Resident plant pathologist here: Potato blight is neither a fungus nor a bacteria. The pathogen itself is phytophthora infestans which is what is known as an oomycete. Very similar in structure and function to a fungus but biochemically a bit more similar to an algae. Phytophthoras do persist in the soil and can survive for years until soil conditions and a suitable host come around. Its a pretty tough pest to deal with.
One thing to add is the fact that phytophthora infestans make zoospores. And for those who don't know what zoospores are, they are spores with the ability to move around in water to put things simply. And so if you waterlog the soil, say with a humid, wet year, and you have some zoospores about they are going to be able to easily swim to the roots of the potato plants. Bad stuff! It's also part of why ensuring good soil drainage and water management is key for growing potatoes.
When we were homeless one of the most useful things we were given was a huge jar of instant mashed potatoes. It wasn't much, but all we needed was some water and we could put food in our stomachs and the jar made it last a long time so it was a relief for a chunk of time.
Lightly processed potatoes are amazing in that they're one of the most filling foods imaginable (and so an amazing diet food for people who need to lose weight), quite tasty, pretty cheap, but still calorie dense enough to be satisfying and actual sustenance, not just extras. The average height of Swedes increased once the potato was widely adopted, as far as I know.
Potatoes weren't the cash crop in Ireland. The cash crop was wheat, most of which was exported to Britain. Potatoes were what was grown on the smallholdings, to feed the family
@@BreitbachTheGerman A famine is a lack of food being pulled from the ground. There was no lack of food being grown in Ireland at the time, just a lack of humanity from the British landlords
@@BreitbachTheGerman yes, native irish ate potatoes. But most of them owned no land, and were tenant farmers for (mostly english and anglo-irish) landlords. Mostly they grew wheat, and even during the famine exported it to the UK
@@findlayyoung4 That's exactly the issue. They were growing plenty of food during that time. But they weren't allowed to eat any of it to be able to afford to stay on the land, and were dependent on potatoes for their own garden crops to live while their landlords demanded barely affordable rents.
@@BreitbachTheGerman You don't eat cash crops - you sell them. Ireland was forced by the Brits to export large quantities of wheat and other foodstuffs, while the Irish people starved. Bear that in mind when you consider the modern history of Ireland and it's much easier to understand the tremendous ill will the Irish had for the Brits after the bulk of the island became independent.
My grandmother had interesting ways to cook potatoes. She would peel and dice them. Put them in a pot with salt, butter and water to cover. Cook them almost as a soup and serve. She would then make mashed potatoes from those leftovers. Because they had a broth you could stretch your milk. She would also add flour onions and an egg to mashed potatoes and make latkes with them. Potatoes are versatile in leftovers to help keep you from getting bored eating the same things over and over.
It can also be used as the starter of other dishes. A little bit shredded meat or diced vegetables. The idea of hamburger sandwiches answers seems wasteful to me, for instance. A little bit ground up and added to a soup or shepherds pie. Those and potato soup are still regular dishes in my home I love recipes that let me stretch ingredients as much as possible.
You can kind of see the connection though. "Scalloped" or the French "Gratin" simply refers to being baked in a dish and having a crust. So both this old mashed version and the modern sliced with cheese version fit the definition. Obviously cheese makes it better so it's a natural evolution. 😁
Yes, similar ingredients but entirely different preparation and presentation! Frankly, I had often wondered why the dish was called "scallop" or "scalloped" potatoes--now I know!
Been watching this channel a long time. The first few times he was a solo host it was clear he wasn't as comfortable with it, still figuring out his approach. I'm not sure at what point that shifted, but I was thinking during this video that he's really adapt at it now and with his own and his solo videos seem very natural.
As a youngster, I picked my share of turned-up potatoes off the ground to earn some spare change. My uncles were developing a very large agri-business and one of them told me a good bit about potato nutrition. This was at a time when 'experts' were saying potatoes were 'bad' due to their carbohydrate content. Those experts ignored all of the minerals and whatever were along for the ride. I'm baking skin-on potatoes for dinner tonight!
My big treat as a kid was when my father was reheating mashed potatoes on frying pan. He always made big pancake out of it, make both sides brown. And I scrape scrispy parts for myself.
Same. For a time, my daily lunch was a baked potato. Id add some veggies and a little cheese to it. One of my colleagues commented that she'd be tired eating the same thing for lunch every day. I replied that I had other times like this one where I had the same thing for lunch, and that was true. What was also true that I didn't say was that if I wanted to eat lunch, I had my potato, veg, and bit of cheese or nothing at all. I had a season or two of "nothing at all," and much prefer the lunch potato.
That was me in my early twenties out of college. Wish I had the potatoes. Resorted to a packet of ramen every two days, a multivitamin, water, and sleep for the other two meals. A lot of people know me as a cynic, but they also know no one around me will go hungry since living those months.
My family has been here in rural Vermont for generations, every farm (including ours) had a potato patch that was far away from any settlements, usual off in the woods. The idea was to escape the blight by isolation.
To spice up you mash even more add some garlic and freshly ground black pepper. Very simple and easy and not something they would not have access to. But it makes a BIG difference! You could even add ... nutmeg.
I harvested 1000lbs. of russets from the garden last year, and they are still holding nicely in the root cellar. Winters are long where I live, and potatoes warm the soul. My cows love them, too.
In general most famine are man-made. While crop-failures and the likes can cause bad times it's usually a combination of human factors that bring it into mass starvation. In Ireland's case; 1. Almost all grains produced on the island was shipped to England to feed the rural people, which made buying wheat, barley or oat above the poor farmer's pay 2. The Corn laws of Britain forbade food imports from overseas to protect the farmer's (by which I mean wealthy plantation owners) income 3. Generations of unfair land laws pushed farmers into ever smaller and smaller plots where they could not diversify their crops and many were landless workers paid a pittance working on distant landlord's plantations. 4. A general disdain aimed at the Irish and viewing the situation as their fault, often comparing them to vermin that when the disaster happened it took months for even token efforts at relief to be attempted. So even before the blight Ireland was already heading toward a disaster, the failure of the potato crop simply pushed it past breaking point. Without potatoes remaining food prices skyrocketed, the corn laws prevented any serious attempt at relief through imports, tenants became unable to afford rent and were expelled losing whatever little they owned in favor of further consolidation of land under English hands.
