Something special is going on in London tonight, with a buzz already building around a new designer product to be unveiled in the witching hour. Restaurateurs, chefs and fashion-conscious foodies will be among those jostling for sizzling fare prepared in a special field kitchen, and if their samples match up to the one I just tasted, the cry of the night will be: "I can't believe it didn't need butter".
The product is Rudolph, a new breed of potato developed to be so fluffy that it needs no fat to lubricate its flesh, an attribute set to repair the dietary reputation of spuds, which were once our ubiquitous choice of starch.
They fell out of favour nearly a decade ago thanks to the wholesale embrace of a Mediterranean-style diet built around pasta and olive oil, but the recession is bringing them back.
Potatoes are the food story of the credit-crunch era: cheap, filling and nutritious, at least when cooked in their skins to preserve all the vitamin C. But the 4bn pound British potato market has come a very long way from the days of one-breed-fits-all, even if the Maris Piper, bred 50 years ago to be versatile as well as perfect for chips [french fries!], is still the nation's favourite.
Maybe not for much longer. The real 'Brit Pots' are heritage breeds that have stood the test of time in terms of taste and versatility, claims Sue Gilbert, marketing manager of Greenvale, the UK's largest supplier of fresh potatoes. It has just teamed with Sainsbury's to market four older varieties once neglected by growers, now packaged specifically for roasting.
The product is Rudolph, a new breed of potato developed to be so fluffy that it needs no fat to lubricate its flesh, an attribute set to repair the dietary reputation of spuds, which were once our ubiquitous choice of starch.
They fell out of favour nearly a decade ago thanks to the wholesale embrace of a Mediterranean-style diet built around pasta and olive oil, but the recession is bringing them back.
Potatoes are the food story of the credit-crunch era: cheap, filling and nutritious, at least when cooked in their skins to preserve all the vitamin C. But the 4bn pound British potato market has come a very long way from the days of one-breed-fits-all, even if the Maris Piper, bred 50 years ago to be versatile as well as perfect for chips [french fries!], is still the nation's favourite.
Maybe not for much longer. The real 'Brit Pots' are heritage breeds that have stood the test of time in terms of taste and versatility, claims Sue Gilbert, marketing manager of Greenvale, the UK's largest supplier of fresh potatoes. It has just teamed with Sainsbury's to market four older varieties once neglected by growers, now packaged specifically for roasting.
