Potatoes are the Champs.
Get it? Champ? Mashed potato with spring onion? The funniest jokes are the ones you have to explain.
Every March my TikTok is awash with people in the US celebrating PATTY’S DAY! And every year it makes me cringe just a wee bit more than the last.
On St. Patrick’s Day, a very specific menu rises from the depths of collective memory, like a culinary leprechaun: corned beef, cabbage, potatoes, and something aggressively green. No one questions it. We simply accept our fate and boil vegetables in honour of a man who drove snakes out of Ireland (allegedly) and also, somehow, inspired an entire cuisine based on simmering.
Let’s start with corned beef and cabbage, the headliners of the parade. This dish has the personality of a kind but stern grandmother. It says, “You will sit down, you will eat something hearty, and you will not complain about the smell.” It is salty. It is soft. It tastes like history and long winters. You don’t crave it so much as you honour it, like a national anthem you chew. Irish soda bread appears next, humble and sturdy, the food equivalent of a good pair of boots. It doesn’t have time for yeast or fluffiness. It’s here to be sliced, buttered, and dunked into stew. Sometimes it has raisins, which feels like a betrayal, but we allow it.
Then there are potatoes, Ireland’s most famous contribution to global comfort. Mashed, roasted, boiled, or transformed into something involving butter and hope, the potato shows up to St. Patrick’s Day like, “I heard you needed emotional support.” It is impossible to be sad while holding a potato-based food. This is science.
On St. Patrick’s Day, there is one true hero. Not the leprechaun. Not the shamrock. Not even the aggressively green beer. It is the potato.
The potato does not ask for attention. It simply shows up, dependable and emotionally available, in approximately twelve different forms. Boiled. Mashed. Roasted. Fried. Turned into something involving cheese and destiny. If St. Patrick’s Day had a mascot, it wouldn’t be a leprechaun. It would be a potato wearing a tiny hat.
Potatoes are the ultimate celebration food because they understand the assignment: be filling, be comforting, and pair well with literally everything else on the plate. Corned beef? Potato will support it. Cabbage? Potato will soften the blow. Gravy? Potato will act as a warm, starchy sponge of joy.
Mashed potatoes show up like a cloud you can eat. They are fluffy, buttery, and incapable of causing conflict. Roasted potatoes arrive crispy and confident, like they know they’re the fan favorite. Boiled potatoes are… there. Trying their best. We respect their effort. Then we turn them into potato scones and they are great.
And let’s not forget the fried potato, who has absolutely never had a bad day in its life. If you put a potato into hot oil, it becomes happiness. This is just chemistry. SCIENCE.
What makes potatoes perfect for St. Patrick’s Day is that they feel historical and emotional at the same time. They whisper, “I have seen things,” while also saying, “Would you like more butter?” They are humble, hearty, and wildly adaptable, much like the holiday itself, which has gone from religious feast day to worldwide excuse to wear green, eat like a Victorian farmer and get extremely pissed.
There’s something magical about a food that can be:
a side dish
a main dish
a snack
and a personality trait
Potatoes don’t judge. Potatoes don’t rush you. Potatoes say, “Sit down. Eat something warm. The world can wait.”
So this St. Patrick’s Day, raise a fork to the potato. The unsung spud. The dependable Duke of York, not the noncey one. The root vegetable that launched a thousand dinners. Whether it’s mashed, roasted, or heroically absorbing gravy, it is doing important cultural work.
Yes, the celebration has shamrocks and saints and folklore, oh my! But deep down, we all know the truth: St. Patrick’s Day is just a very elaborate excuse to eat potatoes with pride.
And that’s beautiful.