@@Nerathul1 Yes. I agree with you. I was simply saying that there was also starvation from the blight elsewhere on a far lesser scale for deaths, but still relevant to the video and the issues of overreliance on one crop.
0:18 Or, as in Ireland, it is the only crop that their landlord allows them to grow. And then the landlords continued to export the remaining potatoes to England during the Great Hunger/Potato Famine because profit was more important than lives.
Ireland was the bread basket for England and Western Europe. They produced enough wheat during this blight to feed the Irish population three times over, but all of it was seized and sold by the English land barons for profit.
@@DucasoIreland imported more grain than it exported during the famine. The only year it exported more was in 1845 and the scale of the potato crop loss only came to light in the late fall and wasn’t as severe as in ensuing years.
So the 'Only allowed to grow potatoes' is incorrect. The farmers did grow wheat, barley and other things but these were exclusively for export. They had tiny garden patches allocated to them and potatoes were the only food crops that produced sufficient food to feed the families the calorie/acre is unmatched. And because all the grain was exported its price was far above what tenant farmers could ever afford when the potatoes failed.
I was able to meet Ryan in person at the fort loudon market fair in Pennsylvania this weekend. Great person he's exactly the guy on the videos. 💯 class act.
Love your channel. I watch these videos often as appetizers before preparing food myself. I’ve started growing lettuce, tomatoes, potatoes and herbs in a garden myself, too. You have a really good narrating voice, too. Keep it up
Sadly with the way English administration treated the Irish, potato really was the only choice for most. Top that with the British government using Malthusian theories on calamities being a natural element of human development as excuses to not help them during the famine.
Always fascinating to see Scotland, which was a willing and able participant in the Empire, being left out of this debate. Indeed, my maternal ancestors were from what is today NI but were of Scottish Protestant descent. They weren’t wealthy enough to be a cause but they surely were not the victims either. There was nothing Irish about my Gr-Grandfather.
Also the English who were sympathetic to the Irish had to contend with the Corn laws made to protect english farmers from foreign imports making relief through charity essentially impossible as food could not be brought into ireland legally.
Left over Mashed potatoes can also become so many other dishes: potato soup, latkes, fish patties and so much more. I only peel my potatoes if they are old (shriveled), or starting to go a little green (pared down to clean center), as the skin has a lot of nutrients. Shredded carrots, minced broccoli florets, minced and sautéed onions, parsnips or rutabaga if affordable, shredded cheese... Yes all high end but so much nicer to look at and taste.
The famine was caused by the economic system in place where Catholic Irish were forced tenants of mostly Protestant Anglo-Irish Landlords. Under that system, any money made from labouring on the large farms growing other crops like grain was taken to pay the rent, and the tenant farmers had to grow their own food to feed their families on the tiny patches of land allotted to them, which meant only the most calorie efficient food would meet the needs of their families. This meant using the Lumper variety of potato that had huge productivity in Irish soils, and most Irish peasants lived on a diet of almost entirely Lumper potatoes and buttermilk. This led to disaster because the genetic uniformity of the Lumper meant it was especially vulnerable to the rapid spread of blight. The potato crop failed, but Ireland was still exporting food to Britain, so the famine, like all famines, existed partially because of an upset in the environment but mostly because of the economic and political systems in place. The famine was a total demographic catastrophe for Ireland, resulting in a massive loss of population due to starvation and mostly emigration. Irish language speakers were especially targeted and pushed to emigrate, which nearly killed the language off. The population dropped from 8 million to 2.4 million at it's lowest point, and to this day Ireland is one of the only countries in the world where the population now is less than the population in 1840. This was entirely because the political administration of Ireland from the UK was incompetent. It fed pro-independence sentiment and is probably why Ireland is no longer part of the UK today.
Never blame 'incompetence' on what can be explained as simple malice. In this case, the British were actively attempting to depopulate the Irish nation for the sake of further subjugating them.
The Irish get a bit tetchy if you call it the potato famine. They call it The Great Hunger. It truly was appaling. There's a very good book called Black Potatoes by Susan Campbell Bartoletti which goes into the harrowing details.
@@trigularity I guess though, that without the potato, they wouldn't have settled in Ireland anyway. They couldn't have. So I think it's reasonable that the Irish kind of "own" the potato.
@hmq9052 they lacked the skills or environment or both the produce the cultivars of the south americans. the sheer variety of the natural potatoe would have surely resisted blight. they unintentionally bottlecked the genetic variety, then relied solely on it, thus dooming themselves. thats my 2¢ take anyway.
Pirogi are another fantastic potato dish. It’s a traditional polish dish of cottage cheese potato and onion inside an egg noodle - boiled and then fried with onion
When I was a kid, one of the ways my mom would use leftover mashed potatoes is potato patties....mashed potatoes with minced onion, formed into a burger-sized patty and fried on both sides in a skillet until a light skin/crust formed. Really tasty!
Now, people can easily take farmers for granted. If crops fail, that affects us all. I'm originally from a very large farm in Alberta, so I know how important farmers are. I like gardening, and one year I had blight on tomatoes I was growing. Different things can affect how well crops turn out. That, in turn, influences how we eat. Cheers!
As a farm kid, potatoes were pretty much a daily food - baked, pan fried, mashed, boiled, fries, hashbrowns, etc. When I moved out on my own, it stayed like that - it is a staple that you didn't think twice about. One of the hardest things for me to do as a Type 2 diabetic was to stop eating potatoes as the starch turned too quickly and spikes by blood - now they are an occasional treat. But that transition away from them was hard because that is what I ate regularly, the idea of not having potatoes with meals was foreign.
I have read that if you chill/refrigerate your potatoes, rice, or bread, it changes the starches, and when you reheat them, they don't spike your blood sugars quite as fast. It would be worth an experiment on your part.
In 1860's in Finland there was similar famine. It was caused by long winter the whole decade was basically cold and miserable weather and nothing grew. I don't remember what was the reason for this weather but it killed a huge amount of Finnish population, so much so that it has effects on Finnish population this day.
@@followthemoneyhoney Well mostly to the amount of people living in Finland. But also to some genealogy I'm not sure how it goes but something to do with acceptance of certain types of food and also to the amount of food some people are able to consume. I'm not an expert so I am not quite sure.
1810's and later saw several volcanic eruptions. As well as solar cycles, or even El Nino/La Nina patterns effecting the Gulf Stream in the Atlantic. So many things effect the global climate cycles; and we The People are just starting to get a dribble of the studies the "professionals" have kept in the shadows. All I can say is thank The Lord we can access most of the information on the internet and make our own analysis.
