Celtic Cookery : Irish peasant's way for cooking potatoes in 1855

Excerpted form the book “A Shilling Cookery for the People" by Alexis Soyer, 1855. . Posted by kind permission of Conrad Bladey . All rights reserved.

—Meg Dods says there are great varieties of potatoes, and fully as many ways of cooking them, but recommends boiling in preference to steaming. Mrs. Rundell prefers steaming, or, if boiled, in plenty of water, and when half done, some cold water and salt thrown in, and boil until not quite done, and then left in the pot near the fire.*

* This is the Irish peasant's way (if he wishes to fast for six hours), as it leaves the bone or moon in it. The origin of the word in Irish, "an ghealeach" , is that, when a half-cooked potato is cut in two, the centre shows a disk, with a halo around it, like the moon. This does not digest so quick, and allows the person who eats it to go longer without food, which I consider a great detriment to the of the stomach.