Ode To The Thompson Potato

We welcome 2017 with a fun and whimsical poem written about the Thompson Potato by Jim Payne. Not every potato farm has a poem written about its’ product! Jim was an acquaintance of Don’s. He wrote this poem in 1992 in appreciation for all the potatoes donated over the years to the Mount Albert United Church suppers. Enjoy!

​Ode to the Thompson Potato
by Jim Payne
 
Muse, in thy Olympian chime
Help me with this lofty rhyme!
I sing not war, rapine nor blood,
But of the noble Thompson spud.
 
Firm of flesh, and nicely round,
This beauty wrested from the ground,
And gently laved of clinging earth
Shows forth her jocund, rotund worth.
 
“To peel, or not”, requires mention
For its the cause of some dissention,
Whether with, or without rind
It should a place in stomachs find.
 
Yet mashed or riced or baked in foil,
Or even plunged in boiling oil,
No matter how we eat the veg,
It gives each meal that needed edge.
 
Though yams are sweet and richly massy,
And beans a-baked can leave us gassy,
Only “praties” do the trick
In making people’s middles thick.
 
If your coat is dull and dry,
If the gleam has left your eye,
If you’d cure skin gray and scurfy,
Have yourself a Thompson “murphy”.
 
P.E.I’s will never do,
Eat Idaho, and you will rue,
But if you’d live ‘til you pass on,
Try potatoes grown by Don.
 
Let E.G.’s mayor and all his minions
Regale on second hand opinions
I’ll gas the Ford and grease gun “LUBE” er
To drive in search of a Thompson’s tuber.