A few little errors or assumptions still made about the famine in Ireland that this video falls into some of this unfortunately. One is that there wasnt enough food to feed the population in ireland due to the failure of the potato crops. There was more than enough food indeed food exports out of ireland increased to britain over this period like livestock and other crops. Also there was suitable solutions to greatly reduce the suffering but the crises was mostly ignored early on and while some paltry effort was made to supply a mediocre sort of subsistance food it was based on degrading and humiliation further of the irish underclass. Many attempts at delivering relief were indeed blocked from coming into irish ports by the british. It was an ethnic cleansing at its core. Still love your channel though its top notch most of the time. 😊
Made me hungry. I had to go and fry up some potatoes (Yukon Gold sliced thin and pan fried in duck fat, leftover bacon, chives fresh from the garden, with some sour cream on top). Delish!
While I cannot speak to whether or not blight will stay in the soil, it definitely stays on and contaminates any seed potatoes that grow during the blight. And one should never try to use those contaminated potatoes or it will keep the blight going - ruining more crops.
Ireland use to have trees and forest everywhere just like Scotland. The English enslaved them, clear cut there land, then. Forced them to grow export good on an industrial scale. They would have never been effected by the potato famen had they not only been forced to growing for production
This video reminded me of reading about a Venetian colony in modern Croatia. The people living there in the 15th century got 80% of their calories from bread at the time, it was the main food for an entire population.
I would eat potatoes for eternity,when I used to be a kid my grandma would give me boiled potatoes when I got hurt and eversince then,I have this sense of safety atached to potatoes,which makes me want to eat them forever
When I was in my early 20's and living on my own, there was a period of about 4 years where I lived of potatoes, and if I had a few extra dollars, I would buy a pound of ground beef. I had mashed potatoes 4 or 5 times a week. A 20 pound sack lasted a week. Sometimes, I bought white rice and pinto beans. I understand being poor, I really can relate to the people of that time.
I'm from Ontario and I can never get enough of mash potatoes. Anyone who's only had the powdered stuff are missing out. Also it's wild to see the origin of scalloped potatoes. I always assumed that scalloping was just another word for slicing and didn't have anything to do with literal scallops.
I know the introduction is meant well, but i think the sociopolitical causes of famines are really really important to highlight when talking about them. Almost always, famines are caused by wealth hoarding and manipulation of crops for profit. There are very few places where only a couple things will grow and Ireland existed a very long time before potatoes were introduced and then manipulated into a cash crop/cheap feed for the English. Many have already brought it up, but it feels remiss to not mention that these mass starvations and mass exoduses were the result of violent oppression of the working/peasant/colonised class. There is enough food in the world to feed everyone, but those in power refuse to share it.
I would love a revision of this topic but with more detailed history on the cause of the famin as it was a huge reason for American irish existing now,! Huge respect to townsends channel and all involved! Sláinte from Ireland
In continental Europe, people adopted potatoes for eating fastest in areas that often had armies marching through. You can keep a potato in the ground for a longer time into the cold than you can with a grain and so you could delay a potato harvest if needed therefore potatoes were less likely to be foraged by an army, because soldiers aren't gonna bother digging the whole crop up but they might take your whole harvest out of your granary if you grew grain.
The population of Ireland at the start of the Potato Famine was 8.5 million, today it is 5.1 million. Meaning that their population never recovered from that famine.
People might be interested to know that the Irish Lumper, the variety of potato that was the most prevalent grown in Ireland at the time, and particularly subject to the blight, has made a comeback, and is being grown in Ireland and sold as upscale food.
Good mashed potatos make many a meal. If you're looking for something a little different, add in some orange sweet potatos (about 2-1 regular to sweet) mash all together with a little salt, butter and milk, then stir in some finely chopped green onions/scallions/spring onions (they seem to be called slightly different things in different places) and put back on the lowest heat possible just to warm up a bit. Great with any meat/vege/gravy meal.
Great job Ryan. Maybe it’s your Irish name. I usually eat sweet potatoes and yams, but I’m definitely making all of these. This is a wonderful channel.
One thing I’m reminded about potato diets is that when Billy Bob Thornton came to Hollywood he was very poor and ate potatoes for so long, and nothing else, he got myocarditis. Also didn’t McDonald’s used to spray their French fries with a sugar solution to caramelized them better?
If you want to add some extra goodness to your potato dishes, eat them with milk, sour cream, yogurt, kefir, buttermilk or curdled milk. Such products go extremely well with potatoes, plus they cover nutrient needs potatoes can't.
Perfect! I was just wondering if my Greek yogurt would be a good sub for the cream! I also have kefir. And a potato. A meal in the making, thanks for the suggestions! 🤗✨🌻
Thanks for sharing the recipes from long ago Ryan. I too was raised on the mashed potatoes and the fried potatoes minus the sugar. The old time version of scalloped potatoes were replaced with the version we are familiar with today and then the au-gratin potatoes came along but we didn't have the cheese for those potatoes and I still don't like them because of the cheese on them. Thanks also for the history lesson of the Irish Famine . Stay safe and keep up the great videos and fun you have around there. Fred.
My family came here during the potato famine. I have loved potatoes as long as I can remember. I recently visited Ireland and was delighted to be served potatoes with every meal. My kinda people!! At one dinner, we had fried mashed potato on the plate with the meat, and a dish of roasted potatoes to pass around the table. Potatoes with potatoes? Yes please!!
Yes, diseases can survive in the soil, if it doesn't get hot enough to sterlize your soil. That's why they reccomend you don't put kitty litter in your compost, and why you should keep the neighborhood cats, out of your freshly dug garden.
Great job, Ryan! You included a lot of information in 10 & 1/2 minutes along with 3 options for potatoes to add variety to what many of us see as a staple. Thank you for this excellent installment!
Potatoes are a staple in my house. If there’s a side dish, its some form of potato, rice, or noodle dish. There’s just so many ways to prepare potatoes! My favorite is twice baked.
Unless the skins are really horrible, I don't peel potatoes. The skin has the most flavour, and just below the skin has the most nutrients. My favourite potato is "potato in the jacket", i.e. baked in the oven with the skin on. (Served with butter melted on top, and a sprinkle of salt and pepper, sour cream and chives!). These days we can shorten the cooking time by cooking in a microwave oven until the potatoes just start to soften.
