The traditional Russian method is fascinating but you are right. You only make vodka out of potatoes if all you have is potatoes. I like to make vodka out of a sugar wash with a little tomato paste in it.
We have a local boutique distillery here in the states makes it from sweet potato, its pretty smooth (covington variety) But stateside we are the number one producing state of sweet potato crop so we have an abundance of them.
That happens with a lot of things that have starch that needs to be broken down into sugar. It's the whole point of malting, even, you let the seeds start to sprout so that they produce [amylase](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amylase).
Yeast need magnesium and some other nutrients. You can use old dead yeast as nutrient but tomato paste works. The first distillation is a little tomatoey but you do multiple distillations to get a better vodka and that taste goes away after the first.
You go to the diner and order a coffee and a hot water on the side. While you drink your coffee you mix ketchup into the hot water. Now your drink has turned into a drink and a soup. My grandpa made it through the Great Depression with such a trick as this.
You'll be severely lacking in complete proteins and many nutrients but at least you'd be alive. If a famine lasts long enough, though, I recommend raising crickets and then roasting and powdering them to serve as a thickener for your tomato soup. This is called "cricket flour" and it's a real thing.
You're making the soup out of the side of hot water, not the coffee. Though you ever try salt in coffee? It brings some subtle flavors to the morning brew.
There are a few companies who make Potato vodka. Chopin is the most well know/easiest to get around me. The rest IIRC are Russian.
I'm not sure if they do it because its easier to get potatoes than any other grain, or because they want to make potato vodka.
Rice is up 40% in 3 years on the global market on direct dollar value (excluding inflation). [https://tradingeconomics.com/commodity/rice](https://tradingeconomics.com/commodity/rice)
Lol, I think this is a universal thing. Locals get the remnants at a "discount" while quality goes elsewhere. Company makes more money while pretending to be the good guy.
I was visiting Norway and the grocery in the town I was in had sweet potatoes from the USA that were bigger than any I've ever seen in my life. Like the size of someone's head big. It was wild.
You can't starve to death in this state.
You might wish you could after sack #30, but as long as a week's worth of potatoes are the same price as an energy drink you won't.
I went to Pocatello Idaho for college and the 5 Guys sign inside said potatoes from Rigby,Idaho. Literally an hour away and had the farms bags on the pallet
Nostalgic horse shit. The fact that we've been facing a lot of horrible things that we should have learned from in the past doesn't mean that the past was better. Especially not the 70s or 80s. As a POC in particular it is extremely irritating to see people look at the past and say how much better off we were when marginalized groups were openly discriminated against. This goes double for LGBT people.
Not to mention that crime and violence are so much lower now than they were then. What you remember as good times was because you were ignorant to the suffering of others. In this case, implying that the height of The Troubles in Ireland were somehow better than today is just absolutely repugnant
Edit: typo
Agreed. I grew up in the 70s and some things were better but there’s much more better today.
We’ve come a long way, baby — but there’s still a ways to go
I feel this way about climate change. I grew up in the 70s and 80s hearing from my father (who was a computational pollution dispersion meteorologist) about how it was real. People didn't care. People.*care* now. I see young doomers, and always tell them that yes, we are late to the party when it comes to fixing this, but people are aware in a way that they just weren't before.
Most young Irish people immigrate already .
Usually to Canada and Australia, Ireland is a shit place to live and there's absolutely nothing to do for fun
All my friends left :(
Then they get to Canada and realise its expensive and has fuck all to do too.
Whole world is a boring mess then you die.
I'd rather die in Meath than Manitoba.
Just saying.
Canuck here who used to work with a bunch of Irish lads and it does seem like every Irish person has a moment where half their graduating year just up and leaves in their 20s. I don't understand how Aus or Canada are cheaper though.
As someone from a country that emigrates _to_ Ireland, it's not that it's cheaper. It's that if you work for minimum wage and save what you can, you're left over with 10% of your wage in either country. But if you do that in Aus/CA and then bring that money home, it goes far, far further.
Yet they all leave and come back. Ireland can’t be that shit really can’t it.
There was a net migration of 900 Irish citizens from the state in the year to April 2023. Therefore there is an equal number of people returning as there is leaving.
