Michelin-trained chef Poppy O'Toole known as 'The Potato Queen' has become a Tik Tok sensation sharing her absolute love for the humble potato. She gave her top tips for making the best roast potato for your Christmas dinner and explained why she is passionate about supporting farmers and British grown produce, and why buying local and supporting British farmers is so important. And from one Potato Queen to our very own potato king, we also speak to FG's Cedric Porter to find out what is going on in the potato market right now and how growers are feeling about the year ahead.
Michelin-trained chef Poppy O'Toole known as 'The Potato Queen' has become a Tik Tok sensation sharing her absolute love for the humble potato. She gave her top tips for making the best roast potato for your Christmas dinner and explained why she is passionate about supporting farmers and British grown produce, and why buying local and supporting British farmers is so important. And from one Potato Queen to our very own potato king, we also speak to FG's Cedric Porter to find out what is going on in the potato market right now and how growers are feeling about the year ahead.
Welcome back to this week's Farmer's Guardian podcasts. I'm Rachael Brown. And I'm Alex Black. And this week, Alex, we have a very unusual guest, not someone that we normally have on the show, but a fantastic guest. Poppy at all. She's a michelin trained chef and now dubbed as the Potato Queen, sharing all the wonderful recipes you can do using the humble potato. And of course, what makes that crispy roast potato, which you'll be thinking about leading up to Christmas. I mean, it's not I'd have been able to prove that yet, but I will keep trying. And also, Alex, just having interest. What's your favorite potato? So my favorite is, you know, one of the red skinned potatoes. It's a Desiree potato. And that's because I've grown them in my garden and they make the best chips ever. Yeah, the skin. Very, very tasty skin on those. And also probably I would say mine is the Mars Piper, which is also Poppy's favorite potato, too. And but yes, I really, really lovely chat with Poppy. And it was so fascinating to see how she suddenly kind of launched into this showbiz world really all because of a love for potatoes. And now she's appearing on, you know, shows like MasterChef, and she's done brilliantly. So if you haven't come across Poppy yet, definitely search on Instagram and TikTok. Yes, a really, really lovely chap just talking about potatoes. I'm delighted to be joined by Poppy. It's all Poppy. Thanks so much for joining me today. How are you? I'm good. Thank you. Thank you for having me. absolute pleasure. Now we've got to talk about it. Potatoes. I'm sure you're sick and tired of talking about potatoes. No, Never. Never, ever. Will I ever talking about potatoes. Every time I see like I see adverts now and things are getting ready. Potato legs, I don't know. Crisps and stuff and chips and like, everything's about the potato. And I'm like, Are they speaking to me? I know these sets. So tell me then. So why did your love of potatoes first start? Where did it come from? Well, I mean, does anybody not love potatoes? I don't know if I'm from day one. Really? I don't know what I don't know. When I started becoming obsessive potatoes, I always have been always been a fan. I mean, they're delicious, but it came into its own in 2020, in like a November ish time. And I did 25 Days of Potatoes. That was that. It was I'd like to say it was like a master plan. It wasn't it was a coincidence because I had my first viral. Yeah. So it was buzz cut, a really viral video that I did on my socials, which was a potato recipe that got a million views. So I was like, Well, we've got 25 days in lockdown. Let's do, let's do 25 potatoes. But having said that, I have always been when I was working in kitchens and stuff, I would be the one on potato prep. So it was just kind of taking recipes I'd already done years prior and bringing them to social media. So for people listening to this and people that I've got, I've got garden, what would you recommend? What particular potato? I think I love a mars Clipper. I think they're one of the most versatile of potatoes. But I suppose in terms of ease and you potatoes easy to groats is less time assuming. Yeah because they're smaller and also my family, my parents have grown up with potatoes which are very good. I mean that is quite an achievement when you see this lovely, beautiful purple potato come out of the ground. But yeah, I think if you go for the opportunity of a spud, I'd go man, or maybe I was going to say, I'm not I'm a fan. I'm a fan of King Edward Potatoes. But I was there in times of recipes. Obviously, you've cooked so many dishes with potatoes. Have you got a particular favorite, favorite dish or favorite potato dish? Okay. Favorite dish. I. I'm a big fan of anything crispy. Yes. So I love a roast potatoes or a chip or a fond of potato, which