Tayto Factory Tour!

Visitors Pass

During the Easter holidays I was able to go home for a few days. I took time out from my studies to attend my best friend’s wedding where I had the honour of being best man. Although I was busy helping things come together for the wedding I had potato on the brain. It’s interesting how I’m constantly reminded of this potato blog, what with home cooked dinners, savoury snacks and fast food places everywhere. It was no wonder that whilst eating a packet of crisps that I had an idea – I must visit the Tayto Factory!

Set in the historic village of Tandragee, the Tayto castle is home to Northern Ireland’s biggest and wealthiest crisp factory. I was able to send an email at short notice on the 11^th of April and by sheer luck I secured a last minute place on a tour around the castle on the 12^th of April.

Unfortunately I realised when I got there that I was not allowed to take either a camera or notepad into the factory for hygiene reasons. However I was able to retain most of the information in my head and jot it down when I got back to my car.

After being used as an English military base during WWII, The castle itself passed hands to the Hutchinson family in 1956. Mr Hutchinson who had visited America during the war came across ‘the crisp’ and liked it so much that he decided to introduce the new phenomenon to Northern Ireland. It was an immediate success. The company grew and grew and today turns over £150 million per year. It even has its own secret recipe room where the company’s top secret Cheese and Onion flavour is made. No one knows but Mr Hutchinson and his selected few what the recipe is (although there are over 1,000 employees). I learned these and a few other facts during my visit which I’ll let you in on...

·        The factory had 8 huge potato storing bays which can contain up to 4 tonnes of potatoes. The main potato suppliers are 4 farmers from the North of Ireland and 2 from the Republic.

·        The potatoes are brought into the factory between July and October and are stored under huge cooling blankets in the dark to keep the potatoes fresh. The blankets ‘trick the potatoes’ in to believing they’re still underground which stops them from going green.

·        The factory uses only Lady Clare and Lady Rosetta potatoes as they feel they’re the best types of potatoes for turning into crisps. Both types of crisps are waxy and once cut very finely they do not break apart.

·         After the potatoes have been through a machine which washes them they are moved on to a peeling machine where they are skinned.

·        The potatoes are then dropped into a container of water to remove the starch where they fall to the bottom to be moved along for slicing. The smaller/average potatoes are cut to 1.2mm and are passed along to the fryer where they remain for 3.5 minutes. The larger potatoes are cut to 1.8mm per slice and are fried for 11 minutes.

·        The thicker slices once fried are a lot more crunchier and filling and are so moved to another part of the factory where they are flavoured and sent out in more expensive packets such as ‘Tayto Rough Cuts’ etc.

·        The thinner slices are used for all other standard packets of Tayto crisps.

·        The Tayto snacks we get in Northern Irish stores such as ‘Tayto Rollers’ and ‘Tayto Bikers’ are corn sacks made from maze.

·        After all crisps are flavoured and evenly divided into packets, they are sent out to be delivered to shops around the country.

The tour was both enlightening and educational and I would certainly encourage any crisp lover to go visit a crisp factory if you can. You learn so much and you may be given lots of freebees to take home like I did!

Hot Potato Fact

It takes 5 TONNES of Potatoes to make 1 TONNE of Crisps!!

Mash Made in Heaven

Novel cover after the novel was made
 into a movie in 1996

I have recently read Nora Ephron’s romantic heartfelt yet ‘revengeful’ novel Heartburn (1983) widely renowned as her semiautobiographical novel. She uses her characters to publicise her husband’s affair with Margaret Jay. The novel is a romantic heartbreak which contains underlying meanings and metaphors, and links memoir and recipe to explain how she felt at different moments in her life.