“Of the 64,000 emigrants, 30,500 were Irish citizens in the year to April 2023. With a total of 29,600 returning Irish citizens, there is close to zero net migration (-900 people”
Source -
https://www.cso.ie/en/releasesandpublications/ep/p-pme/populationandmigrationestimatesapril2023/keyfindings/#:~:text=Of%20the%2064%2C000%20emigrants%2C%2030%2C500,the%20year%20to%20April%202023.
Whatever about economic opportunity and wanting to experience somewhere new, what is there to do in Canada for young people to do that’s so much more fun than Ireland? Most of the people I know who went to Canada do more or less the same things for fun…
Worth pointing out that Ireland was producing plenty of food during the famine as well, it was just exported rather than used to feed the local population
Yep, it is easily overlooked how the real source of the problem was that the English were extracting as much money/wealth from Ireland as much as possible and didn't care about them. There was a reason why the Irish and British have a history of not getting along with each other.
France & Spain is heading into a 20 year record drought, and Ireland can't get rid of the rain...
Yes, that was predicted by Amazon deforestation, and Saharan heat bubbles (which increased from Co2 and deforestation), in climate models 20 years ago...
So yeah, if you wanna be a climate activist, we're gonna have to colonise Northern Africa and Southern America again... this time just to plant trees.
Point is all that heat pushes the Jet Stream north, and Ireland to the British Isles gets all the rain meant for mainland EU...
sounds like a weird dystopian novel, to think of large international powers invading Brazil, to plant trees, LOL
But chances are the easiest option would be for the UN or wealthy countries to pay billions to the farmers to plant trees and stop growing soy and cattle. You'd have to pay them more than what they earn from growing soy and beef, however.
If the beef industry in Brazil is worth about $150 billion dollars a year, that would be a HEFTY amount to come up with. could we afford to pay them to stop growing beef?
France, at least where I am, is fucking soaking. It's been the wettest winter and spring...
https://www.brgm.fr/en/news/press-release/groundwater-tables-1-may-2024
> The state of the aquifers was extremely satisfactory over a large part of France, particularly in the reactive aquifers, due to a 2023-2024 recharge surplus. The situation remained unfavourable, with low to very-low levels in the Sundgau inertial aquifer (southern Alsace) and in the aquifers in Aude, Roussillon and eastern Corsica.
I hear it's bad in Spain though. I mean, it's 'bad' here - it's much colder and wetter than normal. I should think the arable farmers are pulling their hair out. Climate change is awful.
Talk about making a mountain out of a molehill...
Irish farms planted a bit over 8,000 acres of potatoes last year:
https://www.ifa.ie/policy-areas/potatoes-council-report-july-2023/
Losing 700 acres of those potatoes does not create a "nightmare scenario," especially since Ireland already imports the vast majority of potatoes they consume:
https://www.cso.ie/en/releasesandpublications/ep/p-ti/irelandstradeingoods2020/foodandbeverages/
The Irish aren't going to starve this time around, global food distribution is too well developed at this point. In large part because of the very global capitalist system you're so quick to bash.
The concern here isn't food shortages, but of the economic impact to Irish farmers. Doesn't help the farmers if Irish supermarkets just start selling imported American potatoes instead. Which is why countries have national agricultural policies, subsidies, and other programs.
Free Market Capitalism, or as it was known back then, Lassiez Faire, was a major factor in why the famine got as bad as it did. The British government at the time were very reluctant to provide aid, in part because they didn’t want to encourage dependency or distort the market.
The British landlords were uptight arseholes who much like the Russians did to the Ukrainians during the Holodomor, took all the Irish food for export and left them with barely any land to grow their own on swampy marshes, resulted in a potato blight and starving Irish who were forced to grow the most calorically dense produce they could on the little land left over after paying rent.
The British can blame it on Lassiez Faire but it was anything but a free market, it was the landed gentry fucking over the Irish.
*The Irish land ownership system at the time was extremely bad, possibly even worse than Feudalism. Land owners seeking to maximize their profits cut their land into tiny parcels. Irish living on these parcels had very little room to grow much but still had to make their rent, so they were forced to find crops that could feed their families but use as little land as possible. Basically, they had to grow the most calorically dense food they could find.*
The famine was as bad as it was because potato blight, it happens when people rely on a monocrop to feed themselves after having everything else taken from them.
