A Love Letter to Linda

I’m worried about you. Now, I know that a love letter is supposed to start in a more romantic way: “Whenever I think of your eyes, they’re like crystals, pure and clean like your soul. Whenever I touch your skin, it’s like a satin drape, dark and like-felt and secretive, like you. . .” You know, that kind of thing. But let’s forget all of that rubbish. Firstly, because we’ve known each other far too long now. Secondly, because if you have eyes, that’s a bad sign, and your skin is usually covered in dirt. And thirdly: I really am worried about you.

Well, it's Brexit. Now, I know you're a tough old tuber. Yes, yes, I know that you’ve been around since 1974 and that, since you were bred, you’ve managed to stay out in the fields: no drought, no deluge has been enough to drive you back in – and then there are those potato beetles that can eat row after row of you away.

You’ve seen them all off – and have managed to fend off even more ominous foes, like the German Federal Seed Authority, Bundessortenamt, and its strict legal framework: there were times when they confiscated you and when you appeared in the High Court of Appeal.

I know, at first Germany didn't seem very welcoming

and you don’t like to think back to those dark days. But it was your finest hour. And when some seed producer came along in 2004 and wanted to take you back off the market because, after 30 years, the rights to you as a breed had expired – although, with more than 300 other competing types, you had managed to secure 1.4% of the market and consumers loved you – when that happened, Germans came out fighting for you: organic farmers, SlowFood types, TV personalities. . . They were fighting for your juicy, yellow flesh and creamy taste with hints of butter and sugar, an intense yet delicate experience. They were fighting for your versatility, the way you can work well in a soup or dusted with chopped parsley, the way you can make fluffy mash or fantastic hash browns.

of course, was potato dumplings, because you were waxy; you had to be stored for eons before you became floury – and, most of the time, someone had eaten you up by then.We fought for you because you weren’t watery or bland, you weren’t standard supermarket fayre and not an industrial crop. You were an expression of tradition and variety – and delivered more vitamin C than an apple. One was enough: you were our potato.

So they made you Potato of the Year 2007.

And – abracadabra – you were authorised to return to the market. Which is why I’m worried. Your new authorisation came from the British Seed Potato Classification Scheme, back in 2009, that meant that farmers across the whole of the European Union could then useyour seeds. But now, in 2017, noone knows quite what will ha ppen. And then there was that photo of Prime Minister Theresa May during the general election campaign eating a bag of chips with a face full of thunder. If that doesn’t make you worried. . . Pray tell me, sweet tattie, how long will I be able to keep you? (Away from sunlight in a cool place, of course.)

With love, Helmut