The Potato Museum Blog: Potatoheads Talking

King Harry Crowned Top Plant

Wood Prairie Farm in Bridgewater, Maine, an organic, family-run farm has won an award for its new organic potato variety, King Harry. Apparently the variety, boasting hairy leaves, has proven to be resistant to incursions from both Colorado potato beetles and potato leafhoppers. The potato was field tested by Megan and Jim Gerritsen, farm owners. It was under development for several years by breeders at Cornell University.

The Gerritsens entered King Harry in a Mailorder Gardening Association competition and won the Green Thumb Award for being one of the top five plants of the year. It's unusual for a veg to win this prize, triumphing over showy ornamentals. But Harry does have enticing pale purple blossoms....

And requires no insecticide application.

The Maine Potato News informed us of this prize.

Hash Stashed in Mash

As reported recently by www.shortnews.com:

Jailer Arrested for Putting the Pot in Potatoes

Robert Earl Hannon, a prison guard at Laflore County Jail in Greenwood, Mississippi, is free on $15,000 bond after he was arrested and charged with smuggling marijuana into the prison inside his lunch.

According to Leflore County Sheriff Ricky Banks the Mississippi Bureau of Narcotics had been investigating how various contraband items were making their way into the prison when they apprehended Hannon.

The guard's alleged smuggling activities were discovered after his lunch was found with a large serving of mashed potatoes. He was known not to eat potatoes. Two ounces of marijuana and $200 cash were discovered buried in the mash.

Starchy Art

According to a report from China News, each year The Starchy Gallery in East Dulwich, London, runs a potato art competition. Gallery owner Jo David says of the potato: "You start to look at one, you can see faces in it already."

This year's winners produced a spud rendition of a British singer. You can view some of the entries, as well as a video here.

Italian Woman Escapes Lethal "Spud"

Ah, the lingering joys of war---last week Olga Mauriello bought some potatoes at her local market in the small town of San Giorgio a Cermano near Naples, Italy. As she was washing her dirt-covered spuds, she discovered that one of them appeared to be a pine cone-shaped hand grenade. Police arrived and safely detonated the live grenade, and later reported that it was dug up in a potato field in France. The grenade was of a type commonly used in World War II.

( At right: Potato or grenade? www.bolender.com)

Lincoln Head P. Chip?

Yes, we saw it with our own eyes--for sale on Ebay for extremely specialized collectors--a spud chip greatly resembling the 16th President, Abe Lincoln. Alert potato tracker Nolan K. informed us about this but, alas, we responded too late.

Did anyone out there buy this?

Fasting with Veggies

Just had a call from a person about to begin a fast for spiritual reasons. He asked if a potato were a fruit or a vegetable--apparently veggies are ok on this fast. So I said that the spud was  in the vegetable column and definitely not a fruit. I explained, however, that many veggies , botanically speaking, are fruits because anything edible that develops from a flower is a fruit.

But the potato, an underground tuber, the storehouse for the potato plant of excess nutrients the plant does not need at the time, may not exactly be what the spiritual fasting gods ordered either, growing in the dark as it does.....

Britain to Test GMO Potatoes

Potatoes developed by the German company BASF  to have resistance to blight will be grown in trials in Britain next year.The GMO spuds will not be grown for human or animal consumption but rather for industrial use. ( The potato's starch is used in degradable plastics, cosmetics, medicines and more.)

Those in favor of GMO altered foods point out that  modifying the potato in this manner may well be preferable to the heavy spraying of chemical fungicides necessary to combat "late blight."  The fungus-like pathogen that wiped out potato harvests in Ireland in the mid 1800's continues to exist today in potato-growing areas around the world.

Many in Britain are opposed to the growing of any GMO food plants for any purpose.

According to today's Reuter's piece, " Britain's largest organic certification body, the Soil Asssociation, said, however, it was dismayed by the decision, adding there would be no market for GMO potatoes in Britain.

"The government is ignoring what consumers want to eat and their health and safety...The chances of anyone in the UK willingly buying GM potato crisps or chips are zero. This trial is a monumental waste of time and money," Soil Association policy director Peter Melchett said."

For an overview of GM crops read this from NewScientist.com.

Happy Thanksgiving--Pray for Peace and Pass the Potatoes!

"May the frost never afflict your spuds.
May the leaves of your cabbage always be free from worms. May the crows never pick your haystack.
If you inherit a donkey, may she be in foal. "Gaelic blessing p.s. May your mashies be rich with cream and butter, may your bird be moist, may your rutabaga leave them begging for more, may your pies be so superlative as to leave you and your guests lying  around the fire praising Demeter and her handmaidens, and, above all,  may your gratitude be boundless.( Mashies from www.reluctantgourmet.com/mashed.htm)

Mr. Potato Head Soars Above New York

No Couch Potato he, Mr. P.H. was retrofitted last year as a fit and healthy runner, and in his balloon incarnation again will fly in the Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade this week. In addition, the United States Potato Board has opened a Potato Head-quarters in New York's Chelsea Market that will be offering recipes and family spud fun through Friday.

Melanie Wickham, executive secretary of New York's Empire State Potato Growers Association, will be one of 20 tuber types helping guide Mr. P.H. along the parade route.

Not appearing in the parade is an actor some in the business apparently once dubbed "Mr. Potato Head,"  Daniel Craig, the new Bond, James Bond. Frankly, we don't see the resemblance....

Aaagh It's Mr. Potato Pumpkin Head!

According to consumeraffairs.com, Target stores is recalling $5 kits of Mr. Potato Head-type ( I assume these are not real licensed Mr. PH items)  stick-in ears, noses, eyes, etc., for use with PUMPKINS, a sacrilege right there, with the usual concerns about small children ingesting the parts.  Take the kits back to Target while your kids ingest raw pumpkin seeds and wield sharp knives back at home.