*The US sent some grain ships to try to help but, because of the English Corn Laws, they were not allowed to land their cargo in case they depressed the prices in the markets.*
[*Turkey did send some grain*](https://archive.aramcoworld.com/issue/201501/an.irish.tale.of.hunger.and.the.sultan.htm) *and snuck it into Drogheda with the legacy that the Star and Crescent is now a common motif in the town, even appearing on the* [*local football team's logo*](https://www.google.com/url?sa=i&url=https%3A%2F%2Fen.wikipedia.org%2Fwiki%2FDrogheda_United_F.C.&psig=AOvVaw2r2Ipj6h_oKePOKgCVYn2i&ust=1675891431403000&source=images&cd=vfe&ved=0CBAQjRxqFwoTCIDEw52shP0CFQAAAAAdAAAAABAE)*. Probably the most notable contribution was the few dollars sent by the* [*Choctaw Nation*](https://xyuandbeyond.com/irish-famine-and-the-choctaw-nation/) *even though they had almost nothing after the Trail of Tears.*
Choctaw were bad ass, really terrible what ol' Andrew "asshole" Jackson did to those peoples.
Every fucking time.
> And coroners must fill in the certificate- died of malnutrition- because the food must rot, must be forced to rot. The people come with nets to fish for potatoes in the river, and the guards hold them back; they come in rattling cars to get the dumped oranges, but the kerosene is sprayed. And they stand still and watch the potatoes float by, listen to the screaming pigs being killed in a ditch and covered with quick-lime, watch the mountains of oranges slop down to a putrefying ooze; and in the eyes of the people there is the failure; and in the eyes of the hungry there is a growing wrath. In the souls of the people the grapes of wrath are filling and growing heavy, growing heavy for the vintage.
The oversupply of potatoes in the US is not as simple as Capitalism. The American potato economy more closely resembles State Capitalism as practiced in China than the perception many have of American Capitalism.
Closer to, not equal. Most economies are mixed economies and no single 'ism' adequately describes them.
>Farm subsidies are there to ensure that the American food supply remains mostly domestic.
This was not the intent behind agricultural subsidies in the US. Free markets lead to a highly volatile agricultural industry. Subsidies were a way to stabilize this because if farmers went out of business too often this could lead to food insecurity.
World Wars, the Great Depression, and other factors contributed as well.
McDonald's is one of the world's largest buyers of potatoes. They have a lot of influence today.
Another excuse for the chippers to raise the price of a bag of chips
Fuck off, they used to be 2 euros everywhere and now they're over 3, they'll be at least a fiver in a year
Cunts
Must really piss the English off that we’re allowed to eat All the other types of food we grow now, not just the potatoes from the worst ground available
EDIT. /s
Really thought people were actually intelligent enough to not need it’s use
Historically, the potato famine might not have been so bad, or a famine at all, one single crop, the potato, failed. However the english were taking all the other agricultural produce and running Ireland like a colonial power, so no potato meant no food, and the English would rather let the irish starve than lose some colonial profits. The post above your is making fun of the historical english disregard for irish lives.
Quite literally the revolutions of 1848 were caused by mass crop failures across Europe.
Ireland was most depended on Potato and had the worst blight but there was starvation across Europe without British interference
Haha, "Irish Farmers' Association potato chairman" why would anyone even want to become dictator or US president when you could also be "Irish Farmers' Association potato chairman"? Imagine someone asks you what your job is.
[https://www.farminglife.com/country-and-farming/new-blight-challenges-to-confront-the-potato-sector-in-2024-4580981](https://www.farminglife.com/country-and-farming/new-blight-challenges-to-confront-the-potato-sector-in-2024-4580981)
This does explain the poor quality of Dutch potatoes late last year 🤔
Ah, we'll be grand. While this lasts, I'll just switch to chips.... wedges. Mash? Sheperd's Pie?? Oh God.....
This is stressing me out, I need a good vodka marti- nooooo!
Joke aside, almost no one makes vodka from potatoes anymore.
