Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
Curing helps heal whatever cuts or bruises the potato might have suffered during har-
vest and encourages the formation of a tough skin that will protect it during storage and
shipping. Gradually, the temperature in the storage room is lowered. Although all potatoes
are at their best fairly soon after harvest, they can be stored for up to ten months if the
conditions are carefully maintained - between 35 and 40 degrees and high humidity.
Temperature is critical. Potatoes destined for the fresh market are kept at the bottom
end of that range. Those that will be fried for chips must be held at the warmer end, or
even higher. That's because chilled potatoes begin to convert starch into sugar, which will
scorch when fried. The same thing can happen at home. Potatoes that have been refriger-
ated can taste downright sweet. When potatoes do sweeten in the refrigerator, a couple of
weeks of "tempering" at slightly higher temperatures can restore some of the flavor bal-
ance.
To avoid even partial repeats of disasters such as the Irish potato famine, potato breed-
ers are constantly working to develop new varieties with increased resistance to the spud's
many enemies. The earliest European potatoes were based on varieties that originated in
the Peruvian and Bolivian Andes. As the blight showed, these were very susceptible to
disease. In the late nineteenth century, breeders began experimenting with Chilean vari-
eties, which turned out to be much more resistant. This work is ongoing, with breeders
today focusing on wild Mexican varieties. Russet Burbank - the gold standard for baking
potatoes - traces its family tree back to the late-nineteenth-century California plant breeder
Luther Burbank. Originally bred by Burbank as a high-moisture, smooth-skinned variety,
the potato we know today was an accident - a genetic mutation found and then popular-
ized by Colorado potato farmer Lou Sweet beginning around 1910.
Whereas the first half of the twentieth century was devoted to boiling, baking and
mashing potatoes, the second half was all about chips and fries. Early on, the commercial
production of processed potatoes was so limited that government statisticians didn't even
include them as a separate category until the 1960s. By 1970 fresh and processed potatoes
were grown in roughly equal amounts, and then fast food took off. In 1999 Americans ate
63 pounds of frozen potatoes per person (mostly French fries), compared to 50 pounds of
fresh.
Although we are not eating as many fresh potatoes as we did in 1950, we are certainly
eating more interesting ones. Today careful shoppers can choose among hundreds of vari-
eties - including French fingerlings and German Butterballs, Red La Sodas, Purple Per-
uvians and Yukon Golds - with more being added all the time.