is like this little round bit of potato cooked in butter and stuck. And it just gets like gloriously caramelized. And then it's just so in the middle and it's just but you have many of them. They're quite very naughty, but they are divine. Yes. So obviously, you are a trained chef. And in terms of going into potatoes and when you were looking for a change after potatoes, but when you were in those Michelin star restaurants, you know, how did you make up those kind of dishes using potatoes? And if you see what I mean. Yeah, well, it's always kind of when you're working underneath somebody. So there's always the head chef or the owner who has all the ideas, I suppose. And then the whole team kind of revolves around to make it the best it can. It could be. So it's all about sort of getting little nuggets of information and ideas with lots of people and bringing it together. So one of the dishes that we kind of came up with as a team, I can never take credit for one dish. Like it doesn't happen as a chef you are in. I don't think nowadays many people can literally say, Yes, I completely came up with this on my own. It's just almost impossible. But we did this beautiful potato dough thing, which is a classic way of cooking a potato, which is very French, but it's a shoe pastry with mashed potato in it and you deep fry it. It looks really delicious. So I kind of took that more recently and decided to make it sweet. So I was like, Well, you know, she pastries are éclairs, that profiteroles. So I like to do it stuffed with little marshmallow on top of it. my goodness me, Elsie Absolutely filthy again. You could only have about one of them before. Yeah, what a year. My gosh. What a chain. No, definitely. And obviously, with your chef background, you know what we're talking about a lot at the moment in terms of food security and making sure that young people know where their food is coming from. Is that something that you were really passionate about as well? It is. I think it's a kind of lost art at the minute. When I was younger, I've always been obsessed with food, so that's never been an issue for me. I always wanted to be digging or finding something. My grandparents were really lucky. They had like plum trees. So, you know, we'd always be like almost foraging for stuff. Whereas my little brother and sister, who are 13 and 15 now, and there's a good old age gap between us and not quite like that. They're not really aware or care as much. They love food because they can see it all the time. It gets busy as well. But what they don't they're not bothered about is, you know, I've seen how long it takes to grow or to kind of cultivate these different vegetables, whereas it is something I was definitely more interested in when I was little. I like being dirty and grubby and getting down in the mud and stuff, so it's something that I would like to definitely get into more. I'm still trying to find a balance between everything because I think it can be when you get into that, you got to really get into it and don't get lost touch. Yeah, I really want to. And I just was like, pull off first at a house, which is amazing. So now I've got a garden and actually do stuff in it on my calves, but it's just like you have to learn so much. It's a whole new skill and it's a lot I'm trying to get into. I'm watching Gardeners World every weekend, so I'm really enjoying the crew. So I mean, we've recently bought our own house and just having a garden. We've just put in a few, you know, we growing some carrots and a few potatoes. I mean, I've been hopeless, Poppy, but, you know, it's a learning curve as we go along. I don't think I don't think the first time round you do very well. I don't think that's what I've been seeing from a lot of people. But I've like such it was like it's like two or three days. And then you get to know the soil and you get to the my God, it's such a science. And I don't my brain doesn't have the capacity to kind of like take it. But like I said, I would love to bring it more to my Salford of what I actually do, because I think with chefs it's always something that we are always thinking about. Where does that product come from? How can we get the best out of it and how do we support people who are doing that to to give our customers the best they could ever get? I think you make an important point in terms of where that produce come from. And you know, at the moment there's a real drive and push. You know, we we need to celebrate all food that we grow in this country, British produce, you know, some of the highest welfare standards, some of the best quality. And, you know, some people may argue at the moment we're missing that trick a bit. So, you know, we have locally food sourced here. We do not need to be importing food. And I think that's something that, you know, our readers are very passionate about and they want to get that message out there that, you know, British the British farming industry is