The photo is of rosemary roasted potatoes that I made. I love the taste of vegetables roasted with olive oil, and these roasted creamer potatoes with rosemary are delicious. According to Paul Barbano’s July 6, 2016 article “Creamer potatoes are the cream of the crop” in the Cape Gazette, “New potatoes are those small potatoes a few inches around that show up early in the season, but even newer than new potatoes are “creamers”: tiny two-inch wide potatoes named because they are traditionally cooked in a cream sauce with peas. These tiny potatoes are dug up before they are fully developed, and have less starch and a waxy, sweeter flavor.” I get mine at Sam’s Club, and they are only $7.98 for five pounds which makes a lot of meals. I used to love going to my grandparents’ home in Arlington Heights, Illinois near Chicago because they had a garden where my grandfather would stick his gloved hand into the soft earth and pull out a potato. It was magic to me. Let’s learn more about the magic of potatoes.
According to Wikipedia, the potato is a starchy tuber of the plant Solanum tuberosum and is a root vegetable native to the Americas, with the plant itself being a perennial in the nightshade family Solanaceae.
Wild potato species, originating in modern-day Peru, can be found throughout the Americas, from Canada to southern Chile. The potato was originally believed to have been domesticated by Native Americans independently in multiple locations, but later genetic testing of the wide variety of cultivars and wild species traced a single origin for potatoes, in the area of present-day southern Peru and extreme northwestern Bolivia. Potatoes were domesticated approximately 7,000–10,000 years ago there, from a species in the Solanum brevicaule complex. In the Andes region of South America, where the species is indigenous, some close relatives of the potato are cultivated.
Potatoes were introduced to Europe from the Americas in the second half of the 16th century by the Spanish. Today, they are a staple food in many parts of the world and an integral part of much of the world's food supply. As of 2014, potatoes were the world's fourth-largest food crop after corn, wheat and rice. Following millennia of selective breeding, there are now over 5,000 different types of potatoes. Over 99% of presently cultivated potatoes worldwide descended from varieties that originated in the lowlands of south-central Chile. The importance of the potato as a food source and culinary ingredient varies by region and is still changing. It remains an essential crop in Europe, especially Northern and Eastern Europe, where per capita production is still the highest in the world, while the most rapid expansion in production over the past few decades has occurred in southern and eastern Asia, with China and India leading the world in overall production as of 2018.
Like the tomato, the potato is a nightshade in the genus Solanum, and the vegetative and fruiting parts of the potato contain the toxin solanine which is dangerous for human consumption. Normal potato tubers that have been grown and stored properly produce glycoalkaloids in amounts small enough to be negligible to human health, but if green sections of the plant — namely sprouts and skins — are exposed to light, the tuber can accumulate a high enough concentration of glycoalkaloids to affect human health.
Etymology
The English word potato comes from Spanish “patata,” the name used in Spain. The Royal Spanish Academy says the Spanish word is a hybrid of the Taíno batata or “sweet potato” and the Quechua papa or “potato.” The name originally referred to the sweet potato, although the two plants are not closely related. The 16th-century English herbalist John Gerard referred to sweet potatoes as “common potatoes” and used the terms “bastard potatoes” and “Virginia potatoes” for the species we now call potato. In many of the chronicles detailing agriculture and plants, no distinction is made between the two. Potatoes are occasionally referred to as Irish potatoes or white potatoes in the United States, to distinguish them from sweet potatoes.
The name spud for a potato comes from the digging of soil or a hole prior to the planting of potatoes. The word has an unknown origin and was originally (c. 1440) used as a term for a short knife or dagger, probably related to the Latin spad- a word root meaning "sword;" compare Spanish “espada,” English "spade" and “spadroon.” It subsequently transferred over to a variety of digging tools. Around 1845, the name transferred to the tuber itself, the first record of this usage being in New Zealand English. The origin of the word “spud” has erroneously been attributed to an 18th-century activist group dedicated to keeping the potato out of Britain, calling itself the Society for the Prevention of Unwholesome Diet. It was Mario Pei's 1949 “The Story of Language” that can be blamed for the word's false origin. Pei writes, "the potato, for its part, was in disrepute some centuries ago. Some Englishmen who did not fancy potatoes formed a Society for the Prevention of Unwholesome Diet. The initials of the main words in this title gave rise to spud." Like most other pre-20th century acronymic origins, this is false, and there is no evidence that a Society for the Prevention of Unwholesome Diet ever existed.
