If I was unclear, I apologize; allow me to clarify. My point was that I agreed with the original and subsequent posters on the fact that they never finished a potato. This would seem very unlikely given it was their one and only meal for an entire day, especially since the days were spent expending physical energy. However, despite this depiction being suspect, my concern was the fact that they never seemed to cook the potato long enough for it to be soft inside. As such, every time they ate the potato it seemed undercooked and, as a consequence, unappetizing. This fact was reinforced by their look of forlornness.
That being said, given the structure of the film, I suppose in the mind of the director, showing the thorough cooking of potatoes everyday would have added unnecessary screen-time to an already lengthy film.
As for the point of the potato scenes? Aside from the fact that they showcased the mundane, monotonous, day-to-day banality of their lives, they were symbols of life. Without the potatoes they were dead, so when we see their inability to cook them on the 6th day, we understand that so is their ability to live.
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