Mmm ... Purple Disease-Resistant Potatoes

the_ph0x` writes: "An article on Reuters describes a new breed of potato as being resistant to disease, able to grow in low nutrient soil and ... purple. Not all that interesting unless you're from an area where blight is a problem. At least we'll know we can always live on potatos, which who doesn't anyway ... mmm purple tater-tots." Combine it with the hideous green ketchup Heinz is making, and eating can be like a Kadinsky ^? painting!

Comments

Take these to dinners!

[smnolde]

My dad made some purple potato stuff for a church dinner. Even though they tasted identical to regular potatos, but few people tried them.

As much as the purple potato is resistant to disease, people are more resistant to change.

More information...

[MoNickels]

Potato Association of America Handbook: Potato Varieties.

Off-colour vegetables.

Who says watermelon must be red?

Potatoes of note. (Potatos or potatoes, either is acceptable. Just not potatoe).

Why white?

[hey!]

I used to work for an organization that sponsored antropological research in S. America. I saw an interesting paper given on potatoes, which I'll try to remember here.

Potatoes are native to S. America, where there are thousands of varieties. People native to that region grow and eat a much greater variety of potatoes than we do, with different shapes (running from round to finger shaped) and colors. This is partly due to the fact that their potatoes tend to hybridize with wild "weedy" strains, and partly because they encourage hybridization. Since potatoes are a big part of their diet,different shapes, colors and tastes add variety. This strategy probably also protects them from poor harvests and pests by spreading their bets across many strains that do better in different circumstances.

There are probably a hundred or so cultivars we grow in the 1st world which tend to be large, roundish, and have white or yellow flesh. Most importantly they have been selected to have low concentrations of poisionous alkaloids in the tuber. Potatoes are closely related to jimson weed and deadly nightshade and are normally poisonous. Where they eat many more primitive and diverse varieties of pototatoes, the potatoes must be treated specially to remove the alkaloids. They are spread on a blanket or a tarp, trod upon to break their skins and left outside several days to freeze and thaw. Apparently this reduces the concentrations of alkaloids to where they can be consumed safely, although you might still get sick if you aren't used to eating native potatoes.

I don't know if the flesh or the skin of this particular potato is purple -- probably just the skin, although I suppose it is possible that the flesh might be colored. Yellow flesh is not uncommon; green is a sign that a potato wasn't properly handled and may be poisonous. The interesting thing is that it apprently this strain came from European gardens. They could probably develop a number of useful new strains by hybridizing with wild potatoes.