At least six languages — Afrikaans, Dutch, French, Hebrew, Persian and some variants of German — are known to use a term for "potato" that translates roughly or literally into English as "earth apple" or "ground apple."
Characteristics
Potato plants are herbaceous perennials that grow about 24 inches high, depending on variety, with the leaves dying back after flowering, fruiting and tuber formation. They bear white, pink, red, blue or purple flowers with yellow stamens. Potatoes are mostly cross-pollinated by insects such as bumblebees, which carry pollen from other potato plants, though a substantial amount of self-fertilizing occurs as well. Tubers form in response to decreasing day length, although this tendency has been minimized in commercial varieties.
After flowering, potato plants produce small green fruits that resemble green cherry tomatoes, each containing about 300 seeds. Like all parts of the plant except the tubers, the fruit contain the toxic alkaloid solanine and are therefore unsuitable for consumption. All new potato varieties are grown from seeds, also called "true potato seed," "TPS" or "botanical seed" to distinguish it from seed tubers. New varieties grown from seed can be propagated vegetatively by planting tubers, pieces of tubers cut to include at least one or two eyes or cuttings, a practice used in greenhouses for the production of healthy seed tubers. Plants propagated from tubers are clones of the parent, whereas those propagated from seed produce a range of different varieties.
Varieties
There are close to 4,000 varieties of potato each of which has specific agricultural or culinary attributes. In general, varieties are categorized into a few main groups based on common characteristics, such as russet potatoes (rough brown skin), red potatoes, white potatoes, yellow potatoes (also called Yukon potatoes) and purple potatoes.
For culinary purposes, varieties are often differentiated by their waxiness: floury or mealy baking potatoes have more starch (20–22%) than waxy boiling potatoes (16–18%). The distinction may also arise from variation in the comparative ratio of two different potato starch compounds: amylose and amylopectin. Amylose, a long-chain molecule, diffuses from the starch granule when cooked in water, and lends itself to dishes where the potato is mashed. Varieties that contain a slightly higher amylopectin content, which is a highly branched molecule, help the potato retain its shape after being boiled in water. Potatoes that are good for making potato chips or potato crisps are sometimes called "chipping potatoes," which means they meet the basic requirements of similar varietal characteristics, being firm, fairly clean and fairly well-shaped.
Immature potatoes may be sold fresh from the field as "creamer" or "new" potatoes and are particularly valued for their taste. They are typically small in size and tender, with a loose skin and flesh containing a lower level of starch than other potatoes. In the U.S., they are generally either a Yukon Gold potato or a red potato, called gold creamers or red creamers respectively. They are distinct from "baby," "salad" or "fingerling" potatoes, which are small and tend to have waxy flesh, but are grown to maturity and can be stored for months before being sold.
The European Cultivated Potato Database is an online collaborative database of potato variety descriptions that is updated and maintained by the Scottish Agricultural Science Agency within the framework of the European Cooperative Programme for Crop Genetic Resources Networks — which is run by the International Plant Genetic Resources Institute.
Pigmentation
Dozens of potato cultivars have been selectively bred specifically for their skin or, more commonly, flesh color, including gold, red, and blue varieties that contain varying amounts of phytochemicals, including carotenoids for gold/yellow or polyphenols for red or blue cultivars. Carotenoid compounds include provitamin A alpha-carotene and beta-carotene, which are converted to the essential nutrient vitamin A during digestion. Anthocyanins mainly responsible for red or blue pigmentation in potato cultivars do not have nutritional significance, but are used for visual variety and consumer appeal. In 2010, potatoes were bioengineered specifically for these pigmentation traits.
