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Historic (rec.food.historic) Discussing and discovering how food was made and prepared way back when--From ancient times down until (& possibly including or even going slightly beyond) the times when industrial revolution began to change our lives. |
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getting the green bits off spuds
I was peeling potatoes this evening and remembered something from
my childhood in London in the early 1950s. I was in the kitchen with my grandma peeling potatoes, and she was utterly pernickety about getting every last speck of green off them. I (aged in single figures) thought this was bizarre. My grandma was born in the 1880s in Glasgow of Irish parents. She was bright and energetic (kept all her marbles to the end of her long life) but she was the worst cook I have ever personally encountered; she lost her sense of smell at the age of 16 and spent her remaining 80 years not even trying to compensate. Everything got boiled to make sure it was dead. So taste wasn't an issue. She thought the green bits were poisonous. OK, they are. But people don't get obvious acute poisoning from them; they're mildly anticholinergic. Maybe they cause nervous system damage in long-term consumption. And there seems to be some association between mothers eating solanine from potatoes and their children having neural-tube defects, but that wasn't known in the Fifties. My gran didn't grow up surrounded by people turning blue and dying of convulsions from not peeling their spuds right. What would an intelligent working-class Glasgow-Irish woman of that generation have seen as the problem? (She was officially Catholic but had no religious impulses or superstitions that I ever noticed; she was about as folklore-proof as Snopes). ==== j a c k at c a m p i n . m e . u k === <http://www.campin.me.uk> ==== Jack Campin, 11 Third St, Newtongrange EH22 4PU, Scotland == mob 07800 739 557 CD-ROMs and free stuff: Scottish music, food intolerance, and Mac logic fonts ****** I killfile Google posts - email me if you want to be whitelisted ****** |
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getting the green bits off spuds
On Sat, 20 Jun 2009 23:09:22 +0100, Jack Campin - bogus address
> wrote: >I was peeling potatoes this evening and remembered something from >my childhood in London in the early 1950s. I was in the kitchen >with my grandma peeling potatoes, and she was utterly pernickety >about getting every last speck of green off them. I (aged in >single figures) thought this was bizarre. > >My grandma was born in the 1880s in Glasgow of Irish parents. She >was bright and energetic (kept all her marbles to the end of her >long life) but she was the worst cook I have ever personally >encountered; she lost her sense of smell at the age of 16 and spent >her remaining 80 years not even trying to compensate. Everything >got boiled to make sure it was dead. So taste wasn't an issue. >She thought the green bits were poisonous. > >OK, they are. But people don't get obvious acute poisoning from >them; they're mildly anticholinergic. Maybe they cause nervous >system damage in long-term consumption. And there seems to be some >association between mothers eating solanine from potatoes and their >children having neural-tube defects, but that wasn't known in the >Fifties. My gran didn't grow up surrounded by people turning blue >and dying of convulsions from not peeling their spuds right. > >What would an intelligent working-class Glasgow-Irish woman of that >generation have seen as the problem? (She was officially Catholic >but had no religious impulses or superstitions that I ever noticed; >she was about as folklore-proof as Snopes). > >==== j a c k at c a m p i n . m e . u k === <http://www.campin.me.uk> ==== >Jack Campin, 11 Third St, Newtongrange EH22 4PU, Scotland == mob 07800 739 557 >CD-ROMs and free stuff: Scottish music, food intolerance, and Mac logic fonts >****** I killfile Google posts - email me if you want to be whitelisted ****** Mrs Beeton, on page 597 of her 1880 edition of book of "The Book of Household Management" , states: "Potatoes which have been exposed to the air and become green are very unwholesome." Fernie, on page 575 of his 1905 "Meals Medicnal" writes:"Young green Potatoes, if exposed to daylight are made poisonous thereby . . ." So the idea your grandma had was around well before her time. Your grandma's boiling vegetables to death reminds me of my mother's cooking. She had an obsession that roughage on vegetables caused indigestion. So not only was everything boiled to death, but tomatoes, broad beans and potatoes were all peeled to death. The result? Constipation. The cure? Doses of senna tablets. |
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It sounds as if you may have some algae growing in your water piping or storage tank. You should have the system sanitized and flushed. While this may not be an immediate problem, the potential is there for some illness. Cooking with boiling water will kill any bacteria/algae.
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