'Humble spud close to my heart'

Admittedly, potatoes may not seem the most interesting of foods, but coming from the United Kingdom, where for the last several hundred years they have accompanied most meals in one form or another, the humble "spud" is close to my heart.

In Western countries they have developed an undeservedly bad reputation amongst dieters in the carbohydrate cull of recent years. Nevertheless, their production and consumption has increased hugely in Asia since the beginning of the 1990s.

China's production has increased nearly fivefold since 1961 and it now stands as the world's biggest potato producer. The United Nations holds the potato in such high esteem that it has decided to declare 2008 as the International Year of the Potato to "increase awareness of the importance of the potato as a food in developing nations".