History
The potato was first domesticated in the region of modern-day southern Peru and northwestern Bolivia by pre-Columbian farmers, around Lake Titicaca. It has since spread around the world and become a staple crop in many countries.
The earliest archaeologically verified potato tuber remains have been found at the coastal site of Ancon in central Peru, dating to 2500 BC. The most widely cultivated variety, Solanum tuberosum tuberosum, is indigenous to the Chiloé Archipelago, and has been cultivated by the local indigenous people since before the Spanish conquest.
According to conservative estimates, the introduction of the potato was responsible for a quarter of the growth in Old World population and urbanization between 1700 and 1900. In the Altiplano, potatoes provided the principal energy source for the Inca civilization, its predecessors and its Spanish successor. Following the Spanish conquest of the Inca Empire, the Spanish introduced the potato to Europe in the second half of the 16th century, part of the Columbian exchange. The staple was subsequently conveyed by European — and possibly Russian — mariners to territories and ports throughout the world, especially their colonies. The potato was slow to be adopted by European and colonial farmers, but after 1750 it became an important food staple and field crop and played a major role in the European 19th century population boom. However, lack of genetic diversity, due to the very limited number of varieties initially introduced, left the crop vulnerable to disease. In 1845, a plant disease known as late blight, caused by the fungus-like oomycete Phytophthora infestans, spread rapidly through the poorer communities of western Ireland as well as parts of the Scottish Highlands, resulting in the crop failures that led to the Great Irish Famine. Thousands of varieties still persist in the Andes, however, where over 100 cultivars might be found in a single valley, and a dozen or more might be maintained by a single agricultural household.
Seed potatoes
Potatoes are generally grown from seed potatoes, tubers specifically grown to be free from disease and to provide consistent and healthy plants. To be disease free, the areas where seed potatoes are grown are selected with care. In the U.S., this restricts production of seed potatoes to only 15 states out of all 50 states where potatoes are grown. These locations are selected for their cold, hard winters that kill pests and summers with long sunshine hours for optimum growth.
Phases of growth
Potato growth can be divided into five phases. During the first phase, sprouts emerge from the seed potatoes and root growth begins. During the second, photosynthesis begins as the plant develops leaves and branches above-ground and stolons develop from lower leaf axils on the below-ground stem. In the third phase the tips of the stolons swell forming new tubers and the shoots continue to grow, and flowers typically develop soon after. Tuber bulking occurs during the fourth phase, when the plant begins investing the majority of its resources in its newly formed tubers. At this phase, several factors are critical to a good yield: optimal soil moisture and temperature, soil nutrient availability and balance and resistance to pest attacks. The fifth phase is the maturation of the tubers: the leaves and stems senesce and the tuber skins harden.
Challenges
New tubers may start growing at the surface of the soil. Since exposure to light leads to an undesirable greening of the skins and the development of solanine as a protection from the sun's rays, growers cover surface tubers. Commercial growers cover them by piling additional soil around the base of the plant as it grows, called "hilling" up. An alternative method, used by home gardeners and smaller-scale growers, involves covering the growing area with organic mulches such as straw or plastic sheets.
Correct potato husbandry can be an arduous task in some circumstances. Good ground preparation, harrowing, plowing and rolling are always needed, along with a little grace from the weather and a good source of water. Three successive plowings, with associated harrowing and rolling, are desirable before planting. Eliminating all root-weeds is desirable in potato cultivation. In general, the potatoes themselves are grown from the eyes of another potato and not from seed. Home gardeners often plant a piece of potato with two or three eyes in a hill of mounded soil. Commercial growers plant potatoes as a row crop using seed tubers, young plants or microtubers and may mound the entire row. Seed potato crops are rogued in some countries to eliminate diseased plants or those of a different variety from the seed crop.
