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New varieties and novelty potatoes
Agricultural research centers and even growers are interested and active in developing
new varieties that satisfy all the links along the chain of distribution, including the consumer. We
will continue to see improvement in both flavor and ease of cooking. For instance, a new variety
(late 1990s) called Cal-White has not only a pleasant flavor but is particularly well-suited for
cooking in the microwave oven.
The more unusual specialty potatoes, also called novelty potatoes, are rarely if ever
available to the average consumers. Generally small farms grow them and distributors sell them
to high-end restaurants, clubs, institutions and specialty food markets. Occasionally you may
find them in the well-stocked produce department of a supermarket. Of course, they sell at
premium prices. Do they taste better than other potatoes? Sometimes but not often. Chefs like
them because of their unusual appearance, color, size, or simply as a substitute for the everyday
potato that is mundane and difficult to present on the plate in a new and distinctive way.
There are about two dozen varieties of these novelty potatoes, some of them new breeds.
Many of these are small in size and range in color from the accustomed tan, white or red to the
less usual indigo blue, purple, black, deep magenta and golden yellow. Some have speckles and
stripes of color throughout their flesh.
Here are the ones that you are most likely to run across, perhaps not in the produce
section but on your plate in a trendy restaurant:
1
. Yellow Finn or Finnish yellow wax is small or medium-sized with pale yellow, rather
rough skin and solid, smooth, cream-colored flesh. They are excellent boiled, baked or
in salad. This is the best-known of the novelty potatoes.
2
. Several varieties of blue potatoes exist which have grayish-blue or purple skins and
sometimes blue or purple flesh. Others have white or gray flesh speckled with blue.
They have a delicate flavor and are best when boiled. Cooking, unfortunately, dulls the
beautiful blue or purple coloration.
3
. Fingerlings is a general term for several kinds of small, knobby, finger-shaped, potatoes.
They are waxy, flavorful and best steamed, boiled or baked. You most commonly
come across the varieties called rose Finn, purple Peruvianand German fingerling.
Some of these specialties that are rare to us are common locally elsewhere in the world,
particularly Yellow Finns. When growers tried them in the past, American consumers didn't care
for the yellow flesh so farmers stopped growing them. But they are favored and popular in
Europe and Israel. Now Americans want something different and these same ordinary Yellow
Finns are proudly returning as sophisticated fashionable potatoes.
Mountains of potatoes
We use potatoes not only to feed ourselves but also our stock animals and as industrial
raw material for such products as starch, alcohol, dextrin and glucose. But most of them (84
percent in U.S.) end up on the table. An amazing two-thirds of those destined for human
consumption end up in processed food, particularly French fries for the food service industry and
potato chips for the snack market. We eat the remaining one-third as fresh potatoes. While eating
fresh potatoes continues to shrink slowly in North America, the food processing industry is using
more all the time.
Food processors may freeze potatoes after frying, make them into chips, dehydrate and
play © erdosh 194
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