POTATOES!!!—WDSS? (What Does Shakespeare Say?) You WILL be surprised!

If I were marooned on a desert island with only one food, it would be POTATOES (white, not sweet)! Almost everyone who knows me knows that I love POTATOES as much as I love Shakespeare—and in my world, the two are comparable—supreme food for the soul and supreme food for the body. Recently, I decided to investigate what my literary love had to say about my culinary love, although I expected that Shakespeare had very little to say about potatoes.

Surprisingly, I found two references to potatoes in my Shakespeare lexicon. The first comes from “Troilus and Cressida.” In Act 5, Scene 2, Troilus, Ulysses, and Thersites spy on Cressida as she betrays Troilus by flirting with Diomedes, touching his face. Thersites, tormenting Troilus, comments, “How the devil luxury (lust), with his fat rump and potato finger, tickles these together!” A footnote informs that potatoes were regarded as a “sex stimulant,” thus Cressida’s “potato finger” has a seductive meaning.

In the second reference, Falstaff in “The Merry Wives of Windsor” is courting two married women in an attempt to scam money from them. In Act 5, Scene 5, they decide to teach him a lesson and arrange a meeting with him in a forest. One calls out to him and he replies, “Let the sky rain potatoes, let it thunder to the tune of ‘Greensleeves,’ hail kissing comfits (sweetmeats), and now eryngoes (an alleged aphrodisiac). Let there come a tempest of provocation, I will shelter me here.” He is saying that a rain storm of potatoes is a problem that would cause him to hunker down with this lady. Based on the fact that potatoes have an aphrodisiac quality, Falstaff chooses a potato storm on purpose.

In spite of my long-lived love of potatoes, I had no clue that they supposedly can serve as an aphrodisiac. I Googled “potatoes aphrodisiac” and found some interesting results. The first link came from WebMD, “Aphrodisiacs Through the Ages.”

An article on AlterNet, “Sex and Food: the World’s Strangest Aphrodisiacs Through Time,” discusses how at one time, potatoes were considered an aphrodisiac, citing Falstaff in “The Merry Wives of Windsor.” The article goes on to debunk the stimulating effect of potatoes. The piece notes the fact that while absence of something makes the heart grow fonder, the ready access of something does not. Once potatoes became commonly accessible, they supposedly lost their sex appeal.

Yet, an article from the PR Newswire reports on a baby boom beginning in 1997 on the island of Jersey in the United Kingdom associated with the Jersey Royal Potato season. The article quotes aphrodisiac expert James Sotte:

“Throughout history potatoes have been considered an aphrodisiac. Amazonian women ate them to stimulate their sex drive and in late 16th century Europe sweet potato tarts were recommended to increase sexual desire. The reason is that potatoes have the same affect on the body as chocolate; they increase serotonin levels. Insulin is produced when digesting potatoes, affecting the movement of amino acid from the blood to the brain, which stimulates serotonin production. Serotonin is the chemical that makes you feel happy and is similar to the feeling of being in love.”

Based on my newfound knowledge of potatoes as an aphrodisiac, perhaps I may want to rethink my choice of food if I am stranded on that deserted island alone!

NOTE: For my purposes in this blog, I decided not to define the word “potato,” as a definition would add nothing to my point. However, out of curiosity, I looked up “potato” in the on-line “American Heritage Dictionary.” The entry refers the reader to a note regarding the word “tater,” which intrigued me as a native speaker of the American Southern dialect. I included the link for those who are interested.

Hoghenhine—A Fishy Proposition

Guest or host—we have all been one or the other or both. When planning either to travel or host travelers, many factors influence the length of the visit.  Are the hosts good cooks? Are the beds comfy? Are the guests charming? Do they arrive bearing gifts, fish perhaps?  Benjamin Franklin offered the frequently-referenced guideline in his witty observation, “Guests, like fish, begin to smell after three days.” The length of time, three days, makes sense in terms of smelly fish as a yardstick for worn out welcomes.

