As the Jersey Royal season gets under way, Emma Hughes goes in search of buried treasure
OBVIOUSLY I’m biased, but I really think they’re the best potatoes in the world,’ Christine Hellio says, looking out over her 350 vergées (87½ acres) of land as we speak on the phone. She and her husband, Didier, grow a Mr McGregor-worthy assortment of vegetables—cauliflowers, parsnips, sprouts, sweet potatoes—but none of them touch her in quite the same way. ‘This is the thing we look forward to most,’ she confides.
It’s a blustery January day on the northwest of the island and the Hellios’ minds are on Jersey Royals. For 12 weeks a year, the potatoes—pebbly, paper-skinned, butteryfleshed—are all they think about. The growing season brings the rest of Jersey to a virtual standstill; about 22,000 tonnes (2,165 tons) of potatoes are exported during and after it. ‘We produce about 600 tonnes just on our farm,’ Mrs Hellio says. ‘Yes, it’s intense.’
South-facing, sheltered by the Bay of St Malo and criss-crossed by hedges and stone walls, the island’s soils warm fast, making it one of the earliest spots for potatoes. At the start of the year, seed Jerseys start being carefully laid out by hand in cotils, the sloping fields overlooking the sea that are unique to Jersey. For the following three months, they’re tended to with extraordinary love and care. Think pandas get the kidglove treatment? They’re manhandled like parcels compared with Jerseys.
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