blessing—and Otherwise—for St. Patrick’s Day and Beyond

[riky]

The Potato: A Blessingâ€"and Otherwiseâ€"for St. Patrick’s Day and Beyond
      

As an American of Irish ancestry, I harbor mixed feelings about the potato. It is an essential foodstuff, of course, and, properly cooked, it can be delicious.

Still, it was indirectly responsible for the cruel diaspora that nearly emptied the mother country of its people and sent them off to all corners of the world, where, in the words of the lyricist and onetime Pogue Phil Chevron's song "Thousands Are Sailing" (see the video), we would forevermore “celebrate the land that makes us refugees.”
         

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