Imago potatoes: From Lyonnaise to Boulangere

If you live in one of the seven catered halls at Loughborough, you will know the true innovation and talent is not just in the academic research undertaken here.

Both “varied” and “dynamic”,  but the number of ways Campus Living manages to turn potatoes from an everyday staple into fine cuisine.

Boulangere Potatoes 

Campus Living describe these delights as Layered sliced potatoes and onions cooked in vegetable stock. In reality, it’s just potato and onion with some vague form of brown coloured stuff.

Rating: 2/5

Chunky Chips

The chips can take on many forms, the limp chip is often found between 13:00 and 13:45 and 18:00 and 18:30, while the crunchy delectable chip is often found much earlier in the lunch or dinner session.

Rating: 3.5/5

Croquette Potatoes

What should be deep fried, breadcrumbed and pureed bites, become squidgy retired potatoes covered in what could possibly be yesterday’s bread.

Rating: 3/5

Curly Fries

The finest example of Campus Living potato available to your catered student, when cooked properly, soft potato encapsulated in a golden crunchy outside.

Rating: 4.5/5

Skinny Fries

The slimmer cousin of the chunky chip, smothered in the finest Brakes ketchup, providing it doesn’t crash on the paddock, can provide an interesting meal accompaniment.

Rating: 3.5/5

Dauphinoise Potato

A 10:90 ratio of potato to milk, with hardly any onion in there.

Rating: 1.5/5

Diced Potato (with onions or herbs)

Campus Living Description: Diced potato flavoured with olive oil fried onion.

Reality: Cubes with onion or cubes with “herbs”.

Rating: 3/5

Fondant Potatoes

Potatoes overcooked in water with a light spread of fat. Good if you’ve got a heavy day of boozing and need to line the stomach.

Rating: 2/5

Hash Browns

A brunch favorite, a rarity on campus, only served at specific locations during the morning and early afternoon of the weekend. Goes brilliantly with baked beans.

Rating: 4/5

Jacket Potato

Campus Living describe it as a baked potato cooked in the skin.

The poor carby bastard is instead incinerated and then smothered in a variety of sauces and curries to mask the taste of failure.

Rating: 2/5

Lyonnaise Potato

Campus Living Description: Sauté potatoes tossed with sauté onion. Reality: Sliced potato.

Rating: 3/5

Mashed Potato

Using olive oil to make mash? Sounds fancy, but it’s not going to get rid of any lumps.

Rating: 2/5

Potato Wedges

As with curly fries, a favourite, if cooked properly, crunchy and delectable pieces of potato with a beautiful golden glaze.

Rating: 4/5

Roast Potatoes

Oil smothered potatoes, cooked for under 3 seconds. The same stuff as the mash but with less moisture.

Rating:1/5

Parmentier Potatoes

A more recent addition to our dinner tables, fried, crispy and soft, if it wasn’t for the fact you could lubricate an engine with the oil in one bite, they’d be delicious.

Rating: 3/5

Sauté Potatoes (with and without onions)

Best taken in large quantities, smothered in ketchup, provide a good meal companion.

Rating: 3.5/5

Steamed New Potatoes

Lumps of potatoes whose parents gave them up because they were ashamed to look at them.

Rating: 1/5

Salad Potatoes

Bathed in vinegar and smothered in lashings of fake mayo.

Rating: 2/5

Potato Waffles

Served as an alternative to the hash brown on the weekend, particularly crunch but overly oily, another potato who has potential.

Rating: 3.5/5

The only conclusion that I can draw from my research is that somewhere either in West or in Burleigh Court, Campus Living has a team of potato engineers, devising the next great innovation in potato production.