Humble spud at root of UN celebration

WELCOME to 2008: a time to re-evaluate menus and reorganise vegetable shops.

Clear out storage cupboards and cast aside the newfangled fetishes for basmati rice, organic-egg pasta and direct-from-the-desert couscous.

For the next 12 months the UN has decreed we are to steer our culinary ramblings back to our roots — and more precisely, root vegetables.