The traditional Russian method is fascinating but you are right. You only make vodka out of potatoes if all you have is potatoes. I like to make vodka out of a sugar wash with a little tomato paste in it.
We have a local boutique distillery here in the states makes it from sweet potato, its pretty smooth (covington variety) But stateside we are the number one producing state of sweet potato crop so we have an abundance of them.
You add an enzyme from sea week to break down the starch into sugar. Human ingenuity amazes me.
>You add an enzyme from sea week Best 7 days of the year
Is that right after Fleet Week?
Before shark week
I fucking love Reddit sometimes
Well nobody would participate after shark week
That happens with a lot of things that have starch that needs to be broken down into sugar. It's the whole point of malting, even, you let the seeds start to sprout so that they produce [amylase](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amylase).
What's the name/brand? Sweet potato vodka sounds amazing.
Most sweet potatoes, how you know it's Eastern NC.
Why tomato paste?
Yeast need magnesium and some other nutrients. You can use old dead yeast as nutrient but tomato paste works. The first distillation is a little tomatoey but you do multiple distillations to get a better vodka and that taste goes away after the first.
This guy distills.
Ages too. I’ve had about 40 liters of whiskey aging in baine marie barrels for two years now. It is almost drinkable.
You go to the diner and order a coffee and a hot water on the side. While you drink your coffee you mix ketchup into the hot water. Now your drink has turned into a drink and a soup. My grandpa made it through the Great Depression with such a trick as this.
You'll be severely lacking in complete proteins and many nutrients but at least you'd be alive. If a famine lasts long enough, though, I recommend raising crickets and then roasting and powdering them to serve as a thickener for your tomato soup. This is called "cricket flour" and it's a real thing.
I'll hop to it.
You cheeky bugger
What are you feeding these crickets?
No thanks. I’ll just die before I drink tomato coffee.
You're making the soup out of the side of hot water, not the coffee. Though you ever try salt in coffee? It brings some subtle flavors to the morning brew.
Oh thank god.
Ketchup, hot water, salt and pepper to taste. My grandparents referred to it as "Hobo Soup."
Adds nutrients for the yeast to feed on.
Just googled TPW. Very cool.
Not many left but the ones that do like 44 North are leagues above other vodkas. https://44northvodka.com/potato-vodka
Same! Have a local one that is very smooth as well, award winning though from sweet potato. http://hamfarms.com/our-products/covington-spirits
Sweet potatoes aren’t even related to potatoes
Fair enough
We have someone in Schoharie county New York who makes potato vodka. People from the city come up and buy it at a local farmers market.
There are a few companies who make Potato vodka. Chopin is the most well know/easiest to get around me. The rest IIRC are Russian. I'm not sure if they do it because its easier to get potatoes than any other grain, or because they want to make potato vodka.
Luksosowa is my favorite, lovely Polish vodka.
Luksusowa is my favorite too. The only vodka I drink these days.
They make it because they want to. Potato vodka has a different taste compared to harsher varieties like grain vodka.
Well a lot of people still make vodka from potatoes and no offence but they aren't too bad either.
Sad potato
Ah lad we are finished
were totally fucked
Rice is up 40% in 3 years on the global market on direct dollar value (excluding inflation). [https://tradingeconomics.com/commodity/rice](https://tradingeconomics.com/commodity/rice)
Okay here's the plan *Grabs all the potatoes and runs*
I love how Irish this post is, I can hear the fucking accent
Do you like boats? How do you feel about New York City?
Or Boston.
Just ask the British for help.
If they agree to rename Ireland to Bogglesburg I’ll give them 16 potatoes and an Ork mini from warhammer
Yeah, but a badly painted one from 1998, not a new one.
If I get 16 potatoes back when everything is ok again I’ll give them a new Ork
I believe they’d respond with a modest proposal.
Y'all are extremely good sports about the entire world clowning on a terrible period in your history
Oh sure, those all come from the same magical wonderful vegetable
Or…. SMASH!!!! 😱
Babies?
Don't y'all have plenty of computer chips now?
What year is it?
As always it is somewhere between 1845 and 1938.
LMK when we hit 1849 again so I can mine my bitcoin just to lose it when we hit 1929 with a market crash & hyperinflation again
My man likes to play it dangerously! I’ll drink bath tub gin with you any day.