The last one looks like an interesting ancestor of potato duchesse (it's generally piped into mounds and then baked for that crust). Cream and butter is mainly how I'm used to mashed potatoes, I'll admit. A nice, rich *thick* one.
Important note about the British response to the Great Hunger in Ireland: During the famine, an election switched which party had the majority in Parliament, and thus controlled the government. The Peel government (started as Tories, then broke off to form the Peelites) was at least trying to fix the problem, but they lost, and the Whig government under Lord Russell basically canceled food relief for the Irish poor, then started a new programme run by Charles Trevelyan, a man who thought Irish people starving was 'the judgement of God' that 'must not be too mitigated.'
I've seen a very old book, I think from 1900 or earlier, in my local library, that had a variety of recepies for cheaper dishes. I did not ever got to read it, it was not of my interests at the time (I was 7 or 8). It was called "100 good meals for your family" (but in an antiquated Brazilian Portuguese). I remember that from the 100 recepies available, 40 were something to do with potatoes, and 25 with eggs. My region has an agricultural background, pretty much everyone had chickens and a patch of land with some corn, potatoes or casava and a lot of veggies, so eggs were not expensive when that book was written.
There's an interesting book that was published recently called Atlas of the Irish Revolution It had several dozen contributing scholars and probably hundreds of original images, and the first section had maps discussing the scale of the Great Famine. Several counties around Galway and Cork had 90% death rates. Not malnourishment rates, _death_ rates. If even the remaining people had enough energy to burn and bury the dead, there was probably too many of them for the malnourished survivors to handle. It's hard to fathom going through something like that. Ireland remains the only country in the world with a lower population than it had in 1850.
the scalloped potato is interesting because I grew up in the PNW and "scallop" was a way to cut a potato, and not a dish in and of itself. "Scalloped" potatoes are the thin cuts like the first dish. About 1/4 inch thick, too thick for a potato chip.
I started watching and had to get up & make some mashed potatoes! Great video, Ryan. Fried potatoes with sac & sugar...interesting. Might need to try it just for fun!
Thank you for another amazing video! I would also love to see more trades/crafts like how a tailor may have made any of the amazing clothing items you feature on the show. I know cobblers and tailors were very important and a lot of status and investment was wrapped up in clothing and textiles. I would love to see something about this topic. Love from Seattle!
Here in Australia, depending where you are, 'potato scallops' are a thin slice of potato, battered and deep fried. My favourite snack from a Fish&Chip shop! I think the term is used similarly in parts of northern England.
When I was young (65 now) my great grandmother ate potato soup almost every day. To this day, I will not allow that soup in my house or anywhere we go to eat.
Do you guys have a cook book of your favorite old recipes I’d love to buy a copy if you do I’ve made the mushroom ketchup. It was great, but I hate going back through the videos and looking for it. A book would be much better on shelf.
we still eat them all the time for good reason! they're super yummy! the history of the potato is incredibly interesting. one of my favorite paintings by my favorite artist is The Potato Eaters by Vincent Van Gogh.
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Resident plant pathologist here: Potato blight is neither a fungus nor a bacteria. The pathogen itself is phytophthora infestans which is what is known as an oomycete. Very similar in structure and function to a fungus but biochemically a bit more similar to an algae. Phytophthoras do persist in the soil and can survive for years until soil conditions and a suitable host come around. Its a pretty tough pest to deal with.
Came here to say the same thing, Im an undergrad hoping to get a job in plant pathology.
Thanks!
As long as you save the taters.
Which spray controls the best?
One thing to add is the fact that phytophthora infestans make zoospores. And for those who don't know what zoospores are, they are spores with the ability to move around in water to put things simply. And so if you waterlog the soil, say with a humid, wet year, and you have some zoospores about they are going to be able to easily swim to the roots of the potato plants. Bad stuff! It's also part of why ensuring good soil drainage and water management is key for growing potatoes.
When we were homeless one of the most useful things we were given was a huge jar of instant mashed potatoes. It wasn't much, but all we needed was some water and we could put food in our stomachs and the jar made it last a long time so it was a relief for a chunk of time.
Thanks for sharing this. ❤
Lightly processed potatoes are amazing in that they're one of the most filling foods imaginable (and so an amazing diet food for people who need to lose weight), quite tasty, pretty cheap, but still calorie dense enough to be satisfying and actual sustenance, not just extras. The average height of Swedes increased once the potato was widely adopted, as far as I know.
Hope things are better for you now.
Potatoes weren't the cash crop in Ireland. The cash crop was wheat, most of which was exported to Britain. Potatoes were what was grown on the smallholdings, to feed the family
Um called potato famine...
@@BreitbachTheGerman A famine is a lack of food being pulled from the ground. There was no lack of food being grown in Ireland at the time, just a lack of humanity from the British landlords
@@BreitbachTheGerman yes, native irish ate potatoes. But most of them owned no land, and were tenant farmers for (mostly english and anglo-irish) landlords. Mostly they grew wheat, and even during the famine exported it to the UK
@@findlayyoung4 That's exactly the issue. They were growing plenty of food during that time. But they weren't allowed to eat any of it to be able to afford to stay on the land, and were dependent on potatoes for their own garden crops to live while their landlords demanded barely affordable rents.
@@BreitbachTheGerman You don't eat cash crops - you sell them. Ireland was forced by the Brits to export large quantities of wheat and other foodstuffs, while the Irish people starved. Bear that in mind when you consider the modern history of Ireland and it's much easier to understand the tremendous ill will the Irish had for the Brits after the bulk of the island became independent.
My grandmother had interesting ways to cook potatoes. She would peel and dice them. Put them in a pot with salt, butter and water to cover. Cook them almost as a soup and serve. She would then make mashed potatoes from those leftovers. Because they had a broth you could stretch your milk. She would also add flour onions and an egg to mashed potatoes and make latkes with them. Potatoes are versatile in leftovers to help keep you from getting bored eating the same things over and over.
It can also be used as the starter of other dishes. A little bit shredded meat or diced vegetables. The idea of hamburger sandwiches answers seems wasteful to me, for instance.
A little bit ground up and added to a soup or shepherds pie.
Those and potato soup are still regular dishes in my home
I love recipes that let me stretch ingredients as much as possible.
It is interesting to learn that they had scallop potatoes back then, and we have scalloped potatoes now, but they are two different things.