one of the best industries in the world for growing food. It absolutely is that most of the other countries buy all of our produce anyway. That's where a lot of it gets export something. But like it is one of the best. And when you get in season proper British produce, it is like unbelievable English great strawberries are some of the best ever like. But that's why I think another thing apart of like educating people around it is also like we should be eating seasonally. You shouldn't be able to get a strawberry in December. Like, yes, it's lovely that we are able to do that and incredible, but it isn't necessarily the best thing for us. You know, the the the land that we have in the UK gives us what we need to be supported throughout the year. You know, we all going to have to eat a lot more pears and apples when it becomes a bit colder because that's what goes and it's better for you, it's better for the environment, it's better for a lot of things. It's just educating more people. And I think when you're in the food scene and when you're like a chef or you're just into that and you're into gardening, you know, but a lot of people don't understand that. When I I've done certain things on socials before, like this is what's in season, spring greens and stuff like this. This is cheaper, it's more readily available. These are some recipes around it. You know, I did kind of a mini mini series of how to use seasonal fruits and veg, and people just didn't understand that things came in seasons and they didn't they were never taught it that, you know, this is why certain things are cheaper at certain times of the year. This is why things are more expensive when they're imported and they're like, I didn't realize. I just thought that was No, no, I thought this is an element of of our food being taken for granted that, you know, they expect to see it on the shelf. And when things happen, like with the Ukraine crisis and, you know, that was shortages on the shelves, That's when suddenly the conversation got started again. But it shouldn't come to that point. You know, we should be always mindful that, you know, if there are people at the end of the day that are growing that food and working hard to produce, that it doesn't just turn up on the shelves, which, you know, I've spoken to many young children who just assume a chicken lands upon the supermarket. But is it again, like, you know, no one also realizes how much work goes into it. So food waste becomes just like, yes, perhaps. But it's not just the carrot. Someone has to get to see the ground up through it, water it, make sure there's no weeds, but it shows like it's just it's unbelievable how much work goes into it. But it is all take for granted because you can actually walk into anywhere and just go, yeah, thank you, thank you. And again, like you say, with like chicken and the meat produce as well is there's no connection between animal and meat, which again is bizarre. I was I was cooking with my little brother the other day and I like to do I love using turkey legs because they're really cheap. You can get so much from them like they're ridiculous. And my mum would say that my mum loves Turkey, but the people outside are like, Why are you having turkey and I August-September and I'm not because people just think it's a December thing but I'm not this all year round. Yeah, lean meats and also cheap and cost for families so like get this massive turkey leg is like a fiver you get like a kilo of sheep it gets and I take a boat was added to the skin off and I was cutting the muscle, you know, the actual meat. So it was like Muslim, it was like you eat the muscle is what you eat. I was like, Yeah. I was like, you know, you have a steak like that. There is the fillets, the muscle. And he's like, I didn't know that. And it was kind of half between like disgusted and also kind of like, interesting. Instead it goes show animal and you know, the end of the day, you then took something away and he said to me after his I'll, I'll cook with you a little bit. And it's just about education, just literally just opening people's eyes up to what it is actually. And I think just starting it early on as well as in primary school, you know, when I was at school, you know, secondary level, we had food tech and everything like that. But that's kind of being lost in the curriculum. And I think there's a real drive to try and bring it back to understand where food is coming from. I think we can eat healthy. I think they'd like full stop getting rid of it unless you actually choose it as a which is such a shame because you should be pushing it. Definitely. So I want to talk about being on farm G Often go on farm. Do you like getting on cows? I Have you been to a couple of farms and they're incredible. I think they're amazing, but I have got a few more coming up. I'm going to go and tell your friends, you know, because I have farms. It's just it's like I said, it's finding a balance