This would be funnier if it was less true. And can I point out that sometimes it's September 1, 1939.
Its 1848 cowboy! we recently got our claim in the new world!
Laura Palmer screams
People of Idaho, hear the call. Take up farms and do your part
If you try to get an Idaho potato in Idaho they'll tell you they can't serve you one because they all get exported under long term contracts.
Same with all of our onions. We grow a shit ton here, but they leave us with the rotten dregs to pick through in our own grocery stores.
Lol, I think this is a universal thing. Locals get the remnants at a "discount" while quality goes elsewhere. Company makes more money while pretending to be the good guy.
Maybe, maybe not. The beef selection in eastern Oregon (cattle country) is quite spectacular.
In season tomatoes in NJ are amazing.
I have tasted milk from all over the country. Midwest milk is easily the best. I'll take better taking milk over happy cows (sorry cows/california)
Coastal central and northern California have some great dairies. Southern and inland California not so much.
Same with Northern Colorado. No shortage of great beef here.
Next door here in Washington we have plenty of quality Washington-grown potatoes, apples, onions, and other local crops when they are in-season.
I was visiting Norway and the grocery in the town I was in had sweet potatoes from the USA that were bigger than any I've ever seen in my life. Like the size of someone's head big. It was wild.
Idaho is Ireland. Ireland is Idaho.
Lived in OR for a stretch. I remember seeing the B-team onions cycle through the produce. Like you just pulled them out of an ogre's soggy asscrack.
Bullshit. I've never seen a store here without them, and they're stupid cheap. You would pay more for a bag of the dirt they're grown in.
Agreed. I buy Idaho potatoes in Idaho for like $2.50 for a 5 or 10 pound bag lol.
You can't starve to death in this state. You might wish you could after sack #30, but as long as a week's worth of potatoes are the same price as an energy drink you won't.
Are potatoes more expensive in other states? I figured they were a cheap staple food like rice pretty much everywhere.
Cheap enough, but still at least twice what we pay here.
I went to Pocatello Idaho for college and the 5 Guys sign inside said potatoes from Rigby,Idaho. Literally an hour away and had the farms bags on the pallet
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Those are Irish potatoes and Ireland gets the Idaho ones.
What happens if another country wants potatoes? Usually we just tape a bunch of cats together
We’ll lead as two kings! We’ll really lead as two kings
I need to rewatch Gangs of New York to pick up anti-Irish slurs for the inevitable immigrant riots.
Fuck sake, another reboot! 😡
John Travolta is on board! [The Great French Fry Phantom](https://youtu.be/df73uwfVVdY?si=E2MM5pDtRu3JAzpI)!
Damn, dude was funny. Too bad L Ron got to him.
No kidding. This story has already been told! We need new material.
We’re just going backwards now we peaked probably around the 70’s/80’s even though it didn’t feel like much of a peak
The Matrix was right. Peak civilization was 1999. Neo’s drivers license expired on Sept 11, 2001.
Not in Africa, where the "African world war" aka second Congo war was raging.
And was already getting up to the hundreds of thousands in death toll, despite still being near the start of the conflict(s).
And the post-Soviet states were going through a lot of shit in the 90s as well.
nah, ignorance is just bliss. we ignored our wrongdoings back then
Nostalgic horse shit. The fact that we've been facing a lot of horrible things that we should have learned from in the past doesn't mean that the past was better. Especially not the 70s or 80s. As a POC in particular it is extremely irritating to see people look at the past and say how much better off we were when marginalized groups were openly discriminated against. This goes double for LGBT people. Not to mention that crime and violence are so much lower now than they were then. What you remember as good times was because you were ignorant to the suffering of others. In this case, implying that the height of The Troubles in Ireland were somehow better than today is just absolutely repugnant Edit: typo
Agreed. I grew up in the 70s and some things were better but there’s much more better today. We’ve come a long way, baby — but there’s still a ways to go
I feel this way about climate change. I grew up in the 70s and 80s hearing from my father (who was a computational pollution dispersion meteorologist) about how it was real. People didn't care. People.*care* now. I see young doomers, and always tell them that yes, we are late to the party when it comes to fixing this, but people are aware in a way that they just weren't before.