Potatoes are sensitive to heavy frosts, which damage them in the ground. Even cold weather makes potatoes more susceptible to bruising and possibly later rotting, which can quickly ruin a large, stored crop.
When to harvest potatoes
According to the May 10, 2021 article “A Guide to Harvesting Potatoes” at happydiyhome.com/harvesting-potatoes, when your crops are ready for harvest depends on a number of factors, including your local growing conditions and the weather. It also depends on which type of potato you have planted. Seed potato plants are divided into 3 categories:
- First early.
- Second early.
- Maincrop.
As the name suggests, first early potato plants are one of the earliest crops you can plant and, therefore, start harvesting. Gardeners in most areas can plant first earlies from the end of February until the middle of March. The tubers are ready for harvest around 10 to 12 weeks later. If the weather is favorable, you may be able to harvest slightly earlier.
First earlies are one of the easiest types of potato to grow because they rarely suffer from blight. Known for their tender, flavorsome taste, first earlies are typically smaller than maincrop varieties, roughly about the size of an egg, and with soft skin. Popular varieties include:
- Red Duke of York.
- Arran Pilot.
- Lady Christl.
- Pentland Javelin.
To know exactly when to start harvesting your first earlies, pay close attention to their flowers. Early varieties produce flower buds that may or may not bloom. When the buds start to drop or the flowers start to fade, it is time to start harvesting your crop. Some of the foliage may also start to turn yellow.
To check your crop before you begin to harvest, gently move some of the soil around the top of the plant. If you find potatoes that are the size of an egg you can carry on harvesting. If you want slightly larger spuds, leave them in the ground for a little longer.
Second earlies are planted from early or mid-March onwards, usually from the first day of spring — around two to three weeks after you plant your first earlies.
Some growers like to plant them at the same time as their first earlies, but it is better to wait. Waiting a few weeks means that your second earlies will be ready for harvest about three weeks after you lift your first earlies. Popular second early varieties include:
- Kestrel.
- Maris Peer.
- Jazzy.
- Nicola.
Like first earlies, the easiest way to tell if your second earlies are ready for harvest is to watch the flowers. As soon as spent flowers or unopened buds start to fall from the plant, you can start your potato harvest.
Usually planted about a month after your second earlies you can plant maincrop spuds from mid-March onwards for an earlier harvest. Maincrops mature in about 20 weeks. Larger tubers than the early varieties, they require a little longer growing time. Common maincrop tubers include:
- King Edward.
- Cara.
- Purple Majesty.
- Russet varieties.
- Pink Fir Apple.
You can begin harvesting maincrop potatoes in August. The harvest can last well into September, depending on your planting date. Maincrops are ready for harvest when most of the foliage is yellow and starting to brown or shrivel. Allowing the plant to die away before you begin to harvest enables the tubers to store plenty of starch. This waiting time helps to fill them with flavor.
To harvest your maincrops, cut the plant down to about an inch above the ground. Don’t pull up the tubers just yet. Wait a few more weeks before harvesting; they keep perfectly well in the ground. This waiting time helps to cure the potatoes, hardening the skin and making storage easier. If you don’t intend on storing your maincrop over the winter, you can begin harvesting as soon as the plants are ready.
If you have planted a late maincrop for a winter harvest, allow the weather and the plant to tell you when to harvest. As with earlier plantings, allow the top of the plants to die away before you begin to harvest.
The temperature can also affect when to harvest. Potato plants can tolerate light frosts but should be lifted and stored before the first hard frost arrives. The soil should be at least 40 ℉ and workable. After curing, the crop can be stored for use throughout the winter and early spring. Growing a large, late season crop that can be stored is a great way to grow your own food all year round.
How to harvest potatoes
Be careful when harvesting. Try to avoid damaging the tubers — particularly important if you intend to store your spuds. Damaged tubers rarely store well and, instead, may cause your entire crop to rot.
