HER name is as familiar as any philosopher’s. She has been invoked time after time in supermarket aisles, cookery books and in a text from my mum: ‘Maris Pipers, 220ËšF, bit of salt.’ Yet who is she—who exactly is Maris Piper?
The answer, it turns out, is less exciting than I had initially imagined. There I was, hoping for some kind of potato celebrity— a wholesome country hostess, perhaps, wearing a pinny, her sleeves rolled up, flour on her nose—but no. Maris Piper is not real. She was never a person—at least, the potato wasn’t named after anyone. (There may, I accept, have been someone in British history called Maris Piper, somewhere.)
The truth is that, in 1956, workers at the Plant Breeding Institute in Cambridge were crossing potato breeds, when they were successful with what we now know as the Maris Piper, an oblong, smooth-skinned potato that launched a decade later. The name was derived from two elements: the first from Maris Lane in Trumpington, the location of the institute, and the second, Piper, chosen by the breeder H. W. Howard’s son. Still, I like to think that Maris Piper, the woman, accompanies me as I peel my potatoes.
Maris Piper’s identity revealed, I set about looking for other familiar names at home and away, which amount to a veritable shopping list.
Denne historien er fra February 02, 2022-utgaven av Country Life UK.
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Denne historien er fra February 02, 2022-utgaven av Country Life UK.
Start din 7-dagers gratis prøveperiode på Magzter GOLD for å få tilgang til tusenvis av utvalgte premiumhistorier og 9000+ magasiner og aviser.
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Save our family farms
IT Tremains to be seen whether the Government will listen to the more than 20,000 farming people who thronged Whitehall in central London on November 19 to protest against changes to inheritance tax that could destroy countless family farms, but the impact of the good-hearted, sombre crowds was immediate and positive.
A very good dog
THE Spanish Pointer (1766–68) by Stubbs, a landmark painting in that it is the artist’s first depiction of a dog, has only been exhibited once in the 250 years since it was painted.
The great astral sneeze
Aurora Borealis, linked to celestial reindeer, firefoxes and assassinations, is one of Nature's most mesmerising, if fickle displays and has made headlines this year. Harry Pearson finds out why
'What a good boy am I'
We think of them as the stuff of childhood, but nursery rhymes such as Little Jack Horner tell tales of decidedly adult carryings-on, discovers Ian Morton
Forever a chorister
The music-and way of living-of the cabaret performer Kit Hesketh-Harvey was rooted in his upbringing as a cathedral chorister, as his sister, Sarah Sands, discovered after his death
Best of British
In this collection of short (5,000-6,000-word) pen portraits, writes the author, 'I wanted to present a number of \"Great British Commanders\" as individuals; not because I am a devotee of the \"great man, or woman, school of history\", but simply because the task is interesting.' It is, and so are Michael Clarke's choices.
Old habits die hard
Once an antique dealer, always an antique dealer, even well into retirement age, as a crop of interesting sales past and future proves
It takes the biscuit
Biscuit tins, with their whimsical shapes and delightful motifs, spark nostalgic memories of grandmother's sweet tea, but they are a remarkably recent invention. Matthew Dennison pays tribute to the ingenious Victorians who devised them
It's always darkest before the dawn
After witnessing a particularly lacklustre and insipid dawn on a leaden November day, John Lewis-Stempel takes solace in the fleeting appearance of a rare black fox and a kestrel in hot pursuit of a pipistrelle bat
Tarrying in the mulberry shade
On a visit to the Gainsborough Museum in Sudbury, Suffolk, in August, I lost my husband for half an hour and began to get nervous. Fortunately, an attendant had spotted him vanishing under the cloak of the old mulberry tree in the garden.