You can kind of see the connection though. "Scalloped" or the French "Gratin" simply refers to being baked in a dish and having a crust. So both this old mashed version and the modern sliced with cheese version fit the definition. Obviously cheese makes it better so it's a natural evolution. 😁
Yes, similar ingredients but entirely different preparation and presentation! Frankly, I had often wondered why the dish was called "scallop" or "scalloped" potatoes--now I know!
Check out Coquilles St Jacques. Seems nearly identical to what is done here in this video with the scallop shell.
Been watching this channel a long time. The first few times he was a solo host it was clear he wasn't as comfortable with it, still figuring out his approach. I'm not sure at what point that shifted, but I was thinking during this video that he's really adapt at it now and with his own and his solo videos seem very natural.
Missed opportunity to say Potatoes, boil em, mash em, stick em in a stew...
That’s what I came to say!!
PO-TAY-TOES
LOL, I thought the same thing.
Came here to at this exactly. 6:59
It’s a fun saying but it’s out of place for a serious and sad video like this.
As a youngster, I picked my share of turned-up potatoes off the ground to earn some spare change. My uncles were developing a very large agri-business and one of them told me a good bit about potato nutrition. This was at a time when 'experts' were saying potatoes were 'bad' due to their carbohydrate content. Those experts ignored all of the minerals and whatever were along for the ride. I'm baking skin-on potatoes for dinner tonight!
My big treat as a kid was when my father was reheating mashed potatoes on frying pan. He always made big pancake out of it, make both sides brown. And I scrape scrispy parts for myself.
My mom used to do that on Boxing Day, mixing in the Brussel sprouts
I really feel identified when you said “if you have ever been in a situation where things are a little tight “
Same. For a time, my daily lunch was a baked potato. Id add some veggies and a little cheese to it. One of my colleagues commented that she'd be tired eating the same thing for lunch every day. I replied that I had other times like this one where I had the same thing for lunch, and that was true. What was also true that I didn't say was that if I wanted to eat lunch, I had my potato, veg, and bit of cheese or nothing at all. I had a season or two of "nothing at all," and much prefer the lunch potato.
That was me in my early twenties out of college. Wish I had the potatoes. Resorted to a packet of ramen every two days, a multivitamin, water, and sleep for the other two meals.
A lot of people know me as a cynic, but they also know no one around me will go hungry since living those months.
My family has been here in rural Vermont for generations, every farm (including ours) had a potato patch that was far away from any settlements, usual off in the woods. The idea was to escape the blight by isolation.
To spice up you mash even more add some garlic and freshly ground black pepper. Very simple and easy and not something they would not have access to. But it makes a BIG difference!
You could even add ... nutmeg.
🤔😃😂
Nutmeg is the way to go! Swiss style ;-)
better if you give the garlic just a little fry before mashing it with the potatoes
I harvested 1000lbs. of russets from the garden last year, and they are still holding nicely in the root cellar. Winters are long where I live, and potatoes warm the soul. My cows love them, too.
❤ sweetie cows :)
500 tons?
@@accountnamewithheld half a ton. A ton is 2000 lbs
The Hunger in Ireland was mostly manufactured, but there was a genuine food shortage in a number of other areas, such as Prussia.
In general most famine are man-made. While crop-failures and the likes can cause bad times it's usually a combination of human factors that bring it into mass starvation. In Ireland's case;
1. Almost all grains produced on the island was shipped to England to feed the rural people, which made buying wheat, barley or oat above the poor farmer's pay
2. The Corn laws of Britain forbade food imports from overseas to protect the farmer's (by which I mean wealthy plantation owners) income
3. Generations of unfair land laws pushed farmers into ever smaller and smaller plots where they could not diversify their crops and many were landless workers paid a pittance working on distant landlord's plantations.
4. A general disdain aimed at the Irish and viewing the situation as their fault, often comparing them to vermin that when the disaster happened it took months for even token efforts at relief to be attempted.
So even before the blight Ireland was already heading toward a disaster, the failure of the potato crop simply pushed it past breaking point. Without potatoes remaining food prices skyrocketed, the corn laws prevented any serious attempt at relief through imports, tenants became unable to afford rent and were expelled losing whatever little they owned in favor of further consolidation of land under English hands.
@@Nerathul1 Yes. I agree with you. I was simply saying that there was also starvation from the blight elsewhere on a far lesser scale for deaths, but still relevant to the video and the issues of overreliance on one crop.
The whole of central Europe actually. They all heavily relied on potatoes and suffered.
Ireland: the potatoes rotted in the field...
@@elyjane8316 As they did everywhere in Europe. But only the Irish also had the English to deal with.
0:18 Or, as in Ireland, it is the only crop that their landlord allows them to grow. And then the landlords continued to export the remaining potatoes to England during the Great Hunger/Potato Famine because profit was more important than lives.
Ireland was the bread basket for England and Western Europe. They produced enough wheat during this blight to feed the Irish population three times over, but all of it was seized and sold by the English land barons for profit.
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@@DucasoIreland imported more grain than it exported during the famine. The only year it exported more was in 1845 and the scale of the potato crop loss only came to light in the late fall and wasn’t as severe as in ensuing years.
The English also stole the beef, wheat, pork, and everything else to feed their armies overseas.
So the 'Only allowed to grow potatoes' is incorrect. The farmers did grow wheat, barley and other things but these were exclusively for export. They had tiny garden patches allocated to them and potatoes were the only food crops that produced sufficient food to feed the families the calorie/acre is unmatched. And because all the grain was exported its price was far above what tenant farmers could ever afford when the potatoes failed.
I was able to meet Ryan in person at the fort loudon market fair in Pennsylvania this weekend. Great person he's exactly the guy on the videos. 💯 class act.
Love your channel. I watch these videos often as appetizers before preparing food myself. I’ve started growing lettuce, tomatoes, potatoes and herbs in a garden myself, too. You have a really good narrating voice, too. Keep it up
Sadly with the way English administration treated the Irish, potato really was the only choice for most. Top that with the British government using Malthusian theories on calamities being a natural element of human development as excuses to not help them during the famine.
History repeats itself over and over.
As the English in charge said during the famin "the suffering must not be too much mitigated" as it helps the goal of colonising ireland.
Always fascinating to see Scotland, which was a willing and able participant in the Empire, being left out of this debate. Indeed, my maternal ancestors were from what is today NI but were of Scottish Protestant descent. They weren’t wealthy enough to be a cause but they surely were not the victims either.
There was nothing Irish about my Gr-Grandfather.