One particular passage caught my attention as she writes about eating mashed potatoes as comfort food.  She writes:

“POTATOES AND LOVE: SOME REFLECTIONS

The beginnig

I have friends who begin with pasta, and friends who begin with rice, but whenever I fall in love, I begin with potatoes. Sometimes meat and potatoes and sometimes fish and potatoes, but always potatoes. I have made a lot of mistakes falling in love, and regretted most of them, but never the potatoes that went with them. … Not just any potato will do when it comes to love. There are people who go on about the virtues of plain potatoes - plain boiled new potatoes with a little parsley or dill, or plain baked potatoes with crackling skins - the time for plain potatoes - if there is ever a time for plain potatoes - is never at the beginning of something. All this takes times, and time, as any fool can tell you, is what true romance is about". (Ephron, 1996 p. 124 – 125)

Throughout her novel, her ability to paradoxically express simple metaphors is genius. She tends to throw things in a pot to boil, boiling out past worries and feeling.

Everyone loves a bit of mashed potato, and not just for comfort consumption, so I decided to prepare a mix of my own favourite types of mashed potato to scoff all by myself.

If you want to do the same, all you'll need is:

Sweet Potato & Parshnip          Mash Simple Mashed Potato               Champ

2x Large Sweet potatoes                 2x Large King Edwards            2x Large King Edwards

2x Parsnips                                       ¼ lb butter                              ¼ lb butter

¼ lb Butter                                       100 ml of Milk                          100 ml of Milk

3-4 Scallions (spring onion)

200 ml sour cream

Peel all 6 potatoes and chop into quarters.

Bring 3 saucepans to boil, in one add the sweet potato quarters and in the other two divide the King Edward potatoes (great for mashing) evenly. To the sweet potato saucepan add the parsnip, peeled and chopped. Make sure to turn the down a little when the water has reached boiling point.

When the potatoes in each pan are fully cooked (simply pierce a potato quarter with a knife and it should easily slide off) turn off the heat and drain the water out.

·        For the sweet potato and parsnip mash, simply add the butter and get mashing!

·        Add the butter and milk to the simply mashed potato pan. You can even add a little sour cream to make it that more interesting and begin mashing.

·        With the Champ, slice up the scallions and add them to the potatoes along with the butter, add the milk followed by the sour cream and get mashing.

When you’re sure there are no lumps and bumps simply spoon the mashed potatoes out onto one large place and enjoy!

If it’s a little comfort eating you’re after, you can eat straight from the saucepan in front of the television wrapped up in a blanket! Bliss.

Ephron, N. Heartburn. London: Virago Press, 1996

Sweet Potato Quote

"Nor do I say it is filthy to eat potatoes. I do not ridicule the using of them as a sauce. What I laugh at is, the idea of the use of them being a saving; of their going further than bread; of the cultivating of them in lieu of wheat adding to the human sustenance of a country....As food for cattle, sheep or hogs, this is the worst of all the green and root crops; but of this I have said enough before; and therefore, I now dismiss the Potato with the hope, that I shall never again have to write the word, or see the thing."
William Cobbett (1763-1835), British journalist and reformer


We've come a long way since opinions such as these.

Hot Potato Fact

Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette were both known to wear potato blossoms to spiff their outfits!

Potato is fashion, potatoes are the way forward!

Interview

Richard, pictured centre aboard his new home and workplace.

By chance luck I was able to interview my cousin Richard Smyth who is a busy, qualified and simply talented chef - if i do say so myself. 

 

Richard has been cooking ever since the age of thirteen whom recently closed his restaurant in Co. Monaghan to manage a kitchen aboard a cruise ship. I was very lucky to get in contact with him to ask a few questions.  

 

1. How Long have you been in the Food industry? When did you start?

Ive been cooking for 15 years. I started in ANDYS in Monaghan at 13, became a qualified chef at 18 and became head chef there at 20.

 

2. What sort of organisations have you worked for/within?

Mostly within restrarunts and hotels but I am now aboard a cruise ship.

 

3. As a chef, what is you general opinion on using the potato in cooking?

The potato is a very versatile vegetable, you can’t go wrong with a potato. It can be used as a side, a garnish, for a main, in baking and soups and loads loads more!

