h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

If I am not mistaken the potato originated from around Peru - where the farming practices have been to cultivate a mix of many varieties in one farm - avoiding problems with disease and other problems that would kill one weak species off. The common varieties we see today are thoroughbred plants. Just like in England a couple of centuries ago there were many wild and wonderful apples to be found - that are now extinct.

The moral -- I don't know, if there is one...

Anyway I like potatoes - The best out of the 3 varieties that they have commonly in Canada is Yukon Gold - otherwise it is choice between "White" and "Red"! The variety that you can find in the UK is strangely absent here.

However we do have a bunch of apple breeds - most of them red, and rather like each other.

P.S. Potatoes = Pommes de terre - earth apples (whatever).

Yukon Gold, bred at the University of Guelph in Ontario, Canada is one yummy spud.



JTG

Fortunately the supermarkets in Ottawa carry it - other than that it is usually the generic term white, red, or baking potato! Yukon Gold has some flavour - so we stock up on those. I wish the farmers in the Byward market here would sell them - I think they assume most people will go for the super-ultra familiar stuff - But we have an enlightened farmer here selling oyster mushrooms and things that can be used in Mexican cooking - squash flowers and tomatillos!

Do they "breed" potatoes in Guelph? I have this image of potato farmers rounding up the herd waving a little potato peeler to herd them up.

Then there is the prime Yukon Gold stud father to many fine yellow potatoes.

The Byward's a wonderful place; one of Ottawa's real attractions.

University of Guelph, or Moo U., is famous for its Agriculture research... and cows with windows.

There must, at one time, have been a stud spud... At least I like to think so. Spuds won't breed when you chase them around. Potato farmers stroll up and down the rows on moonlit nights strumming mandolins and singing as sweetly as their nature's allow.



JTG

In Mexico they hire mariachi's to serenade the lady spuds usually propped on balconies while the stud spud courts below, crooning songs about mulch, resistance to potato beetles, and the size of her eyes.

Many a frustrated spud romance has led to a few broken-hearted spuds ending up in the chip fryer, or even worse being used to extract potato-like starch for instant "mash".