between all the other stuff that's going on as well. But it would be great to work more closely with producers and farmers, just again, like just to get the word out that this is where food comes from because it is such an important part of the world we all live, definitely. And I think there's loads of misconceptions and stereotypes out there around the farming industry and farmers themselves. You know, it's me, NIWA, Tell me, tell me the misconceptions. you know, you've got that traditional outlook of what a farmer is, but actually when you go on farm, people are very pleasantly surprised. But also, like you say, in terms of the hours that they work, people just think always on the tractor to go in. But actually they do so much work grafting away. yeah, it's like farmers with like for I am like doing things like really important things. Yeah. My dad's a dairy farmer. Say's all his life has been dying up. Credible is amazing, but there isn't yet. It is not. It's like if that was a if we were talking about surgeons, it would be a whole like, you know they work 24 hours. It's amazing. I mean, so stupid comparison for me because I'm like saving lives. Yeah. And it is the don't get enough credit for the amount of work that she gets put into it. And then, you know, when there was the whole kind of like milk fight and it's like just pay the farmers properly. Like, why can't we just I mean, at the moment milk prices are up, plummeted down. And you know what farmers do? They just want a fair price for that, for that's it you say. But it's all just the big supermarket I like. We'll just take the price down. It doesn't work like that. Everybody else is going to. That's an interesting, interesting point. So where does the future hold for Poppy? Obviously, you've got so many different ventures going on. And, you know, I have to say, I when it's the pandemic, I used to work for another broadcaster and I actually spotted you on Instagram and Tik Tok first. And you will and I remember messaging you and this is when you had hardly any followers. And I said, Poppy, I want you on ITV, London. Come and talk. I'm like, Do you remember that? no. It was one of your first live interviews, I think. Yeah, I remember that. But so yeah. And then I was like, Puffy, I think it would be great. And you and I. Okay. And then literally, you know, it just catapulted from there. You guys together. And I was like, following you. And I was like, my gosh. And I was like, you know, these shows get then I think, well, you're definitely part of many. Has it surprised you the reaction? Poppy, gets absolutely ridiculous. This is absolutely stupid. The thing is being I mean, I just thought it would be shit for the rest of my life, but I know I'm a bit of a shit still. But, you know, the the the idea of my life was just going to be, yeah, look, working in kitchens one day, maybe I'll open a restaurant or something eventually somewhere far down the line. And to then just be kind of like accidentally fall into this and it's still be going three years later. Yeah, it's just the test of time. Definitely. It's really weird. I didn't realize people liked annoying potato ladies as much as I do, but I'll take it. What is it like? You know, obviously you're dubbed the Potato Queen. The Tatty Queen Queen? Yes. I mean, I would not want to be called anything else ever. Like, what's better than potatoes? Nothing you have to say. And what an absolute privilege I will. I will carry this second potatoes around with me for the rest of my life, and I will look after it and shoulders ahead, make sure that I believe that I'm going to have to ask this Thursday night. So my idea, roast dinner is a roast chicken or a chicken dinner. What's your ideal one? Yeah, I always work. Well, actually, I think my basic diet, but I don't like to run out of time, so we're going to have that on a Tuesday instead. So I love a roast chicken. I think it is one of the most underrated best Sunday dinners. First of all, because you get about two or three meals out of the after, depending on the amount of people that you've read, because I feel like action should be no role to Sunday dinner. Like I like a Yorkshire pudding on all of my Sunday roast, not just my beef. I also have to have very nasty stuff in. There has to be a huge cuisine that I have meat sauce on my vegetables for stuff like that. So any dressing, that's a quirky thing, you know? Yeah, I'm obsessed. But then I also need cranberry sauce and also horseradish. All the condiments on one day. Yeah, I'm a psychopath accent. It's not like it's not. Okay, People look at me like you want all of that? Yeah, I'm guessing. But you do what you want popping it exactly right. You get that crispy skin, you get lovely, moist, delicious chicken, and then you got meals after two to make up with it. But what is the art of getting that crispy, crispy, fluffy potato? That's why everyone listening to this once today, I do get it. So this most