Walter Raleigh isn’t mentioned in Harding and Taigel’s essay ‘An Air of Detachment: Town Gardens in the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries’ possibly because he was beheaded in the early 17th century. But lacking inclusion hasn’t diminished his reputation as a smoker and, more to the point, an early adopter of Peruvian cuisine. As a dedicated consumer of both Nicotiana tabacum and Solanum tuberosum I was anxious to interview one of the first Englishmen to share my addictions. Walter refused to conduct an email interview so we met last Saturday night at the Harcourt Arms in Oxford while he was in town to wrap up some business at Oriel College.

J. Want a smoke?
W. No, I’m on the patch, trying to quit. Not that it matters much; I was executed in 1618 which was a bit of a drag.
J. You’re looking good all the same. Nice hat btw.
W. Thanks. I try to look after myself.
J. Let’s talk a bit about potatoes.
W. Sure, it was back in 1587. Things weren’t going well. The Spanish were fucking about as they do, rather did. I was in the new world trying to set up a nice little real estate racket but the Spanish were getting ready to invade England. It didn’t look good. I was in Virginia sitting on the porch having a smoke, trying to chill and Angus Morrison (my PA from Scalpay) comes running out saying, ‘Dude! Have you tried these potato samosas? They’re awesome!’ Angus was stuck in the 80’s but he worked magic with the website so I humoured him. ‘Sure, get me a plate full.’ I said, ‘And while you’re at it throw in a pint of Stella and put on that new Mingus 8-track.’ Well fuck me if those potatoes didn’t taste great and let me tell you things have never been quite the same. Angus died in a dot.com crash but I’ve never forgotten the day I was introduced to potatoes.
J. That’s not quite how I’ve heard the story. History says you took them back from Virginia and grew them at your house in Ireland. Not knowing what to do with the plant you ate the stems and berries and were wacked out for a week. It was only when your gardener dug them up he discovered the tubers, boiled them up and declared it good.
W. And just who the fuck are you to tell me how it happened? Have you ever captured a Spanish galleon? Do you know Edmund Spenser? Or are you just trying to fuck me up? History can bite my hairy ass and broadcast it shortwave on Radio Free America for all I care. Anyway, I’m dry and it’s my round. Another pint of London Pride?
J. No, no, I’ll get it. Wolfgang said The Thing was picking up the tab.
W. Great, say, whatever happened to Blackhawk?
J. He’s temporarily offline, with a bit of luck he’ll be back soon.
W. Give him my regards. I wish he was online. I wanted to see what he had to say about Hayden Lorimer’s article in Progress in Human Geography 29, 1 (2005) pp. 83-94.
J. You mean, “Cultural geography: the busyness of being ‘more-than-representational’”?
W. Ya. Do you remember his closer? ‘Appropriately enough it is but one transient outcome of a more-than-representational dialogue stridently committed to the uncertainty of outcomes.’ I love it! I wish I’d read that before I attacked that Spanish colony. I might have changed my mind and just let it ride. You know, I could’ve made some popcorn and sat down with an old Jimmy Cagney movie, something like White Heat. What can I say? Shit happens.
J. The old ‘infinite modality of the visible’ eh?
W. You say that way too much. I know its Joyce but it could have been Cervantes or Aquinas. You know, I read the first edition of Don Quixote when it came out. Cervantes is right up there with potatoes and cigarettes. If I’d kept those books they’d be worth a fortune now but I gave them to the kids and never saw them again, the books that is. Probably ended up in the bottom of the budgie cage, Captain Sea shitting on them from his bamboo perch. Fucking budgie.
J. Maybe we should get back to Solanum tuberosum.
W. And just why do you keep bringing up 'Solanum tuberosum'? Linnaeus didn’t publish Systema Naturae until 1735 and I was long dead so your oh-so-smart taxonomical vocabulary isn’t worth shit to me. Call it a potato or go fuck yourself and while you’re at it get me another pint. Wanker.