No shade on the Irish but the Brits treated India worse. That's why I can shed no tears for the British as they willfully destroy their civilization.
Also the English who were sympathetic to the Irish had to contend with the Corn laws made to protect english farmers from foreign imports making relief through charity essentially impossible as food could not be brought into ireland legally.
Left over Mashed potatoes can also become so many other dishes: potato soup, latkes, fish patties and so much more.
I only peel my potatoes if they are old (shriveled), or starting to go a little green (pared down to clean center), as the skin has a lot of nutrients. Shredded carrots, minced broccoli florets, minced and sautéed onions, parsnips or rutabaga if affordable, shredded cheese... Yes all high end but so much nicer to look at and taste.
I didn’t even think about potato soup till you said it. I know what I’m having for dinner
Don't forget in a waffle iron or snackmaster! Like a creamier hash brown!
Boxty, made with a combination of fresh potatoes and leftover mashed potatoes.
The famine was caused by the economic system in place where Catholic Irish were forced tenants of mostly Protestant Anglo-Irish Landlords. Under that system, any money made from labouring on the large farms growing other crops like grain was taken to pay the rent, and the tenant farmers had to grow their own food to feed their families on the tiny patches of land allotted to them, which meant only the most calorie efficient food would meet the needs of their families. This meant using the Lumper variety of potato that had huge productivity in Irish soils, and most Irish peasants lived on a diet of almost entirely Lumper potatoes and buttermilk.
This led to disaster because the genetic uniformity of the Lumper meant it was especially vulnerable to the rapid spread of blight. The potato crop failed, but Ireland was still exporting food to Britain, so the famine, like all famines, existed partially because of an upset in the environment but mostly because of the economic and political systems in place.
The famine was a total demographic catastrophe for Ireland, resulting in a massive loss of population due to starvation and mostly emigration. Irish language speakers were especially targeted and pushed to emigrate, which nearly killed the language off. The population dropped from 8 million to 2.4 million at it's lowest point, and to this day Ireland is one of the only countries in the world where the population now is less than the population in 1840.
This was entirely because the political administration of Ireland from the UK was incompetent. It fed pro-independence sentiment and is probably why Ireland is no longer part of the UK today.
It's also why Ireland is one of the few Non NATO EU countries.
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Not incompetent. Corrupt.
Never blame 'incompetence' on what can be explained as simple malice. In this case, the British were actively attempting to depopulate the Irish nation for the sake of further subjugating them.
@@ClockworkGearhead and evil - they wanted the Irish dead and gone
The Irish get a bit tetchy if you call it the potato famine. They call it The Great Hunger. It truly was appaling. There's a very good book called Black Potatoes by Susan Campbell Bartoletti which goes into the harrowing details.
Bringing up the "The Great Hunger" (AKA Irish Potato Famine) is useful when debating narrow minded libertarians who worship Ron Paul.
which is hilarious considering potatoes were a south american import
@@trigularity I guess though, that without the potato, they wouldn't have settled in Ireland anyway. They couldn't have. So I think it's reasonable that the Irish kind of "own" the potato.
@hmq9052 they lacked the skills or environment or both the produce the cultivars of the south americans. the sheer variety of the natural potatoe would have surely resisted blight. they unintentionally bottlecked the genetic variety, then relied solely on it, thus dooming themselves. thats my 2¢ take anyway.
@@trigularity That rings a bell, yes.
Pirogi are another fantastic potato dish. It’s a traditional polish dish of cottage cheese potato and onion inside an egg noodle - boiled and then fried with onion
Traditional pierogi use twarog, which isn't like cottage cheese at all.
@drewschumann1 It is very similar, just drier, don't be a snob. They are just trying to share the wonder of pierogi!
That's actually ruskie (russian) pierogi. Thing is they are not actually russian. Or polish.
When I was a kid, one of the ways my mom would use leftover mashed potatoes is potato patties....mashed potatoes with minced onion, formed into a burger-sized patty and fried on both sides in a skillet until a light skin/crust formed. Really tasty!
Now, people can easily take farmers for granted. If crops fail, that affects us all. I'm originally from a very large farm in Alberta, so I know how important farmers are. I like gardening, and one year I had blight on tomatoes I was growing. Different things can affect how well crops turn out. That, in turn, influences how we eat. Cheers!
Fantastic. Really goes to show how limitless the possibilities for even the humble potato are. Thanks Ryan and team!
It wasn’t just the failure, it was English policies that amplified the issue to what it was.
If you are experiencing a problem, it's almost always caused by government.
@@deejayimm "If you are experiencing a problem, it's almost always caused by -government- banks." Fixed it for you.
@@Serahpin banks and government seem to go hand in hand.
@@TertorForss What a coincidence!
@@Serahpin You're both wrong. The problem is capitalism.
Awesome session. As always you are very informative about foods in the 18th and 19th century. Appreciate your talent and your channel :)
Ive never met a single person who likes potatoes say they were tired of potatoes lol
I know someone but he's a teenager and his mom basically only makes rather unseasoned mashed potato for every single meal. He just wants variety.
Eat 3x a day
He who is tired of potatoes is tired of life!
they're so transformable. Leftover mashed or diced could be made into salad or fried.
@@Nerathul1If cheese or herbs are around, suggest that he sneak them in. I like extra sharp cheddar for that.
As a farm kid, potatoes were pretty much a daily food - baked, pan fried, mashed, boiled, fries, hashbrowns, etc. When I moved out on my own, it stayed like that - it is a staple that you didn't think twice about. One of the hardest things for me to do as a Type 2 diabetic was to stop eating potatoes as the starch turned too quickly and spikes by blood - now they are an occasional treat. But that transition away from them was hard because that is what I ate regularly, the idea of not having potatoes with meals was foreign.
I have read that if you chill/refrigerate your potatoes, rice, or bread, it changes the starches, and when you reheat them, they don't spike your blood sugars quite as fast. It would be worth an experiment on your part.
@@jjudy5869 I have to look more into some stuff like that, so far not much success on different type of potatoes, etc.
In 1860's in Finland there was similar famine. It was caused by long winter the whole decade was basically cold and miserable weather and nothing grew. I don't remember what was the reason for this weather but it killed a huge amount of Finnish population, so much so that it has effects on Finnish population this day.
what kinds of effects do you still see? i'm just curious
@@followthemoneyhoney Well mostly to the amount of people living in Finland. But also to some genealogy I'm not sure how it goes but something to do with acceptance of certain types of food and also to the amount of food some people are able to consume. I'm not an expert so I am not quite sure.