people have lots of different ways of doing it. And sometimes, sometimes I do like a tacky potato. No, not crispy one. If you had a tacky no was a tacky potato like it's like not really crispy on the outside. It's like, soft, but it's quite because it's been like loads of fat on it. It gets big, tacky brown. That's like how my nan used to do it. Like it's attacking potato but in the best way possible. But to get a crispy, fluffy roast, you need again, I would go to Maris Piper or King Edward. Yeah. Because they need to be a starchy floury potato and then you need to cut them into big. They've got to be quite large. So let's say you've got a medium sized potato. It's got to be three or four pieces like eight, right? That's about, you know, that's about as much as you can get out of this. But then it is be cooked in style off in cold water, very heavily salted. Boil it and then I boil it for a little bit longer, up about 5 minutes. So they are really kind of falling apart. Drain them off, make sure you put a tea towel over the colander or whatever. Put that kind of back into the pan that had the hot water in so full steam and just put it almost back on the Hulk. But the help turned off so of the Heat is just carrying on and the steam is drying the potatoes as dry as you can get. The potatoes you need about like 5 minutes or so and then you get into hot fat. So whether that's vegetable oil is really good and you could be fat, boost that dip, whatever you prefer. I like vegetable oil because I like the potato to taste of potato, but I am also partial to big fat, basically all of them. And then it's got to be really great being hot fat like you would with a Yorkshire pudding. It's got to be super hot and then just only turn them once was there in the oven halfway through. Sound advice. I mean, Christmas come in. That's what people need to know because it is the staple on the Christmas dinner. Yeah. I mean you're roasting wrong. Look, it's all downhill from there. It's if you turkey's moist. Great. But if you roast potatoes are wrong. I have disappointed, actually. Definitely. So obviously, you know, you got your garden now, so you want to go out and do a bit more gardening if you get time to. You know, it's a little venture in this in Poppy's own potatoes and you start selling your potatoes. Imagine that would be incredible. I think I need a bit more. I'd like to think so. I may need a bit more than my own small little because, you know, you got to start somewhere, got to spend Christmas. And that would be incredible. Imagine if I could get you. Just put it in my head. I try. I'll take royalty from that. Yeah. Would be some commission for you. But what has been an absolute delight talking to you today, following actually from your chat, we are going to be joined by Cedric Porter. So Cedric is a journalist at Farmers Gardening, but also he can match your obsession with potatoes. He is all potato market guru. If you want to know how potatoes performing in the market, Cedric is your guy, so he'll be following after you. I feel like I need to arrange a meet up between you and sign to meet up because I feel like potatoes are like selling at the minute. I see them everywhere right next market. But he knows the intricacies of the in and out of the potato market. So Cedric will be following you. I will be. I would love to chat with him. I'm going to say how much do I do? Like about four seasons of potato recipes on my channel. So I would like to see how it goes, if that makes any difference in the sales I put it to, I'll put it to him. But thank you so much for your time. Thank you very much. And for the future. I will say my potato growing business. So we go, I'm sure it'll thrive, no doubt. Thank. Thank you. Bye bye. So from one potato extraordinaire to another, and I'm now delighted to be joined by Cedric Porter. Cedric is the editor of the World Potato Market and also a reporter here at the Farmers Guardian. He can tell you everything in terms of how the potato market is looking, both the short term and the long term trends. So, Cedric, over to you. All right, Joe, thanks very much. So I think I think it's almost certain now that the UK is going to have its smallest potato crop ever this year. We had as plantings were were very small, only around about 100,000 hectares. If you go back 50 years, we were getting to almost double that. So it was going to be a smaller crop anyway. And then it was difficult, both ends of the season in terms very late planting, quite wet planting, then the crop recovered quite well. But then of course we had all the autumn rain, an enormous amount of rain, three, three or 400 millimeters and some of the potato growing areas in the UK and that's left potatoes in the ground. So probably round about sort of 10% of the national potato crop is still in the ground. And for some growers it's even more than that. Having seen those videos, haven't we, Cedric, all shared online in terms of, you