J. Taxonomy’s big right now.
W. So’s my dick. Who cares. You know I’m related to Francis Drake? He’ll kick your ass buddy.
J. Metaphysics is coming back too.
W. Geez. You know, some times I’m glad I’m dead. What’s next?
J. Cultural geography. Post-critical theory. Lots of stuff.
W. You’re from fucking way out of town aren’t you?
J. Fuck off and get to the point!
W. Fair enough. Let’s talk potatoes. Have you ever grown Pink Fir Apple?
J. Ya but -
W. What a pain in the ass they are, all those bumps and joined up at the hip like a bunch of Chernobyl jelly-fish babies. How do you clean potatoes like them? Great boiled though, parsley, chives and a bit of butter.
J. Try putting some French tarragon into the mix. Desiree?
W. Lovely maincrop. Anytime, anyplace.
J. Have you seen Victor Grippo’s potato show in Camden (Man Naturalization, Nature Humanization, Or Vegetal Energy)?
W. What’s that? A vaudeville act?
J. http://www.camdenartscentre.org/exhibition.asp?id=1536
W. ?
J. Adrien Searle from the Guardian reviewed the show (Spuds he like, 12/12/2006). Grippo has potatoes sprouting all over. Sort of like Jackson Pollock for gardeners.
W. Isn’t that a waste? Look. Potatoes were luxury objects in my day.
J. Not anymore. They’re cheap as chips now.
W. No kidding? They took off did they?
J. Ya, things were great until the potato blight (ed. Phytophthora infestans) moved through Europe. Hit Ireland hard by the way. Ended up starving people out to the new world.
W. Damn. What goes around comes around eh? I heard Sigmor Polke –
J. I read the article and the book. Found it interesting at the time but I wonder if he was just being opportunistic. Have you seen his garden? Not a potato in sight.
W. Don’t be naïve. ‘…these cultural geographies carve out extrarepresentational forms of address by focusing on the the material agencies, (dis)orders and previously marginalized presences of the home.’
J. Is that from the Lorimer essay?
W. Naturally.
J. So Polke’s sprouting potato just might have the magical qualities he claims?
W. Forget the magic bit. It’s not metaphysics. It’s imminent. Present. Contradictory concepts compete and co-operate for ascendancy, presence, absence, whatever. The days of singularity have long gone. A multiplicity of readings doesn’t indicate conceptual weakness but rather the opposite. Remember when Yoda tells Luke, ‘Do or do not.’? What he should have said was, ‘Do and do not’.
J. Now you’re just taking the piss. George Lucas wasn’t a Zen master he was the last of the linear conceptualists. Everybody knows that.
W. Whatever. Commenting on David Crouch’s work on British allotments Lorimer goes on to say, ‘As much as the allotment is a setting for encountering practical skills and ordinary acts, it has also become a place where emerging theoretical ideas can be thoroughly worked over, shadowing the cyclical effort of digging up, mulching and planting. For a crop of new potatoes read non-representational theory.’
J. Hmm.
W. ‘Hmm’ what?
J. I’m not sure. Are you saying British allotments are…what about European leisure gardens…Is there a transdisciplinary post-avantgarde after all?
W. Are you still getting suckered by first world cultural hegemony? Dude, it’s time to drop this colonial charade. The powerless have the real power. I feel sorry for you. Ha! Dark knight of the Solarum tuberosum eh? Now you’re well fucked. Welcome to the political world.
J. Ya, proper fucked. What do you say we go to the clubs before they hit us with a cover?
W. Sure but we haven’t covered Hitching’s ‘Expertise and Inability: Cultured Materials and the Reason for Some Retreating Lawns in London’ or DeSilvey’s thesis ‘When Plotters Meet; Edinburgh’s Allotment Movement 1921-2001’?
J. Don’t worry. The DeSilvey piece is online so we can work through it later.
W. ?
J. http://www.fedaga.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/plotters.pdf
W. Email it to me.
J. Sure, anyway, I’ve gone way over 1000 words so I’ve got this covered. Potatoes and cigarettes: an artist’s best friends. Walter, over 400 years old and still as interesting as ever. Thanks for the interview. ‘You’ve come a long way baby.’

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I’d like to thank John, landlord of the Harcourt Arms, Oxford for the free drinks during this interview.
potatoes