[Jerome Betts]

One of the few things I can remember from school about 18th century Prussian history is that the Prussian and Austrians (or was it the Russians?) once confronted each other with their armies, but the soldiers threw potatoes at each other instead of shooting. I think it was known as the Kartoffelkrieg.

Now it seems the the food wars have broken out again:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011...-foie-gras-ban

Time to update some old doggerel perhaps.

Foie gras, tough on ducks and on geese,
You give good old Brigitte the shivers.
How just that the French seldom cease
To complain of the state of their livers.

[Jerome Betts]

Trust Google to blunt the fine edge of invention or-de-moss the memory. I could have sworn the potato-hurling was the only interesting bit in what may have been the most boring school history book ever written.. But it seems the Kartoffelkrieg was the war of Bavarian Succession, 1778-79 and the soldiers dug up or ate the potatoes rather than throwing them. Relatively bloodless war of supplies-denial, apparently.

[Tim Murphy]

Jerome, when I'm attacked by wild geese, I shoot them in the face. The way I shoot, though, perhaps I should try flinging tubers at them.

[Edmund Conti]

Let he who is without synergy cast the first potato.