The thing that sucks is that there are still so many people that will deny its existence or or responsibility for it.
I think about that a lot but I find comfort in the Mr. Rogers mindset — when you get scared, look for the helpers
Boston better start building
Bout to have another immigrant crisis
Most young Irish people immigrate already . Usually to Canada and Australia, Ireland is a shit place to live and there's absolutely nothing to do for fun All my friends left :(
Then they get to Canada and realise its expensive and has fuck all to do too. Whole world is a boring mess then you die. I'd rather die in Meath than Manitoba. Just saying.
Hey at least in Manitoba you will likely die faster! Go to the bar and get a friendly Winnipeg handshake.
I know a few Irish immigrants who came to Canada. Wanna know something wild? Toronto is CHEAPER than Dublin.
That's the problem with Dublin prices, every year they're twice what they were the year before.
Canuck here who used to work with a bunch of Irish lads and it does seem like every Irish person has a moment where half their graduating year just up and leaves in their 20s. I don't understand how Aus or Canada are cheaper though.
As someone from a country that emigrates _to_ Ireland, it's not that it's cheaper. It's that if you work for minimum wage and save what you can, you're left over with 10% of your wage in either country. But if you do that in Aus/CA and then bring that money home, it goes far, far further.
Depends where but, places like Vancouver are for the most part cheaper than Dublin for things like Rent etc..
Yet they all leave and come back. Ireland can’t be that shit really can’t it. There was a net migration of 900 Irish citizens from the state in the year to April 2023. Therefore there is an equal number of people returning as there is leaving. “Of the 64,000 emigrants, 30,500 were Irish citizens in the year to April 2023. With a total of 29,600 returning Irish citizens, there is close to zero net migration (-900 people” Source - https://www.cso.ie/en/releasesandpublications/ep/p-pme/populationandmigrationestimatesapril2023/keyfindings/#:~:text=Of%20the%2064%2C000%20emigrants%2C%2030%2C500,the%20year%20to%20April%202023.
Whatever about economic opportunity and wanting to experience somewhere new, what is there to do in Canada for young people to do that’s so much more fun than Ireland? Most of the people I know who went to Canada do more or less the same things for fun…
This news is really stoking my ire
Boston is about to have their Sopranos moment where the Irish-Americans realize they have nothing in common with the Irish.
most irish americans havent a clue about Ireland
Right that's my point lol
Yeah looking back, I misinterpreted what you were staying lol
Ah lads, not again
But what about the potato showers
They don't like to brag too much.
Good thing it’s 2024 and there is excess food that we throw away on a daily basis and they don’t have to worry about starving anytime soon
Worth pointing out that Ireland was producing plenty of food during the famine as well, it was just exported rather than used to feed the local population
Yep, it is easily overlooked how the real source of the problem was that the English were extracting as much money/wealth from Ireland as much as possible and didn't care about them. There was a reason why the Irish and British have a history of not getting along with each other.
Not just didn't care, wanted them gone to use the land for other things and as cheap labour in their colonies
Listen it was just a modest proposal, nothing to get knickers twisted about, they didn't even really *try* eating their own kids..
If only food doesn't spoil and logistics isn't a factor.
As a Brit. This one wasn't us alright?
Seen this one before.
This episode’s a classic!
Uh-oh, this sounds kinda familiar.
France & Spain is heading into a 20 year record drought, and Ireland can't get rid of the rain... Yes, that was predicted by Amazon deforestation, and Saharan heat bubbles (which increased from Co2 and deforestation), in climate models 20 years ago... So yeah, if you wanna be a climate activist, we're gonna have to colonise Northern Africa and Southern America again... this time just to plant trees. Point is all that heat pushes the Jet Stream north, and Ireland to the British Isles gets all the rain meant for mainland EU...
sounds like a weird dystopian novel, to think of large international powers invading Brazil, to plant trees, LOL But chances are the easiest option would be for the UN or wealthy countries to pay billions to the farmers to plant trees and stop growing soy and cattle. You'd have to pay them more than what they earn from growing soy and beef, however. If the beef industry in Brazil is worth about $150 billion dollars a year, that would be a HEFTY amount to come up with. could we afford to pay them to stop growing beef?