However, imagine becoming legally responsible for guests after a three-day stay! If this situation were the case, many hosts would surely insist on sending their guests away with the smelly fish. Evidently, in the Middle Ages, this far-fetched notion was reality. Recently, the word “hoghenhine” arrived in my inbox in the form of the daily word from the “Oxford English Dictionary,” defined as “A person who has stayed in a household for three nights, and so becomes the legal responsibility of the host; a member of a household; a dependant.” The word derives from the early Middle English aȝen hine (also oȝen hine), and literally means “own servant” or “member of one's own household.”

The “American Heritage Dictionary” does not define the word. Perhaps it became obsolete for a reason.  Imagine waiting until time to send a child to college and then sending said child to stay with grandparents. After three days, the grandparents would be responsible for tuition bills! Of course, the concept of servitude in the word makes becoming a “hoghenhine” less attractive as a way to spice up the wardrobe or get that new car.

The word itself has an animal nature to it, consisting of “hog,” “hen,” and “hine,” which initially reminded me of a hind or deer. Such company would become undesirable in many homes after three days, if not sooner. While pet hogs or hens exist, usually these animals are associated with the barnyard.

In addition, looking at these words as slang, a “self-indulgent, gluttonous, or filthy person” or “one that uses too much of something” is informally known as a hog. In the slang world, “hen” describes an “older woman, especially one who is engaged in conversation with other women.” This type of hen has the reputation for gossip. “Hine” does not have the distasteful associations of “hog” and “hen,” but it is not an overwhelmingly positive word, either. A hine can be “a servant; a farm laborer; a peasant; a hind,” according to “The Free Dictionary.” “The Urban Dictionary,” defines hine as “inconsequential: the inconsequential passing of time. That thing that happens when you intend to have a bath and eat some food then alas it's quarter to midnight and you've.... done... nothing.” Combine the parts and we get a gossipy glutton who wastes time, certainly not the ideal guest in most cases.

Did Benjamin Franklin know the concept of hoghenhine when he penned his fishy admonition?  Regardless, three days is plenty of time for hosting or guesting, unless the fish are really tasty and the guests shower every day.

Re-cur—Get another dog again?

I fell in love with basset hounds when I was in the ninth grade. Waiting outside for the school doors to open, my best friend and I noticed a droopy dog across the street. We became smitten and named it “Harold.” We made up a song about basset hounds to the tune of “Jesus Loves the Little Children”:

Jesus loves the little bassets

All the bassets of the world.

Their long ears and their big feet,

Golly gee, they’re really neat!

Jesus loves the little bassets of the world.

Soon, we noticed “Harold” surrounded by a litter of puppies, so we renamed her “Haroldine.”

My mother was strenuously anti-pet, so I did not adopt my first basset, Noble, until I left home. That basset was stolen from my yard one night. Years later, I adopted my second basset, Beaumont, while in graduate school in Carbondale, Illinois. Beaumont’s story is a sad one which I will leave untold.

When I got a job teaching college in Poultney, Vermont, I adopted Herself the Elf, my soul-mate basset. I spent many happy basset years with Elf. As she grew into a senior basset, I adopted Hermia. Hermia grew, Elf crossed the Rainbow Bridge, and finally Hermia crossed the Rainbow Bridge, as well, in 2007.

Occasionally, people ask me if I am going to get another dog, and I wonder if I get another dog if I will “re-cur,“ once again playing around with prefixes, as I enjoy doing. However, since I am a devoted basset lover, if I get another hound, I will not be “re-curring,” as the “American Heritage Dictionary” defines a cur as “A dog considered to be inferior or undesirable; a mongrel.”

However, the word “recur” as defined in the dictionary basically means a repetition or returning to something. So if I were to get another basset, I would be recurring in a way, returning to being owned by a basset or repeating the experience of living and loving a basset. But as for now, in exploring retirement I have chosen to remain empty-nested of bassets.