 

4. What is your favourite dish to cook that incorporates the potato? Can you give me an ingredient list and method?

If you want a really simple and tasty recipe I’d advise you to make Irish potato bread! Just do as follows:

 

Get two hundred grams off seasoned cold mash potato and place in a bowl. Add two eggs and need (or mix with your hands) in plain flour until the mix becomes doughy. Then roll out and cut into whatever shape you wish. Dust in flower and shallow fry until golden and cooked through. Serve with breakfast or with some cream cheese and smoked salmon. You can add or serve what you like with this for a starter or whatever.

 

Also crisps are good! Thinly slice the potatoes. Wash to remove the starch and then dry well and deep fry at 160 until golden and crisp. Then toss in cajaun seasoning or whatever spices you fancy and serve with dips of your choice.

In Praise of the Potato

Book Cover



Whilst researching potato literature I came across a book written by Lindsey Bareham entitled ‘In Praise of the Potato: Recipes from around the world’, (1989). Bareham’s book contains a combination of recipes that centralise around the potato and provides us with information about the potato.

‘Anyone interested in learning more about potatoes should buy Lindsey’ Bareham’s marvellous book … a joy to own, for potato dishes will never go out of date’– Arabella Boxer in Vogue.

‘Splendid and imaginative … I now feel there can be nothing left to say on the subject of potatoes’ – Delia Smith.

Bareham begins by enlightening her reader of the history of the potato: its nutritional content, storage advice and different varieties, before entertaining us with different methods of cooking. By devoting entire chapters to particular methods of cooking potatoes such as ‘Boil and Steam’, ‘Mash’, ‘Bake’ etc, Bareham informs us upon the various ways in which to prepare potatoes within that particular type. I found one roasting method quite scrumptious…

“Paprika Roast Potatoes

This is a variation on the famous Hungarian Paprika Potatoes cooked fondante style. They make a good alternative to baked potatoes with cold meat.

2 large potatoes, boiled and peeled

1 ½ oz (40g) butter

2 oz (50g) plain flour

1 oz (25g) paprika

2oz (50g) onion finely chopped

Hot milk and hot water as required

Salt, pepper

Pre-heat the oven to 350F/180C/gas mark 4, butter a shallow dish and cut the potatoes horizontally into ½ -in (1-cm) thick slices. Make a layer of potatoes, sprinkle on half the sifted flour, season with salt, pepper and half the paprika and then with half the onions. Repeat and finish with potatoes. Season and pour on enough milk and water (in equal amounts) almost to cover. Dot with butter, cover with foil in which you’ve punched a few holes. Bake for 1 hour, remove the foil and bake for a further 30 minutes.” (Bareham, 1995 p. 47)

Following on from methods, Bareham provides the reader with a wide range of potato recipes. Whether it’s ‘Salads’, Sauces and Stuffings or exciting ‘Dinner Dishes’, Bareham does not disappoint.

There is also a list of ‘Drinks’ recipes provided. I smiled at the mention of Irish Poteen, probably the most famous drink made from potatoes, yet it is highly illegal. Bareham says: “the most famous, reputedly lethal and strictly illegal alcoholic brew is the Irish poteen.”   (Bareham, 1995 p. 296) However, she does provide ingredients and recipes for other potato based drinks.

I found the ‘Cornish Barm’ recipe rather interesting and useful for those who fast for religious or other reasons. I’ve included the recipe below, give it a go - if it tastes nice let me know as I’m too wary to try it for myself!

“Cornish Barm

This curious drink should be viewed as sustenance during a fast.

3 oz (75g) mashed potato

4 oz (110g) sifted flour

4 oz (110g) sugar

2 pts (1.1 l) water

1 oz (25 g) raisins” (Bareham, 1995 p. 298)

Bareham, L. In praise of the Potato: Recipes from around the world. London: Penguin Group, 1995.