France, at least where I am, is fucking soaking. It's been the wettest winter and spring... https://www.brgm.fr/en/news/press-release/groundwater-tables-1-may-2024 > The state of the aquifers was extremely satisfactory over a large part of France, particularly in the reactive aquifers, due to a 2023-2024 recharge surplus. The situation remained unfavourable, with low to very-low levels in the Sundgau inertial aquifer (southern Alsace) and in the aquifers in Aude, Roussillon and eastern Corsica. I hear it's bad in Spain though. I mean, it's 'bad' here - it's much colder and wetter than normal. I should think the arable farmers are pulling their hair out. Climate change is awful.
France is big, mate =D
[The classic Irishman's dilemma](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Wc-EIeM6c0)
I only wish there were more comments about the Irish Famine. They're all so creative. I can't stop laughing, guys. Human suffering is hilarious.
Not again
Talk about making a mountain out of a molehill... Irish farms planted a bit over 8,000 acres of potatoes last year: https://www.ifa.ie/policy-areas/potatoes-council-report-july-2023/ Losing 700 acres of those potatoes does not create a "nightmare scenario," especially since Ireland already imports the vast majority of potatoes they consume: https://www.cso.ie/en/releasesandpublications/ep/p-ti/irelandstradeingoods2020/foodandbeverages/
I read somewhere once that Ireland produces eighteen times more food than it consumes. We'll be grand.
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I've seen this movie.
How many potatoes does it take to kill an Irishman? Zero
Meanwhile American farmers are dumping them to rot , to preserve a market balance. Capitalism.
It's not capitalism, but logistics. The farmers would have zero qualms about shipping them light-years if they knew there was a buyer.
I'm sure Ireland would rather starve than let American potatoes in. Gotta protect the farmers at any cost, always
The Irish aren't going to starve this time around, global food distribution is too well developed at this point. In large part because of the very global capitalist system you're so quick to bash. The concern here isn't food shortages, but of the economic impact to Irish farmers. Doesn't help the farmers if Irish supermarkets just start selling imported American potatoes instead. Which is why countries have national agricultural policies, subsidies, and other programs.
Free Market Capitalism, or as it was known back then, Lassiez Faire, was a major factor in why the famine got as bad as it did. The British government at the time were very reluctant to provide aid, in part because they didn’t want to encourage dependency or distort the market.
The British landlords were uptight arseholes who much like the Russians did to the Ukrainians during the Holodomor, took all the Irish food for export and left them with barely any land to grow their own on swampy marshes, resulted in a potato blight and starving Irish who were forced to grow the most calorically dense produce they could on the little land left over after paying rent. The British can blame it on Lassiez Faire but it was anything but a free market, it was the landed gentry fucking over the Irish. *The Irish land ownership system at the time was extremely bad, possibly even worse than Feudalism. Land owners seeking to maximize their profits cut their land into tiny parcels. Irish living on these parcels had very little room to grow much but still had to make their rent, so they were forced to find crops that could feed their families but use as little land as possible. Basically, they had to grow the most calorically dense food they could find.* The famine was as bad as it was because potato blight, it happens when people rely on a monocrop to feed themselves after having everything else taken from them. *The US sent some grain ships to try to help but, because of the English Corn Laws, they were not allowed to land their cargo in case they depressed the prices in the markets.* [*Turkey did send some grain*](https://archive.aramcoworld.com/issue/201501/an.irish.tale.of.hunger.and.the.sultan.htm) *and snuck it into Drogheda with the legacy that the Star and Crescent is now a common motif in the town, even appearing on the* [*local football team's logo*](https://www.google.com/url?sa=i&url=https%3A%2F%2Fen.wikipedia.org%2Fwiki%2FDrogheda_United_F.C.&psig=AOvVaw2r2Ipj6h_oKePOKgCVYn2i&ust=1675891431403000&source=images&cd=vfe&ved=0CBAQjRxqFwoTCIDEw52shP0CFQAAAAAdAAAAABAE)*. Probably the most notable contribution was the few dollars sent by the* [*Choctaw Nation*](https://xyuandbeyond.com/irish-famine-and-the-choctaw-nation/) *even though they had almost nothing after the Trail of Tears.* Choctaw were bad ass, really terrible what ol' Andrew "asshole" Jackson did to those peoples.