know, machinery going into the fields and digging out the potatoes because the weather conditions have just been so bad. Yeah, well, it's not even digging out the potatoes. It's being having to dig out the machines. I think it's been horrific and and, and, and obviously that so it's very difficult what's going to happen to those places in the ground? Do they come out? What quality are they? So. So we've had a spook. So we reckoning. Well potato markets reckon about 4.2 million tonne crop which would be the smallest ever smaller than the 2012 crop, which was really affected by the weather and those sort of legendary drought hit crops in 1975, 1976. They were very small and you only have to go back to 2017 and the UK was growing 6.5, 6.7 million tonnes of potatoes. So and there's still a massive need for potatoes in the UK. The Brits eat a lot of potatoes. I love that potato. So the demand is still, but it will certainly do along with the to the Irish and the Eastern Europeans eating most potatoes in Europe and some of the most paid in the world. And that means that actually we've been increasing imports and quite dramatically increasing imports. It's nearly 2 million tonnes equivalent of potatoes imported into the UK, mostly in the in terms of frozen fries and chips. And so the massive demand there and I think our self-sufficiency in potatoes has gone from about 90% 30 years ago to about 60% now. And this is a crop, of course that we're really good at growing. It's not like bananas and it's something that, you know, that should be a concern. I think those sort of crops that if we can't be growing those. But as I say, I mean there is a long term to bond and there's a massive growth in potato demand around the world. And definitely I will say that real emphasis right now in terms of that food self-sufficiency and ensuring that, you know, we are we have that high food self-sufficiency and also feed security here. Yeah, Yeah. I think it's it's it's a long term issues as well of of what we're using our land for and some of these food issues and actually that sort of coalescing around potatoes it's a but yeah as I say globally the massive demand nutritionally they're very good actually they can be very good from an environmental point of view because you're getting a massive yield per hectare from them. So you're getting a lot of food from, from, from, from your, your acre, your hectare. So from that point of view, they're they're a great crop. So I think, you know, whether this year will be one that everyone sort of wakes up and thinks, you know, it's time to save the spud, what's our long term future going to be for it? But you do need to invest a lot of money in storage and machinery, irrigation, some years, drainage, other years, you know, is becoming more difficult because of more change in challenging climate. Definitely. I think that was a really interesting point in terms of the environmental perspective of growing the potato. And actually, you know, you can kind get a real a lot of crop really into the fields. And I think that was a really interesting perspective in terms of your favorite potato, etc.. I can't not interview you and not ask you this. So what is your favorite potato? And also, do you have any cooking tips on how to really get that like crispy out of potato and the real fluffy inside? Yeah, well, I suppose it's got to be the favorite way is eating them. I do like Charlotte's Potatoes are quite lovely sort of firm ones as a yes as a more of a salad potato isn't it. Yeah. Salad one as well. You know, I kind of like roasting salad potatoes as well, but I think it is, it's about fluffing, it's about fluffing isn't it. Really. So get a bit of rough, put, you know, oil on the fluff. Make sure your other oil is hot and then just wait and wait for them to sizzle. So it's it's an exciting thing to do as well because, you know, there's there's drama, there's fantasy theatrics in actually watching the sizzle and then to taste them. definitely. So my Christmas dinner is always that sort of fight over Christmas. What's the best way to do it? You do see the newspapers in the next two or three weeks, we'll be saying, you know, it's the best way to cook your potatoes. You better make sure you've got your potatoes. You can't have Christmas dinner without. I could have Christmas dinner without the turkey, but I can never do it without potatoes. I shouldn't say that from the turkey point of view. But also it's a big letdown when you know you don't get the potatoes right on a Christmas day. I failed. You think they're lying here? Yeah, isn't it? Yeah. Now that you're ready to make this right and the sight of that for the last one. definitely. Definitely. Well, thank you so much for your time. Such a very insightful look into the potato. Well, so thank you. That's it for this week's Farmers Guardian podcast. We'll be back with another episode for you next Friday. Thank you very much for listening and goodbye for now.