2019 PEI - part 4, North Cape Coast: everything you ever wanted to know about potatoes - Travel With Us

Now that we’ve learned about the 4 steps in growing potatoes at PEI’s Potato Museum, let’s look at everything else there is to know about potatoes from where they first showed up to how they’re harvested today to what all we get from potatoes. First, though, let’s look at the value of potatoes.

Are potatoes comfort food for you, or do you stay away from them? Here is the Potato Museum’s perspective: it’s a near-perfect food.

When combined with whole milk (for vitamins A and D), potatoes supply almost all the necessary food elements.

a more complete protein than most food plants, including soybeans
rich in vitamins B and C, iron, calcium, magnesium, sulfur, potassium, and many trace elements
cholesterol-free
high in fiber
relatively low in calories (average potato has only 80-90 calories, the same as a large apple or orange) if you don’t include the butter, sour cream, cheese, and steaks we usually associate with potatoes

Ready for a baked potato for dinner tonight?

big-scale, modern-day harvesting

Since Prince Edward Island (PEI) grows potatoes on a large scale, modern techniques are used. A video was showing the process today. These pictures show what’s going on in the fields and the processing plants.

Potatoes moving from the tractor-pulled harvester into the red truck to take the potatoes to the processing plant. The red truck’s top is slanted so the potatoes can easily be moved into it. We saw these red trucks all over western and central PEI—even just outside our campground.

side view of moving the potatoes from the harvester to the truck

first look at the potatoes from the field to look for the misshapes

potatoes shoot out onto the conveyor belt to be taken into the storage shed

multiple trucks can line up to the conveyor belt at the same time

Inside the storage shed, the potatoes are “stacked” in layers so the first ones won’t fall to the floor; the shed can be filled in less than 10 minutes! Wish I had pictures of what happens next, but we do know that they don’t stay in this shed very long.

While small farmers are concerned even now about having enough of their own potato crop for use during the winter and to plant in the spring, they can store their potatoes in root cellars. My folks (in Des Moines) had a root room off of the basement for storing potatoes and other foods because dad had grown up living on a small farm in southern Iowa and knew to do this.

With today’s super crops going to a variety of markets, storage facilities need to be built with high-tech temperature and humidity controls.

One such market in PEI is Sobeys that partners with potato farmers on PEI.

Here’s one of the Sobeys we went to. They are like Publix, Safeway, and Krogers grocery stores in the States.

how potatoes got to PEI

Potatoes are native to South America and were a vital part of the Inca diet and culture. By the time of the Spanish conquest in 1532, the Incas had terraced huge mountainside areas for growing maize (corn) and potatoes.

Andes potato growing today

Thousands of potato varieties are still grown in the Peruvian Andes. The language of the Quechua Indians has more than 1000 words to describe their potatoes. In Canada, 80% of the potato harvest come from only 6 of these thousands of varieties.

They use long, curved poles to plant and harvest potatoes on the steep slopes.

Here’s a straight-pole version of the Andean foot plow used in Peru. It’s so l-o-n-g.

The tool has changed little from the time of the Spanish conquest. The only major change is an added metal point.

Early potato growers in the Andes stored their crop by turning it into “chuno.” Potatoes were spread on the ground and left overnight to freeze. In the morning, farmers crushed them with their feet to squeeze out the moisture and then let them dry in the son. After about 5 days of repeating this freeze-drying process, the potatoes are ready to store for a long time and can be easily moved to other locations.

Farmers still use the freeze-drying method today.

back to how potatoes got to PEI

Spaniards came for riches and converts. Little did they know that their real treasure from South America was the potato since it has benefited the human race so much.

As Spaniards took their treasures (including potatoes) back home, they had to watch out for privateers from England and France. The most well known buccaneer of the age was Sir Francis Drake who is thought to have introduced the plundered potato to England.

Historically, Spaniards brought the potato to Europe from Peru around 1550. They had figured out that they were nutritious, kept well on long sea voyages, and were an effective precaution against scurvy.

New France (Canada) was introduced to the potato by European settlers in the early 1700s. The native people here traditionally used potato-like plants as food—the Jerusalem artichoke and the arrowhead plant called “wild potato.”

new strains of potatoes

Before the latter half of the 1800s, European potatoes were bred from the seed of 2 primary locations: Spain in 1550 and England in 1586. This narrow genetic based caused some weaknesses that resulted in the potato blight in the mid 1800s.

