Potatoes anyone?

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CH
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Re: Potatoes anyone?

Post by CH » Tue Mar 18, 2014 7:47 pm

harryc wrote:Finland and seemingly almost no one seems to care how they taste - except whether they're fried, covered with garlic, chili, etc.
Perhaps this is your problem? Traditionally potatoes haven't been covered in strong tasting stuff like garlic and chili, mostly just boiled, so we do taste the potatoes just fine, thank you very much. And I would say most do care how the potatoes taste. Like you keep going on about the wine snobs... not being a potatoe aficionado doesn't mean one doesn't care.

And... we don't have that much of a variety in other vegetables, either. We have orange carrots... and that's it. Onions... not much there either. Tomatoes actually have a bit more of a range nowadays. So it's not surprising that people just buy potatoes of whatever variety that works for whatever they were going to use it for. In my opinion all potatoes sold today are good potatoes, but your mileage apparently varies.



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harryc
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Re: Potatoes anyone?

Post by harryc » Tue Mar 18, 2014 9:41 pm

I would say most do care how the potatoes taste
So how is it that the majority of potatoes are probably sold without anyone knowing what 'laji' they were getting? Surely if there are different tastes then the seller would want to identify the potato so the buyer would know if they were getting taste X, Y or Z! Instead they are just tagged red, yellow, green - or jauhoinen or kiinteä or Suomi.

The ones you CAN find IDs for are usually Siikli and Rosamunda - which ARE the ones with taste - as pointed out by another poster.

Just for the record (not 'rekord' :-) ) I tried the Puikula tonight and 2 thumbs up - just a pity that they've been in storage for awhile so wasn't possible to use the skins.

So the list is now Siikli, Rosamunda, Puikula - any more candidates?


Btw - it would be nice if the varieties of carrots were told by the sellers - there must be some good ones to look for - it's pretty much a throw of the dice - the same looking 'decent' carrots have a WIDE range in taste, sweetness etc. Even the young expensive ones at the beginning of summer are often 'duds.'

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onkko
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Re: Potatoes anyone?

Post by onkko » Tue Mar 18, 2014 10:10 pm

harryc wrote: Just for the record (not 'rekord' :-) ) I tried the Puikula tonight and 2 thumbs up - just a pity that they've been in storage for awhile so wasn't possible to use the skins.
I have been eating potatoes 37 years and puikula has been one of my "staple food" atleast 32 years, thats when i moved back to lapland where puikula is norm. You cant use puikula skins since that fuctard disintegrates when you look at it. If you want potato peels to be usable then you have use some round potato.

Puikula = explodes easily, boil carefully, wont stay as whole so dont even try. If you manage to peel puikula then its either raw or you are just extremely lucky.
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Rosamunda
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Re: Potatoes anyone?

Post by Rosamunda » Tue Mar 18, 2014 11:02 pm

onkko wrote:
harryc wrote:Siikli having been around probably since Väinämöinen was playing pesäpallo
Offtopic historical lesson. Potato was brought in finland by german tinkerers in 1720s and it slowly took place of turnip as "staple food" in end of 1700s/start of 1800s. Väinämöinen probably ate turnips :)
...and turnips are excellent in Finland. I especially like those kaskinauris from Lapland - excellent. And then there's regular swede and also jerusalem artichokes. They were all pretty much abandoned in the 80s 90s etc but are becoming more popular nowadays and they definitely have more flavour than spuds.

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Re: Potatoes anyone?

Post by harryc » Wed Mar 19, 2014 7:16 am

Thanks for the info on Puikula.

I got them at Lidl - yellow 2kg bag - Lapin Puikula. They've been in storage surely since the fall - there were skins but badly mottled - though not in any way spoiled.

I was just tasting - so fastest way was just to nuke one (peeled with usual peeler) after slicing à la French fry style. Put some butter, salt and fresh ground pepper. Very nice, indeed.

You said they explode - how about cutting in half - or pre-piercing - and baking? (I even bake Siiklis and are real good.) If baked wouldn't some kind of outside 'skin' harden up and be there? I confess I often just eat the 'outside' of potatoes as find it the tastiest - and the texture (crispy) great.

I've now asked and heard Puikula are very good mashed.

Anyhow - now happy to have more 'company' at the dinner table.

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Re: Potatoes anyone?

