Can You Dig It?

It’s July, and I have just dug Bliss’s Triumph. What beauties. I don’t think there is a potato that has a rosier, more gorgeous skin. Plus the aroma of perfectly cooked, hot, steaming Bliss’s Triumph reminds me of freshly baked bread just yearning for a little dab of country butter. But it’s the old-fashioned flavor that delights the most. Spritz the potatoes with a few drops of white wine, and there you have it: food for the gods.

Although farmers markets are offering more and more heirlooms nowadays, the best way to get to know potatoes of real character like these is to grow them yourself. I maintain 52 varieties in my large kitchen garden, but I also know people who raise potatoes in tubs on their apartment balconies, so you don’t have to own a field to enjoy homegrown spuds. In Pennsylvania, I can plant early in March and continue at intervals well into April. This spreads the crop out over a long harvest season, as potatoes are generally grouped into three categories: early, midseason, and late. The early ones—such as the Victorian-era heirlooms Early Rose, Myatt’s Ashleaf, and the delicious French fingerling called La Ratte d’Ardèche—all come on during the early summer. At that point, I let my friends know that a dig is imminent so that we can set out the freshly dug and cooked bounty for a serious tasting. It is especially satisfying to see the convincing nods of appreciation from newcomers who have suddenly discovered that potatoes actually have as many different subtle flavors as wine. Those differences are undoubtedly accounted for by soil types, since soil is a living thing—or chock-full of living things—and the soil they grow in is as important to potatoes as yeast is to bread.

So how do we describe potato flavors and figure out which ones are worth a trial in the kitchen garden? Well, some of the best-tasting potatoes were bred almost 100 years ago. Many of the finest among them are still with us, never improved upon from a culinary standpoint. Purple-blotched Catriona (1920) always tastes freshly dug and has a walnutlike flavor that pushes it right over the top. And I think that what I’ve learned from Catriona is that potato flavors are best equated with those of nuts or breads. A subtle hazelnut taste, for example, is a hallmark of Arran Victory (1918), a violet-skinned potato from the Isle of Arran, off the coast of Scotland. It ranks as one of the great connoisseur’s potatoes of the 20th century.

I don’t find this nuttiness or “freshly baked bread” flavor in the boiling potatoes, especially the waxy ones with yellow flesh. I suppose that is why they end up as salad potatoes, taking on the flavors around them while absorbing little of the dressing. La Ratte d’Ardèche is one such potato; another excellent waxy potato is Roseval (1950), a French variety with smooth cranberry-red skin and lemon-yellow flesh. It resembles a large beach pebble and is a thoroughly handsome addition to salads.

Potatoes come in all the same natural colors of the other members of the genusSolanumto which they are botanically related (eggplants, peppers, and tomatoes, for example). Generally, this means red, purple and blue (the color varies greatly due to soil), yellow, orange, pink, and white. The natives of the high Andes, where potatoes originated, enjoy thousands of different varieties and colors. They shrug off the potatoes we grow in North America and Europe as rather bland and uninteresting, yet to us many of their potatoes taste somewhat bitter or sharp. This is because potatoes with a lot of pigments in the skin or flesh carry different genetic material inherited from wild potatoes, which rely on their bad taste to fend off animals. This natural defense system is still present in the plant itself and is toxic to humans and many animals. It is also found in potatoes that turn green (a sign that they’ve been improperly exposed to light), so never buy potatoes with green spots on their skin.

Although the flesh of some potatoes is colored, very few other than the whites and yellows have been bred for solid shades. All-Red (a new variety, introduced about 1984), which cooks up a pale rose, comes close, but as a rule colored potatoes are veined, or the color is arranged in rings under the skin. I mention these features because of the recent rage for blue potatoes, which were originally considered poverty food and never, ever eaten by connoisseurs.

So, do the various colored potatoes taste any different from the white or yellow ones? To find out, I started planting old classics, among them Négresse, a variety introduced to France from Peru around 1815 and sometimes called Truffe de Chine (Chinese truffle). The analogy to truffles is apt. Eyes closed, it tastes like a truffle, and a little walnut or hazelnut oil will bring out the rich, earthy nuttiness. But eyes open, it is blue, and oil only makes it bluer—sky blue, in fact.