1810's and later saw several volcanic eruptions. As well as solar cycles, or even El Nino/La Nina patterns effecting the Gulf Stream in the Atlantic. So many things effect the global climate cycles; and we The People are just starting to get a dribble of the studies the "professionals" have kept in the shadows. All I can say is thank The Lord we can access most of the information on the internet and make our own analysis.
@@happygardener28 Tartaria. Mud Floods.
@@belight123 So many things, Thank you, I need to add that to my research list as it's not something I'd heard of.
A few little errors or assumptions still made about the famine in Ireland that this video falls into some of this unfortunately. One is that there wasnt enough food to feed the population in ireland due to the failure of the potato crops. There was more than enough food indeed food exports out of ireland increased to britain over this period like livestock and other crops. Also there was suitable solutions to greatly reduce the suffering but the crises was mostly ignored early on and while some paltry effort was made to supply a mediocre sort of subsistance food it was based on degrading and humiliation further of the irish underclass. Many attempts at delivering relief were indeed blocked from coming into irish ports by the british. It was an ethnic cleansing at its core.
Still love your channel though its top notch most of the time. 😊
It wasn't a cash crop, those were still being sold by the overlords while everyone else starved
Made me hungry. I had to go and fry up some potatoes (Yukon Gold sliced thin and pan fried in duck fat, leftover bacon, chives fresh from the garden, with some sour cream on top). Delish!
What a wonderful video. I appreciate you making it for our benefit.
While I cannot speak to whether or not blight will stay in the soil, it definitely stays on and contaminates any seed potatoes that grow during the blight. And one should never try to use those contaminated potatoes or it will keep the blight going - ruining more crops.
Ireland use to have trees and forest everywhere just like Scotland. The English enslaved them, clear cut there land, then. Forced them to grow export good on an industrial scale. They would have never been effected by the potato famen had they not only been forced to growing for production
One of my favorite meals is a baked potato with broccoli and cheese sauce. A little sour cream on top. That's the whole meal. Very filling.
One simply cannot beat a good old spud. 🥔
This video reminded me of reading about a Venetian colony in modern Croatia. The people living there in the 15th century got 80% of their calories from bread at the time, it was the main food for an entire population.
I would eat potatoes for eternity,when I used to be a kid my grandma would give me boiled potatoes when I got hurt and eversince then,I have this sense of safety atached to potatoes,which makes me want to eat them forever
When I was in my early 20's and living on my own, there was a period of about 4 years where I lived of potatoes, and if I had a few extra dollars, I would buy a pound of ground beef. I had mashed potatoes 4 or 5 times a week. A 20 pound sack lasted a week. Sometimes, I bought white rice and pinto beans. I understand being poor, I really can relate to the people of that time.
I always look forward to seeing your videos. Keep up the good work.
Looks great! Great history! Still the best channel on TH-cam!
I'm from Ontario and I can never get enough of mash potatoes. Anyone who's only had the powdered stuff are missing out.
Also it's wild to see the origin of scalloped potatoes. I always assumed that scalloping was just another word for slicing and didn't have anything to do with literal scallops.
Have been following your channel here and there for a few years and this fellow is looking really good these days!
I know the introduction is meant well, but i think the sociopolitical causes of famines are really really important to highlight when talking about them. Almost always, famines are caused by wealth hoarding and manipulation of crops for profit. There are very few places where only a couple things will grow and Ireland existed a very long time before potatoes were introduced and then manipulated into a cash crop/cheap feed for the English. Many have already brought it up, but it feels remiss to not mention that these mass starvations and mass exoduses were the result of violent oppression of the working/peasant/colonised class. There is enough food in the world to feed everyone, but those in power refuse to share it.
Thank you Townsends
Thank you for this episode. Makes appreciate more of the food we are having around the house. ❤
The scallop potato looks wonderful. I bet a bit of shredded cheddar, mixed in, would be lovely!
I would love a revision of this topic but with more detailed history on the cause of the famin as it was a huge reason for American irish existing now,! Huge respect to townsends channel and all involved! Sláinte from Ireland
Great video, as always! Perhaps, had the Great Hunger not occured, many of us in the southeast would not be here today.
Good morning, Townsends! Love your show❤
In continental Europe, people adopted potatoes for eating fastest in areas that often had armies marching through. You can keep a potato in the ground for a longer time into the cold than you can with a grain and so you could delay a potato harvest if needed therefore potatoes were less likely to be foraged by an army, because soldiers aren't gonna bother digging the whole crop up but they might take your whole harvest out of your granary if you grew grain.
The population of Ireland at the start of the Potato Famine was 8.5 million, today it is 5.1 million. Meaning that their population never recovered from that famine.
In Switzerland we put nutmeg in our mashed potatos. 😋
We love potatoes and eat them with almost every meal. There are many ways to prepare them and we never get tired of them.
Love me some potato dishes.
Cool to see your son doing videos. ❤ Keeping the family tradition.
People might be interested to know that the Irish Lumper, the variety of potato that was the most prevalent grown in Ireland at the time, and particularly subject to the blight, has made a comeback, and is being grown in Ireland and sold as upscale food.
Ryan, Thanks for the amazing video. Be Safe and Take Care!
Good mashed potatos make many a meal. If you're looking for something a little different, add in some orange sweet potatos (about 2-1 regular to sweet) mash all together with a little salt, butter and milk, then stir in some finely chopped green onions/scallions/spring onions (they seem to be called slightly different things in different places) and put back on the lowest heat possible just to warm up a bit. Great with any meat/vege/gravy meal.
So intelligently, honestly, & thoughtfully orchestrated articulation of the period & potatoes 🥔
Great job Ryan. Maybe it’s your Irish name. I usually eat sweet potatoes and yams, but I’m definitely making all of these. This is a wonderful channel.
Mashed potato with a small amount of yellow mustard blended in, adds a mild sharpness... or melt some cheese on or in it...
One thing I’m reminded about potato diets is that when Billy Bob Thornton came to Hollywood he was very poor and ate potatoes for so long, and nothing else, he got myocarditis.
Also didn’t McDonald’s used to spray their French fries with a sugar solution to caramelized them better?
Very well articulated. Great video
That scallop dish is a very specific thing I've never seen before, but I'm definitely excited to try that in some ramekins my next special occasion.