Harvesting tubers is best done on a dry day. Too much moisture during the harvest can encourage rot and disease. Whether you are growing potatoes in containers or in the ground, harvesting is largely the same.
It is easier to use your hands to remove early potato crops. Gardening gloves help to keep hands fairly clean and protected. Use your hands to reach into the soil and dig up as many spuds as you can find. If you have mounded the soil up around the plant during the growing process, carefully remove the soil and take the potatoes that you want before re-mounding the soil around the plants. When harvesting, take just what you need; early varieties don’t store well. They keep far better in the soil. In fact, many continue to grow and develop.
After harvesting, apply a fish emulsion fertilizer to the plants, encouraging a new set of tubers and fresh growth to form.
If you are growing your potatoes in a container such as Delxo 7 Gallon Grow Bags which have a harvest window, simply lift the flap and remove the earth until you find your potatoes. After harvesting what you need, the earth can be replaced; the remaining potatoes can continue to grow until you are ready to use them.
When harvesting and handling potato plants you may see small potato fruit among the leaves. They often resemble green, cherry tomatoes. These are toxic and should be destroyed or placed on the compost heap.
For larger plants you will probably need to use a garden fork to lift the entire plant. Insert the fork into the soil about one foot away from the center of the plant. Push as deeply into the soil as possible. You are aiming to lift the entire root mass as one. You may need to insert the fork a few times before you can do this. Remember to check the soil after lifting the plant for any potatoes you may have left behind.
After harvesting brush away any dirt and allow the spuds to dry for a few hours before using or storing.
Maincrop potato plants growing in containers can be harvested simply by tipping the contents of the container out onto a sheet or tarp. You can also empty the soil into a wheelbarrow. Sift through the soil to gather all your spuds.
If you are harvesting maincrop or potato tubers for winter storage, dig up a few to test them before harvesting the entire crop. The skins should be thick and firmly fixed to the flesh. If the skin can be easily rubbed from the plant, the tubers are too new and should be left in the ground for a few more days.
When harvesting be careful to not bruise or cut the crop. Damaged tubers rot during storage.
After harvest, cure the tubers by letting them sit in a dry position for around 2 weeks. During this time the temperature around the crop should average 45 to 60 ℉. As the potatoes cure, their skins harden, and minor cuts seal up. After curing, you can then store your tubers. If you are unsure how to store your potatoes after harvesting, go to happydiyhome.com/how-to-store-potatoes.
When harvesting potatoes or removing them from storage, always check the color of their skin. Avoid any green tubers. These have an increased level of alkaloids, usually caused by too much exposure to light. Green spuds can also contain solanine. This not only turns them bitter but is also poisonous. To avoid greening, keep your potatoes in as dark a place as possible.
Uses
According to Wikipedia, potatoes are prepared in many ways: skin-on or peeled, whole or cut up, with seasonings or without. The only requirement involves cooking to swell the starch granules. Most potato dishes are served hot but some are first cooked, then served cold, notably potato salad and potato chips. Common dishes are: mashed potatoes, which are first boiled (usually peeled), and then mashed with milk or yogurt and butter; whole baked potatoes; boiled or steamed potatoes; French-fried potatoes or chips; cut into cubes and roasted; scalloped, diced, or sliced and fried (home fries); grated into small thin strips and fried (hash browns); grated and formed into dumplings, Rösti or potato pancakes. Unlike many foods, potatoes can also be easily cooked in a microwave oven and still retain nearly all of their nutritional value, provided they are covered in ventilated plastic wrap to prevent moisture from escaping; this method produces a meal very similar to a steamed potato, while retaining the appearance of a conventionally baked potato. Potato chunks also commonly appear as a stew ingredient. Potatoes are boiled between 10 and 25 minutes, depending on size and type, to become soft.
