Oregon Potatoes: Spud Boy where are you?
written by Thor Erickson | photos by Ashlee Pierce
Potatoes have a bad reputation.
Once the kings of sustenance and preservers of civilizations, potatoes in modern society have been viewed as starchy carbs that aren’t good for us. Potatoes have been used and abused as the vehicle for bright and shiny things—French fries with ketchup, mashed potatoes with gravy, chips and dip. Like the bassist in a ’70s super group, the potato is often upstaged by the colorful lead singer. The spud is in fact a vegetable, and can be wonderful. If selected and prepared with care, the potato can be worthy of a solo career.
I remember digging around in my grandparents’ front yard as a kid, making mud pies. I dug up these small round objects. My grandmother quickly took them and rinsed them off, claiming the red potatoes I found were buried treasure. That evening, she cooked the dozen or so small potatoes as part of our dinner. They were like no other potato I’d eaten in my entire six years of life. “They taste like dirt—good dirt,” I said.
Potatoes fresh from the ground are simply the best. If they sit around awhile, however, they lose the earthy life that yields great flavor. I recommend purchasing locally grown organic potatoes at a farmers market or a market that sells local produce. Good, fresh potatoes will smell like the rich soil in which they grew. They’ll be firm, free of black spots on the skin and green discoloration on the interior. This discoloration is called “solanine” and is caused by exposure to light. Potatoes with solanine can cause slight digestive discomfort and should
be avoided.
To me, the best-tasting potato dishes are the simple ones—capitalizing on their great flavor should be the goal.
Here is my recipe for roasted Oregon potatoes. Converting the starches in the potatoes to simple sugars is the key to a crispy, golden-browned potato.
Here’s another great Oregon Potato recipe: Oregon Cheesy Potatoes!
This Oregon Potato recipe is pretty close to Tenzin Sherpa’s Himalayan Potatoes
