Potatoes, Pasta & Legumes Good Things on the Side

Potatoes, with bread, dominate the starch side of the French country table. It is hard to imagine a steak without frites, sausages without pommes purée, or duck or goose confit without crisply browned potatoes sautéed in the fat from the bird. I can tell where I am in France from the style of potatoes on my plate. The cheese and potato purée called Aligot requires beating by a cook of muscular build, such as you find in the Auvergne, and from the same region comes body-building Truffade, a potato cake laden with bacon and melted cheese, a poor man’s version of truffled potatoes. Of course, potato dishes vary with the season, and much depends on whether the potatoes are waxy and new, or the last season’s crop and hence drier and more floury. In a French supermarket, potatoes are sorted by their culinary properties, so that consumers know which ones to boil, purée, sauté, or deep-fry for frites.