France. Not just France, but Brittany. Where the soft green hills of potato fields steep in cool gray mist and rain. A little cafe where the special of the day is Lapin Chasseur, served with potatoes.
A hunter in muddy boots walks through the woods with a dead rabbit in one hand, wild mushrooms in the other. Home in his forest cabin, he robs the rabbit of its coat, chops the carcass into pieces, and browns them in olive oil. Then comes the nice bits: shallots, garlic, lovely lardon – bits of bacon and fat – wine and bouillon, and a bouquet garni. The cabin fills with a swoon-worthy perfume of florals, musk, and tang, as if the trees and leaves wandered indoors with the breeze. Chubby ceps or blue foots are quartered and heated up in a pan till they release the water coursing through their veins. They are revived with the sultry, woodsy brew simmering around the rabbit. That’s hunter-style. French hunter, Breton hunter.
How can I not order it? I take the first bite. A gorgeous, sensuous sauce where herbs dance a dosey doe of me-voici followed by a lovely fade away of viens-me-chercher. The light rabbit meat takes me deeper into the mystery of the forest, just a hint of humus from the depths of the warren. And the potato? Not a starch, not just a vegetable. The potato steps in just in time for me to appreciate the brilliance of the show.
I walk with my Peace Corps cohort in the dark of a Gabonese jungle. We are building an elementary school in an isolated village. The eerie daytime silence is suddenly disturbed by an approaching rumble. I turn to witness a dusty, dented pickup trundling out of the trees. Its driver? An English gentleman who – incredibly – stops to ask for directions.
“The man promised me potatoes, and I must have my potatoes. Ah, potatoes,” he says tenderly as he pulls away. He is at least an hour from the closest town.
A handsome biology PhD from Madrid, Adrian waxes poetic about a potato recipe from his grandmother who raised him. He is couchsurfing, and I lend him my apartment for a weekend that I am away. In return, he leaves me a card of thanks in elegant, very correct English, noting the exorbitant cost of olive oil in the U.S. and hoping that I enjoy the Spanish tortilla that he has left for me.
I lift the cover on the plate. A perfect halo of gold. Whispery-thin potato slices with tiny slivers of onion and egg as the buttery mortar. In the fridge is a carafe of homemade gazpacho, a sip of summer garden on a sunny day.
Two old Irish women cluck and coo over me as we sit on the train. They worry that I am single, alone at the age of twenty-four, and decide that a potato farmer would be best for my husband-to-be. A man of the land with the dirt of hard work on his strong hands. I smile at their kindness in finding me a match.
My great-grandfather travels from Ireland at the age of eighteen, arrives off the southern coast of the U.S. He is outrunning black rot and the pain and grief Phyophthora infestans leaves in its wake. He could head north or west but travels to Texas instead. Irish potatoes grow well in Central Texas.
My little girl loves earth apples. On weekend mornings, I make her hashbrowns for breakfast, peppering and salting the parboiled chunks that dance across the sizzling skillet. Unlike most American children who love the stretch and pull of gooey mac and cheese or slippery spaghetti, she loves to dig into a potato. Baked in its crispy, crinkled jacket. Mashed into buttery, salty clouds. Floating in smoky, spicy saag.
I have learned a lesson from the humble potato that can be applied to all food. A recipe is more than words on a piece of paper. And food – food is so much more than just what is on your plate. It’s a walk through the woods. It’s a home away from home. It’s a warm hug from your grandmother. It’s a smile on a lonely train. It’s the carpenter of your ancestors’ boat that carried them to faraway shores. It’s the journey of love and passion that began a long time ago in a little cafe in Brittany, France. It’s asking for le plat du jour. You won’t regret it – I promise.
Francesca Cannan currently resides in Vermont. Her stories recount adventures as a language teacher traveling the world and living in Brittany, France; Madagascar; and Gabon, West Africa.
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