If you want to add some extra goodness to your potato dishes, eat them with milk, sour cream, yogurt, kefir, buttermilk or curdled milk. Such products go extremely well with potatoes, plus they cover nutrient needs potatoes can't.
Perfect! I was just wondering if my Greek yogurt would be a good sub for the cream! I also have kefir. And a potato. A meal in the making, thanks for the suggestions! 🤗✨🌻
@@emazey5044 I hope it's a very big potato. 😁 Bon appetit.
tomato blight absolutely stays in the soil
I currently am living off of potatoes because it’s all I can afford.
Thanks for sharing the recipes from long ago Ryan. I too was raised on the mashed potatoes and the fried potatoes minus the sugar. The old time version of scalloped potatoes were replaced with the version we are familiar with today and then the au-gratin potatoes came along but we didn't have the cheese for those potatoes and I still don't like them because of the cheese on them. Thanks also for the history lesson of the Irish Famine . Stay safe and keep up the great videos and fun you have around there. Fred.
My family came here during the potato famine. I have loved potatoes as long as I can remember. I recently visited Ireland and was delighted to be served potatoes with every meal. My kinda people!! At one dinner, we had fried mashed potato on the plate with the meat, and a dish of roasted potatoes to pass around the table. Potatoes with potatoes? Yes please!!
Yes, diseases can survive in the soil, if it doesn't get hot enough to sterlize your soil. That's why they reccomend you don't put kitty litter in your compost, and why you should keep the neighborhood cats, out of your freshly dug garden.
Can I put a dead cat in my compost or will that contaminate it?
Great job, Ryan! You included a lot of information in 10 & 1/2 minutes along with 3 options for potatoes to add variety to what many of us see as a staple. Thank you for this excellent installment!
Ryan is making my mouth water this morning🤤 My potatoes are in the crock pot for Sunday roast.
Potatoes are a staple in my house. If there’s a side dish, its some form of potato, rice, or noodle dish. There’s just so many ways to prepare potatoes! My favorite is twice baked.
Unless the skins are really horrible, I don't peel potatoes. The skin has the most flavour, and just below the skin has the most nutrients. My favourite potato is "potato in the jacket", i.e. baked in the oven with the skin on. (Served with butter melted on top, and a sprinkle of salt and pepper, sour cream and chives!). These days we can shorten the cooking time by cooking in a microwave oven until the potatoes just start to soften.
Technically the blight caused crop failures but the British caused the famine
The last one looks like an interesting ancestor of potato duchesse (it's generally piped into mounds and then baked for that crust). Cream and butter is mainly how I'm used to mashed potatoes, I'll admit. A nice, rich *thick* one.
Important note about the British response to the Great Hunger in Ireland: During the famine, an election switched which party had the majority in Parliament, and thus controlled the government. The Peel government (started as Tories, then broke off to form the Peelites) was at least trying to fix the problem, but they lost, and the Whig government under Lord Russell basically canceled food relief for the Irish poor, then started a new programme run by Charles Trevelyan, a man who thought Irish people starving was 'the judgement of God' that 'must not be too mitigated.'
New way to think about scalloped potatoes; thanks Ryan for your spud knowledge.
I've seen a very old book, I think from 1900 or earlier, in my local library, that had a variety of recepies for cheaper dishes. I did not ever got to read it, it was not of my interests at the time (I was 7 or 8).
It was called "100 good meals for your family" (but in an antiquated Brazilian Portuguese).
I remember that from the 100 recepies available, 40 were something to do with potatoes, and 25 with eggs.
My region has an agricultural background, pretty much everyone had chickens and a patch of land with some corn, potatoes or casava and a lot of veggies, so eggs were not expensive when that book was written.
Great presenter ! Well researched
There's an interesting book that was published recently called Atlas of the Irish Revolution
It had several dozen contributing scholars and probably hundreds of original images, and the first section had maps discussing the scale of the Great Famine.
Several counties around Galway and Cork had 90% death rates. Not malnourishment rates, _death_ rates.
If even the remaining people had enough energy to burn and bury the dead, there was probably too many of them for the malnourished survivors to handle. It's hard to fathom going through something like that.
Ireland remains the only country in the world with a lower population than it had in 1850.
Maybe they should take some of the economic migrants from across the med then.
@@accountnamewithheld nice job making a historical war crime about something totally unrelated 👍
Real class act there
the scalloped potato is interesting because I grew up in the PNW and "scallop" was a way to cut a potato, and not a dish in and of itself. "Scalloped" potatoes are the thin cuts like the first dish. About 1/4 inch thick, too thick for a potato chip.
Peeling before boiling results in a loss nutrients.
I started watching and had to get up & make some mashed potatoes! Great video, Ryan. Fried potatoes with sac & sugar...interesting. Might need to try it just for fun!
Potatoes are an amazingly flexible food. I never expected scalloped potatoes to be like that back then.
What's taters, Precious?
We wants it RAW and WRIGGLY!!!
PO-TA-TOES? Boil 'em, mash 'em, stick 'em in a stew?
I feel like everyone just peels potatoes because everyone peels potatoes.
They're much better with the skin on.
Thank you for another amazing video!
I would also love to see more trades/crafts like how a tailor may have made any of the amazing clothing items you feature on the show.
I know cobblers and tailors were very important and a lot of status and investment was wrapped up in clothing and textiles. I would love to see something about this topic. Love from Seattle!
I love this channel
Here in Australia, depending where you are, 'potato scallops' are a thin slice of potato, battered and deep fried. My favourite snack from a Fish&Chip shop! I think the term is used similarly in parts of northern England.
My Mother used to make almost the exact same scollop potato recipe, and I can confirm it's delicious!
When I was young (65 now) my great grandmother ate potato soup almost every day. To this day, I will not allow that soup in my house or anywhere we go to eat.
Yum! Last recipe I'd like to try. That looks GOOD!!! Heavy cream? Sounds delicious!
Do you guys have a cook book of your favorite old recipes I’d love to buy a copy if you do I’ve made the mushroom ketchup. It was great, but I hate going back through the videos and looking for it. A book would be much better on shelf.
sad thing about the famine is they had enough food just couldn't afford it, farmers exported grains an meat throughout the famine
we still eat them all the time for good reason! they're super yummy! the history of the potato is incredibly interesting. one of my favorite paintings by my favorite artist is The Potato Eaters by Vincent Van Gogh.
Good morning Ryan and everyone else 🌞