To Keep French Beans

Here’s a brief tale that will illustrate better than anything else how the Irish feel about potatoes: To understand it, you must first know the French pride themselves, as with so many other of their food, on the quality of their potatoes, and they are exquisite. I can buy expensive French fingerling potatoes, such as rattes, at gourmet stores and greenmarkets at a huge markup in New York. And yet, when my parents used to own a house in France where they stayed for long months every summer, they took along enough potatoes to last them all summer. As much as they loved France, and the food, and the wine, there was simply no negotiating when it came to potatoes. Proper Irish potatoes, or nothing.