Latin America
Peruvian cuisine naturally contains the potato as a primary ingredient in many dishes, as around 3,000 varieties of this tuber are grown there. Some of the more notable dishes include boiled potato as a base for several dishes or with ají-based sauces like in Papa a la Huancaína or ocopa, diced potato for its use in soups like in cau cau or in Carapulca with dried potato. Smashed condimented potato is used in causa Limeña and papa rellena. French-fried potatoes are a typical ingredient in Peruvian stir-fries, including the classic dish lomo saltado.
Chuño is a freeze-dried potato product traditionally made by Quechua and Aymara communities of Peru and Bolivia and is known in various countries of South America, including Peru, Bolivia, Argentina and Chile. In Chile's Chiloé Archipelago, potatoes are the main ingredient of many dishes, including milcaos, chapaleles, curanto and chochoca. In Ecuador, the potato, as well as being a staple with most dishes, is featured in the hearty locro de papas, a thick soup of potato, squash and cheese.
Europe
In the UK, potatoes form part of the traditional staple, fish and chips. Roast potatoes are commonly served as part of a Sunday roast dinner and mashed potatoes form a major component of several other traditional dishes, such as shepherd's pie, bubble and squeak and bangers and mash. New potatoes may be cooked with mint and are often served with butter.
The Tattie scone is a popular Scottish dish containing potatoes. Colcannon is a traditional Irish food made with mashed potato, shredded kale or cabbage, and onion; champ is a similar dish. Boxty pancakes are eaten throughout Ireland, although associated especially with the North, and in Irish diaspora communities; they are traditionally made with grated potatoes, soaked to loosen the starch and mixed with flour, buttermilk and baking powder. A variant eaten and sold in Lancashire, especially Liverpool, is made with cooked and mashed potatoes.
In the UK, game chips are a traditional accompaniment to roast gamebirds such as pheasant, grouse, partridge and quail.
Halušky is the national dish of many Slavic nations. Halušky dumplings are made from a batter consisting of flour and grated potatoes. Bryndzové halušky is associated with Slovak cuisine in particular.
In Germany, Northern Europe (Finland, Latvia and especially Scandinavian countries), Eastern Europe (Russia, Belarus and Ukraine) and Poland, newly harvested, early ripening varieties are considered a special delicacy. Boiled whole and served un-peeled with dill, these "new potatoes" are traditionally consumed with Baltic herring. Puddings made from grated potatoes (kugel, kugelis, and potato babka) are popular items of Ashkenazi, Lithuanian and Belarusian cuisine. German fried potatoes and various versions of potato salad are part of German cuisine. Bauernfrühstück — literally farmer's breakfast — is a warm German dish made from fried potatoes, eggs, ham and vegetables.
Cepelinai is Lithuanian national dish. It is a type of dumpling made from grated raw potatoes boiled in water and usually stuffed with minced meat, although sometimes dry cottage cheese or mushrooms are used instead. In Western Europe — especially in Belgium — sliced potatoes are fried to create frieten, the original French fried potatoes. Stamppot, a traditional Dutch meal, is based on mashed potatoes mixed with vegetables.
In France, the most notable potato dish is the Hachis Parmentier, named after Antoine-Augustin Parmentier, a French pharmacist, nutritionist and agronomist who, in the late 18th century, was instrumental in the acceptance of the potato as an edible crop in the country. Pâté aux pommes de terre is a regional potato dish from the central Allier and Limousin regions. Gratin dauphinois — consisting of baked thinly sliced potatoes with cream or milk — and tartiflette, with Reblochon cheese are also widespread.
In the north of Italy, in particular, in the Friuli region of the northeast, potatoes serve to make a type of pasta called gnocchi. Similarly, cooked and mashed potatoes or potato flour can be used in the Knödel or dumpling eaten with or added to meat dishes all over central and Eastern Europe, but especially in Bavaria and Luxembourg. Potatoes form one of the main ingredients in many soups such as the vichyssoise and Albanian potato and cabbage soup. In western Norway, komle is popular.
A traditional Canary Islands dish is Canarian wrinkly potatoes or papas arrugadas. Tortilla de patatas (potato omelette) and patatas bravas (a dish of fried potatoes in a spicy tomato sauce) are near-universal constituent of Spanish tapas.
