介绍:
Xiaohua: Hello, and welcome to Round Table’s Word of the Week. 听说土豆成为主粮了，and so today we are going to talk about potatoes.
John: Potatoes. And funny enough, actually the English word “potato” comes from the Spanish word “patata” and it’s actually the name still used in Spain and it referred to a type of sweet potato rather than the other way around. So at first, it was a type of sweet potato and then it just became known as the potato.
Xiaohua: Potato这个词是从西班牙文的patata来的。那么最开始的时候，potato实际上是指白薯，也就是sweet potato，但是渐渐地呢，才用来指土豆这种食物。
John: And interestingly enough, it was actually first domesticated in southern Peru, so it is actually from the New World, if you will. So in Peru and Bolivia between 8000 and 5000 BC, it has since spread around the world.
Xiaohua: 土豆种植的历史还挺长久的。在公元8000至5000年前，南美的秘鲁和玻利维亚就有人开始种植土豆了。
John: And amazingly enough, potatoes are used in a vast variety of ways, not just eating. Some people may be familiar with vodka. It can be made from potatoes. Akvavit, from Sweden, another part of Scandinavia, that is also made from potatoes. It can be used for food for domestic animals and also potato starch is used in food industry to make thickeners and binders and soups, and in the textile industry as adhesives and even in the manufacturing of paper and boards.
Xiaohua: 我们来看看土豆的各种用途吧。土豆可以用来酿酒，尤其是像伏特加，akvavit这样的烈酒；可以当做饲料，这我们都知道了，中国的农民经常用土豆皮来喂猪；另外土豆淀粉也是很常用的一种东西。还有呢就是，土豆竟然可以在纺织业中做粘合剂或者用来加工纸和纸板。
John: After the news that the Ministry of Agriculture is making the potato a stable food in China, I imagine most of listeners are going to be interested, in what the hack should we do with this thing. Well interestingly enough, potatoes can be prepared in a variety of ways: skin-on or peeled, whole or cut up, seasonings or without, mashed or whatever. But really, all that you need to pay attention to, more the often than not, is first boiling the potato, getting it to a temperature that the starch granules actually first swell up and then making other types of dishes with it.
Xiaohua: 我们下面还是说说最重要的议题，怎么样做土豆吧。做土豆的方法可以有很多种，可以带皮吃不带皮吃，整个吃切开了吃，煮煮就吃或者是放调料吃等等。但是最重要的就是土豆一定要煮熟了再吃。
John: Exactly, so of course, I think most people are familiar with mashed potatoes. And mashed potatoes can come with in an amazing variety, because really all you get to do is boil the potatoes, peeled or not peeled, so you can do it with skin-on or skin-off everyone to do it, and then you just mash it up. And there are some different ways making mashed potatoes. My favorite is my mother’s roast garlic mashed potatoes, with roasted garlic and butter and salts and maybe some milk with mashed potatoes. But you can put anything in there. You can put mayonnaise, sour cream, anything to kind of cream it up a little bit, but then you know add bacon, add onions, add garlic. It’s just, the varieties are endless.
Xiaohua: Mashed potato是土豆泥。土豆泥的做法可多了去了，可以保留着土豆皮也可以把土豆皮削去，然后煮熟之后压成泥，然后可以加你任何想加的东西，牛奶，酸奶，酸奶油，黄油。John推荐加烤大蒜roasted garlic.
John: Yeah, it’s really good. Roasted garlic smashed potatoes are freaking amazing. And then a big favorite in the United States is the baked potato. If you go to a lot of restaurants that serve the steak, one of the side items and choices are going to be a baked potato. In my family, whenever we ate steak, we also ate the baked potato. And it’s just easy to, basically, you just wrap it in tin foil, and bake the heck out of it for 45 minutes to an hour. It takes a while. And then you cut it open and you put some butter or whatever you want really inside of it.
Xiaohua: 整个的烤土豆baked potato也是美国人非常喜欢吃的一道土豆菜肴。基本上就是用锡纸包好放在烤箱里烤很长一段时间，然后拿出来之后，或者切开在里面加上盐、黄油以及你任何喜欢吃的东西。
John: And then there are I think as everyone knows French-fried potatoes. In the UK and Australia, they call it chips and in the US chips are potato chips, you know like薯片or something like that. And then there is scalloped potato, which is basically just very thinly sliced potatos. Then you can make you know hashbrowns for example, so by grating them and making like土豆丝almost and then frying it up. And then of course, there is an Italian dish called rosti, which is basically you mash up potatoes, you take the mashed potatoes and you make them into a type of dumpling.
John: One of my favorite dishes, so I already talked about the roasted garlic mashed potatoes, but another one my favorite dish was one of my mother’s classics, potato所 au gratin, which is a horribly pronounced French word. But gratin, it just means a type of casserole and so with potatoes au gratin, you scallop the potatoes very, vehin and then you cook it in a sauce of cheese and milk. And it’s just amazing.
Xiaohua: 这是John最喜欢吃的菜potato au gratin. Au gratin是法语，意思就是焗烤成的一种菜肴，通常表面上是有一点烤焦的样子。Potato au gratin就是把土豆切成薄片放在烤盘或烤碗里，然后上面再浇上自制的调料汁在烤箱里烤制而成。The mere talk of it makes my mouth watery.