Between 1860 and 1900, professionals and amateurs tried to come up with a blight-resistant variety. Thousands of varieties were produced but none worked, and only a few had the traits to become widely accepted. Work is continuing today.

some of the newer varieties we know

In 1851, C.E. Goodrich, a NY state clergyman, received a small sample of potatoes from Panama. From 1 variety he grew seedlings that he distributed to growers as the Garnet Chili. From this variety, 170 older varieties can be traced.

Goodrich pollinated his plants the old-fashioned way.

Luther Burbank saw a fertilized seedball on an Early Rose plant—a direct descendant of Goodrich’s Garnet Chili. He cut out an eye, planted it, and the Idaho Baker was born.

Later on, a Canadian potato breeder, Gary Johnston, headed a university research team. In the 1960s, he crossbred a bright yellow wild potato from Peru with a domestic variety and developed the Yukon Gold.

Yukon Gold is one of North America’s most popular potatoes.

Varieties are characterized by type: russet, round red, long white, or round white. They are also characterized by their specific gravity (starch).

Finally, the varieties mature at a different rate so produce crops early, mid, or late in the season.

starch in a potato

This test would make a great science project. To figure out the amount of starch in a potato, use gravity. By floating different varieties in a salt and water solution, some will sink and others will float.

Sinkers have more starch and will become fluffy when cooked, so are good for baking, mashing, or French frying. Floaters have less starch and so will stay firm when broiled or used in stews and soups.

imperfect potatoes

Most malformations and strange-looking potatoes develop as a result of adverse growing conditions.

Deep eyes, irregular shapes, and surface defects usually don’t affect the potato’s taste or texture, but they aren’t wanted by the public so they’re culled during harvesting. Hope they’re at least being fed to pigs.

What these imperfect potatoes look like that we’ll never see in a store.

potato plants

The potato plant is related to the tomato, eggplant, and pepper. It’s often mistaken for a root vegetable but is actually the thickened end of an underground stem—a tuber.

Hundreds of varieties have been bred over the centuries for a specific quality, such as disease resistance, high yield, or flavor.

above ground starting at the top: blossoms, variability, seed balls

below ground top to bottom: potato piece that grows into a plant, a tuber, an eye or bud that sprouts into a potato, and an eyebrow (ridge protecting the bud)

Here’s an easier-to-see look at the plant.

potato uses other than eating

We all know the food products made from processed potatoes: fries, chips, dehydrated potatoes, canned potatoes, and potato flour. Even ice cream and drinks like vodka and aquavit (a distilled spirit in Scandinavia) are made from processed potatoes. Potato starch is used in pudding mixtures, pie fillings, and custard powders.

Less common by-products are used in paper, textile, and paint industries; manufacture of acetone, ethyl alcohol, adhesives, and plastics; and as a base for skin care and pharmaceutical products. Even the ink used to print this panel contains dextrin produced from potatoes.

In Ireland years ago, the way to put a curse on an enemy’s potato crop was to dump a pail of boiled potatoes onto his fields, preventing the crop from doing well.

then there’s the French fry

Legend says a disgruntled restaurant cook in Saratoga Springs, NY, made the first French fry after a customer complained that the fried potatoes were too thick.

Here’s another possibility:

Thomas Jefferson is credited with bringing the French fry to North America. He had deep friend potatoes while serving as an Ambassador to France in the 1780s and brought the crop back to his garden when he came home.

As president, he had “potatoes cooked in the French manner” served at official dinners. Did they use their fingers to eat the fries like we do or forks since they were at a formal meal?

And, of course, cosmetics used potatoes. It could whiten skin. A comb dipped in potato water and then combed through the hair would make the hair darker.

Potato starch is the primary ingredient of some skin-care products for babies and athletes. These “liquid powders” are applied wet; when dried, they made a smooth protective texture.

pests and diseases

More than 260 known viruses, bacteria, and fungi infect potatoes. Not only do they damage plant parts, they also carry diseases from plant to plant. Responses to this problem are chemical sprays and dusts, as well as using natural predators to control the pests. Other responses are planting guaranteed disease-free seed potatoes, introducing more resistant varieties of potatoes, and rotating crops.

Farmers also destroy infected potato waste and sanitize equipment and storage areas between crops. Avoiding surface injuries during harvesting reduces the chance of infection invading through lesions.

Storing potatoes at the right temperature and humidity with adequate ventilation also reduces the risk of disease. Quarantine measures can confine some problems to limited areas.