North America
In the U.S., potatoes have become one of the most widely consumed crops and thus have a variety of preparation methods and condiments. French fries and often hash browns are commonly found in typical American fast-food burger "joints" and cafeterias. One popular favorite involves a baked potato with cheddar cheese or sour cream and chives on top, and in New England "smashed potatoes" — a chunkier variation on mashed potatoes, retaining the peel — have a great popularity. Potato flakes are popular as an instant variety of mashed potatoes, which reconstitute into mashed potatoes by adding water, with butter or oil and salt to taste. A regional dish of Central New York, salt potatoes are bite-size new potatoes boiled in water saturated with salt then served with melted butter. At more formal dinners, a common practice includes taking small red potatoes, slicing them, and roasting them in an iron skillet. Among American Jews, the practice of eating latkes or fried potato pancakes is common during the festival of Hanukkah.
A traditional Acadian dish from New Brunswick is known as poutine râpée. The Acadian poutine is a ball of grated and mashed potato, salted, sometimes filled with pork in the center, and boiled. The result is a moist ball about the size of a baseball. It is commonly eaten with salt and pepper or brown sugar. It is believed to have originated from the German Klöße, prepared by early German settlers who lived among the Acadians. Poutine, by contrast, is a hearty serving of French fries, fresh cheese curds and hot gravy. Tracing its origins to Quebec in the 1950s, it has become a widespread and popular dish throughout Canada.
South Asia
In South Asia, the potato is a very popular traditional staple. In India, the most popular potato dishes are aloo ki sabzi, batata vada and samosa, which is spicy mashed potato mixed with a small amount of vegetable stuffed in conical dough, and deep fried. Potatoes are also a major ingredient as fast food items, such as aloo chaat, where they are deep fried and served with chutney. In Northern India, alu dum and alu paratha are a favorite part of the diet; the first is a spicy curry of boiled potato, the second is a type of stuffed chapati.
A dish called masala dosa from South India is very notable all over India. It is a thin pancake of rice and pulse batter rolled over spicy smashed potato and eaten with sambhar and chutney. Poori in south India in particular in Tamil Nadu is almost always taken with smashed potato masal. Other favorite dishes are alu tikki and pakoda items.
Vada pav is a popular vegetarian fast food dish in Mumbai and other regions in the Maharashtra in India.
Aloo posto — a curry with potatoes and poppy seeds — is immensely popular in East India, especially Bengal. Although potatoes are not native to India, it has become a vital part of food all over the country, especially North Indian food preparations. In Tamil Nadu this tuber acquired a name based on its appearance “urulai-k-kizhangu,” meaning cylindrical tuber.
The Aloo gosht, potato and meat curry, is one of the popular dishes in South Asia, especially in Pakistan.
In art
The potato has been an essential crop in the Andes since the pre-Columbian Era. The Moche culture from Northern Peru made ceramics from the earth, water and fire. This pottery was a sacred substance, formed in significant shapes and used to represent important themes. Potatoes are represented anthropomorphically as well as naturally.
During the late 19th century, numerous images of potato harvesting appeared in European art, including the works of Willem Witsen and Anton Mauve.
Van Gogh's 1885 painting “The Potato Eaters” portrays a family eating potatoes. Van Gogh said he wanted to depict peasants as they really were. He deliberately chose coarse and ugly models, thinking that they would be natural and unspoiled in his finished work.
Jean-François Millet's “The Potato Harvest” depicts peasants working in the plains between Barbizon and Chailly. It presents a theme representative of the peasants' struggle for survival. Millet's technique for this work incorporated paste-like pigments thickly applied over a coarsely textured canvas.
In popular culture
Invented in 1949, and marketed and sold commercially by Hasbro in 1952, Mr. Potato Head is an American toy that originally consisted of attachable plastic parts for a potato, such as ears and eyes, to make a face. It was the first toy ever advertised on television.
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