Ground beef mixed with onions and topped with a layer of puréed potatoes, then baked, is hachis parmentier in its most basic form today, but it’s also a traditional way to chop and use up any leftover pot au feu. Not only hachis, but any dish called parmentier means it is made with or accompanied by potatoes.

Monsieur Potato

When the French first met the potato it must have been one of the roundish reddish ones, because they called them pommes de terre (earth or ground apples, literally) although it took a while for them to fell in love with them.

The cupid in this enduring romance was Antoine Augustin Parmentier (1737-1813), a pharmacist by trade, who ate his first potatoes in a Prussian prison when he was captured in the Seven Years’ War. In fact that’s all he was given. He expected such a limited diet would make him ill. Instead he left prison he felt fine, and realized they were very healthy, and became convinced it would help alleviate famine among the poor.