The poor labourer who depended on potatoes had a unique way of eating them called 'on the bone'. The potatoes were par-boiled so that the soft exterior would be quickly digested but the hard centre would sit in the stomach and be digested slowly keeping hunger at bay until the day's work was done. What would shock us was the sheer quantity a working man would eat, up to 14lbs a day.

Sources

M. Mac Con Iomaire and Pádraig Óg Gallagher, 'The history of the potato in Irish culture and cuisine' in Susan R Freedland, Vegetables: Proceedings of the Oxford Symposium on Food and Cooking 2008