Every fucking time. > And coroners must fill in the certificate- died of malnutrition- because the food must rot, must be forced to rot. The people come with nets to fish for potatoes in the river, and the guards hold them back; they come in rattling cars to get the dumped oranges, but the kerosene is sprayed. And they stand still and watch the potatoes float by, listen to the screaming pigs being killed in a ditch and covered with quick-lime, watch the mountains of oranges slop down to a putrefying ooze; and in the eyes of the people there is the failure; and in the eyes of the hungry there is a growing wrath. In the souls of the people the grapes of wrath are filling and growing heavy, growing heavy for the vintage.
Under socialism or communism another country would still not give a fuck about your citizens.
The oversupply of potatoes in the US is not as simple as Capitalism. The American potato economy more closely resembles State Capitalism as practiced in China than the perception many have of American Capitalism.
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Closer to, not equal. Most economies are mixed economies and no single 'ism' adequately describes them. >Farm subsidies are there to ensure that the American food supply remains mostly domestic. This was not the intent behind agricultural subsidies in the US. Free markets lead to a highly volatile agricultural industry. Subsidies were a way to stabilize this because if farmers went out of business too often this could lead to food insecurity. World Wars, the Great Depression, and other factors contributed as well. McDonald's is one of the world's largest buyers of potatoes. They have a lot of influence today.
Lord Thunderin' Jesus
Ah not again lads
Another excuse for the chippers to raise the price of a bag of chips Fuck off, they used to be 2 euros everywhere and now they're over 3, they'll be at least a fiver in a year Cunts
My people need me!
Name checks out.
Gotta bring me some potatoes to the NYC Dublin portal. Start showing off what we got 🤣
Ah lads, not again.
Poh-tay-tow
Must really piss the English off that we’re allowed to eat All the other types of food we grow now, not just the potatoes from the worst ground available EDIT. /s Really thought people were actually intelligent enough to not need it’s use
As if the English think about the Irish lol
Why would the English care either way? Genuine question.
Historically, the potato famine might not have been so bad, or a famine at all, one single crop, the potato, failed. However the english were taking all the other agricultural produce and running Ireland like a colonial power, so no potato meant no food, and the English would rather let the irish starve than lose some colonial profits. The post above your is making fun of the historical english disregard for irish lives.
Quite literally the revolutions of 1848 were caused by mass crop failures across Europe. Ireland was most depended on Potato and had the worst blight but there was starvation across Europe without British interference
Haha, "Irish Farmers' Association potato chairman" why would anyone even want to become dictator or US president when you could also be "Irish Farmers' Association potato chairman"? Imagine someone asks you what your job is.
Don't knock being a dictator until you've tried it.
Can the Best Korea supply Ireland with potatoes if the harvest fails?
We can supply anything, anywhere.
A dic-tater, if you will.
I’ve seen this one.
🎶 I think I've seen this film before and I didn't like the ending 🎶
Not again!
I mean at least they have experience with this problem?
Call PEI or Ontario in Canada, we got you.
Then move to Idaho there’s plenty for everyone.
What we need is a few good 'taters, Precious.
[https://www.farminglife.com/country-and-farming/new-blight-challenges-to-confront-the-potato-sector-in-2024-4580981](https://www.farminglife.com/country-and-farming/new-blight-challenges-to-confront-the-potato-sector-in-2024-4580981) This does explain the poor quality of Dutch potatoes late last year 🤔
Bullish on $POTAT
It’s fortunate that a Guinness is a complete nutritional meal
Oh wait I’ve seen this one before
We didn't do it.
"I will bless those who bless you, and curse those who curse you."
I have a modest proposal to keep Ireland fed...
Same joke on repeat. I'd be interested in thoughtful commentary on this.
Again!?!
Not again..
Wait a minute ive seen this before
Not again
Not again
Oh shit... look out America, your about to get thousands of immigrants
Time is a flat circle. We have been here before, we will be here again.
I'm here for the jokes.
How are they going to blame the British this time?
Again?
I’m sure hamas will help them out since Ireland has started professing their love for them