Potato Heads

(The first paragraph of this is more or less reproduced from an article I wrote in 2008 with the Potato Head title.)

Remember Mr. Potato Head? Not Wayne Rooney, but one that has been with us far longer and which now comes with his own head. Mr. Potato Head became self-sufficient, a fully-integrated toy, courtesy of a prosthetic potato, putting an end to the weekly shop being deprived of a King Edward or two, as was once the case. One suspects, though, there is less pleasure to be had than when the eyes or glasses were pressed into a real spud and out squirted some juice. Mr. Potato Head was one of the great toys. Hours of endless amusement. How simple and how much fun.

Toys and potatoes. Where do they come together? Sa Pobla. The town has a museum of toys, and it also has an awful lot of potatoes. It was this dual tradition that once made me think that town fairs should have mascots. For Sa Pobla, it would be Senyor Cap de Patata. They did once have a mascot for an autumn fair in the town, but I never found out if it was indeed a Mr. Potato Head; it certainly ought to have been.

The potato has been a theme of Sa Pobla's autumn fairs and it was also the theme of the town's gastronomy event over the weekend just gone. The night of the potato. Spud evening. I read a report which said that "only Sa Pobla, highly regarded for its farming, would have the ability to organise a fair dedicated exclusively to the potato". The only town with the ability, and the only one bonkers enough to arrange one. Chip batty, though not quite as bonkers as Muro and its pumpkin fair.

The great night (in fact nights) of the potato was a great success. And so you would expect it to be. Twenty-five bars and restaurants dishing out plates of potato-based meals at a minimum of a euro a pop. If you can't get a successful gastronomy event for a hundred cents, then how can you get one at all?

The thing about gastronomy is that the word suggests rather more than what you get. It hints at fine cuisine. Not that there was anything not fine about the array of dishes available for scoffing in Sa Pobla, just that they weren't particularly remarkable. You just had to look down the list of the different dishes to get a flavour, so to speak, as to what was on offer. "Frit de patata", for example. Chips. Rather grander was cod au gratin with potato. Three euros and worth every one for the cod and the cheese.

Still, the bigging up of the Sa Pobla potato came up at an opportune moment. It had briefly become a victim of Cucumbergate, the Germans banning imports on the basis that ... . Erm, on what basis? They swiftly unbanned the spud.

The potato night was important also for reaffirming the potato's place in the hearts of all the people of Sa Pobla. It has taken a bit of a knocking from rice, so much so that last year's autumn fair was dedicated not, as usual, to the potato but to rice. The great rice and spud war has broken out in Sa Pobla, the former now considered a genuine alternative for cultivation to the potato, and a crop that has grown in significance since its introduction to the edges of Albufera in 1901 to the extent that now some 20 hectares are devoted to it.

The potato farmers have faced problems other than the advance of rice and Germans banning their produce. At the end of March last year, they took to their tractors and blocked the roads in protest against financial help that had been promised by the regional government, but which hadn't been forthcoming.

Other than just the boost to the local agro-economy, the potato fair does highlight, not for the first time, quite how well publicised, or not, such events are, especially to visitors. With the poor weather around at the weekend, this was one event that could have made a break from moping in a bar, while there were a couple of other fairs - shoes at Lloseta and the fourth annual fair in Biniali, devoted, echoes here of Sa Pobla and its toy museum, to traditional Mallorcan games. This fair was something not just for adults but for kids. Who knew about it? Who would even know where Biniali is?

Potato heads. Not announcing themselves well enough.


Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.