Storage has a great effect on both the texture and flavor of potatoes. Their starch content is determined by variety and growing conditions, but no matter what, they will lose moisture the longer they are stored. I keep mine in brown paper bags at about 40 degrees Fahrenheit. They remain dormant that way and last for months. Storage can ruin delicate flavors or improve bland ones—it’s a bit like aging wine, and a good potato grower knows this. An elegant potato like Duke of York (1891) can actually mellow in storage and develop a “new potato” flavor and texture over the course of a few months. But to my mind, a potato brought out of storage cannot compare to a new potato—a small one, not fully mature, that’s been dug while the plant still has greens attached. Because the water content of new potatoes is much higher than their starch content, they have a certain out-of-the-ground crispness even when cooked, and a slightly sweet, almost almondlike flavor—distinctive, yet different from one variety to another. What we often get in supermarkets is the opposite: poorly stored potatoes that taste like rotten cardboard.

You have probably guessed that most of the potatoes I grow are not the common sorts you are likely to find in a supermarket. My rule of thumb: Why grow something that you can just as easily buy? If you belong to Seed Savers Exchange, a nonprofit grassroots seed organization in Decorah, Iowa, you can get any of the potatoes I have mentioned—that’s where I acquired mine. However, many produce growers have unusual potatoes, and sometimes you can pick up samples here and there just by asking. All you really need to start your own potato patch is one or two tubers, which you can then cut into quarters and plant. And by the way, if you have a potato collection that’s kept in storage in an old refrigerator (like mine), you may refer to it properly as a tuberarium. Just in case you have a guest who considers potatoes too lowbrow.

Eight Potatoes Worth Knowing

1. All-Red
   Large, smooth tuber with cranberry-red skin and rose-pink flesh. Retains color when cooked. Multipurpose. Stores well. Midseason variety developed by Robert Lobitz of Paynesville, Minnesota, and introduced about 1984.
2. Arran Victory
   Round, smooth tuber with bright violet skin and white flesh. Considered the Rolls-Royce of potatoes. Best when steamed then spritzed with a little Scotch whisky. Flavor improves with storage. Midseason variety developed by Donald Mackelvie of Lamlash, Isle of Arran, Scotland, and introduced in 1918.
3. Beauty of Hebron
   Large and blocky with pink skin and white flesh. Good all-purpose potato. Early variety developed by Albert Bresee of Hubbardton, Vermont, and introduced in 1878.
4. Bliss’s Triumph
   Large and blocky with beautiful rose-pink skin and white flesh. Very good all-purpose potato with a rich, smooth texture. Early variety introduced by B.K. Bliss & Sons of New York in 1874.
5. Catriona
   Large, smooth, and somewhat kidney-shaped with parchment-colored skin covered with deep violet patches. Flavor of pale yellow flesh hints of toasted almonds or freshly baked bread. Similar culinary traits as Arran Victory, and considered its equal by many food experts. Midseason variety developed by Archibald Finlay of Auchtermunchty, Scotland, in 1920.
6. Chile/Ancud
   Oblong and blocky with violet-brown skin and white flesh. Early variety with a strong mushroom flavor. Found in the 1920s near the town of Ancud on the island of Chiloé, off the coast of Chile, by Russian geneticist Nikolay Vavilov of Moscow.
7. Négresse
   Long and narrow with blue-black skin and dark blue flesh. When cut with a knife, the raw potato exudes inky juice that stains. When boiled, potato turns blue-gray; when steamed, it holds its color. Midseason variety introduced into France from Peru about 1815.
8. La Ratte d’ardÈche
   Long, smooth tuber usually hooked into a point at one end. Skin is parchment-colored, flesh a soft yellowish white. Being grown commercially in Oregon under the name La Ratte de Paris by Jim Huston, who first marketed Yukon Golds.Very early variety introduced in France in 1872 and now one of the cornerstones of Parisian potato cookery. —W.W.W.