Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 25.djvu/227

Rh no jackets. Should potatoes be peeled before cooking, or should they be boiled in their jackets? I say most decidedly in jackets, and will state my reasons. From 53 to 56 per cent of the above-stated saline constituents of the potato is potash, and potash is an important constituent of blood—so important that in Norway, where scurvy once prevailed very seriously, it has been banished since the introduction of the potato, and, according to Lang and other good authorities, it is owing to the use of this vegetable by a people who formerly were insufficiently supplied with saline vegetable food.

Potash salts are freely soluble in water, and I find that the water in which potatoes have been boiled contains potash, as may be proved by boiling it down to concentrate, then filtering and adding the usual potash test, platinum chloride.

It is evident that the skin of the potato must resist this passage of the potash into the water, though it may not fully prevent it. The bursting of the skin only occurs at quite the latter stage of the cookery. The greatest practical authorities on the potato. Irishmen, appear to be unanimous. I do not remember to have seen a pre-peeled potato in Ireland. I find that I can at once detect by the difference of flavor whether a potato has been boiled with or without its jacket, and this difference is evidently saline.

These considerations lead to another conclusion, viz., that baked potatoes, and fried potatoes, or potatoes cooked in such a manner so as to be eaten with their own broth, as in Irish stew (in which cases the previous peeling does no mischief), are preferable to boiled potatoes. Steamed potatoes probably lose less of their potash juices than when boiled; but this is uncertain, as the modicum of distilled water condensed upon the potato and continually renewed may wash away as much as the larger quantity of hard water in which the boiled potato is immersed.

Those who eat an abundance of fruit, of raw salads, and other vegetables supplying a sufficiency of potash to the blood, may peel and boil their potatoes; but the poor Irish peasant who depends upon the potato for all his sustenance requires that they shall supply him with potash.

When traveling in Ireland (I explored that country rather exhaustively when editing the fourth edition of "Murray's Hand-book"), I was surprised at the absence of fruit-trees in the small farms where one might expect them to abound. On speaking of this, the reason given was that all trees are the landlord's property; that if a tenant should plant them they would suggest luxury and prosperity, and therefore a rise of rent; or, otherwise stated, the tenant would be fined for thus improving the value of his holding. This was before the passing of the Land Act, which we may hope will put an end to such legalized brigandage. With the abolition of rack-renting, the Irish peasant may grow and eat fruit; may even taste jam without fear and