Post by harryc » Wed Mar 19, 2014 7:40 am

harryc wrote:
Finland and seemingly almost no one seems to care how they taste - except whether they're fried, covered with garlic, chili, etc.
Perhaps this is your problem? Traditionally potatoes haven't been covered in strong tasting stuff like garlic and chili, mostly just boiled, so we do taste the potatoes just fine, thank you very much.
I was just re-reading the thread and saw this again and thought you might have misunderstood me - I was not talking about what potatoes MIGHT taste like AFTER covering with whatever taste - but when people talked of potatoes I only hear about the other things WITH the potatoes - cheese, chili, rosemary, etc. I was referring to what potatoes taste like with just salt, fresh black pepper and butter - and even without the butter.

And the other stuff is welcome, of course, but it's also good to have a good basic potato taste underneath (and knowing WHICH taste - sweetish Siikli or a robust Rosamunda, etc.) it all.

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onkko
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Re: Potatoes anyone?

Post by onkko » Wed Mar 19, 2014 10:49 am

harryc wrote:Thanks for the info on Puikula.

I got them at Lidl - yellow 2kg bag - Lapin Puikula. They've been in storage surely since the fall - there were skins but badly mottled - though not in any way spoiled.

I was just tasting - so fastest way was just to nuke one (peeled with usual peeler) after slicing à la French fry style. Put some butter, salt and fresh ground pepper. Very nice, indeed.

You said they explode - how about cutting in half - or pre-piercing - and baking? (I even bake Siiklis and are real good.) If baked wouldn't some kind of outside 'skin' harden up and be there? I confess I often just eat the 'outside' of potatoes as find it the tastiest - and the texture (crispy) great.

I've now asked and heard Puikula are very good mashed.

Anyhow - now happy to have more 'company' at the dinner table.
Im sorry, i have no idea. Im finnish so boiling unpeeled whole potatoes is only way :lol:
Puikula is excellent mash potato, only right one with reindeer/moose stew and lingonberry. Now im hungry...

In finland first thing after "how to dress" is "how to peel potato" so we do learn that as childs.

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CH
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Re: Potatoes anyone?

Post by CH » Wed Mar 19, 2014 11:03 am

harryc wrote:I was referring to what potatoes taste like with just salt, fresh black pepper and butter - and even without the butter.
But see... we don't even do this, traditionally. Just boiled potatoes.

You go on and on and on how the potatoes are tasteless but for Siikli and Rosamunda. Perhaps you should take a moment and ponder if perhaps it is you who doesn't taste the potatoe. I can taste the different potatoe tastes just fine. Perhaps you should take a moment and actually savor the different varieties instead of just dismissing them as tasteless?

The reason for the yellow/red/green bags is the easiness. Just grab the bag for the type of potatoe you are looking for. No need to start wondering what type of potatoe a specific variety is. Also, they can pack whatever variety they have on hand that fills that type. And I don't know about the store you frequent, but at least the one I go to marks the variety of potatoe that are in those big bins.

You compare to wine, but that's not quite the same thing. Take another staple like rice. There is such a huge variety of rice, but most know only a few varieties that they happen to like to use and use those, instead of going into finding the most perfect one. I think most here are fine with whatever potatoe, and pick whatever happens to be on sale or easy to pick up (like those prepacked bags). If you are out to make some special dish then you might look more into it, but otherwise whatever you get is fine.

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Re: Potatoes anyone?

Post by Rosamunda » Wed Mar 19, 2014 2:01 pm

One of my favourite (Finnish) meals is that first batch of Timo that we eat at the mökki, usually for Juhannus. They just taste wonderful if you eat them within a couple of hours of digging them up. As good as Jerseys or Ratte.

Most Finns I know are quite fussy about which new potatoes they eat. They HAVE to be Finnish (even if the Finnish ones are twice the price of the Swedish ones). There used to be a couple of potato sellers on the Tori in Helsinki in summer. They sold ONLY potatoes and have a really good selection.

The problem is the supermarkets. They just sell the stuff that gives them the biggest margins. They are probably buying pre-packed spuds from huge producers at a few cents per kilo. Why would they bother to source from small suppliers? Too much hassle. But it's the same story for apples - there are dozens of varieties of Finnish apple but very few ever make it to the supermarkets.

Unfortunately, the entrepreneurial few who have tried to set up food outlets offering more choice invariably go bust within in a few months. It's impossible to compete with S-Group. But if you venture out of Helsinki, you can pick up BIG bags of potatoes from the sellers at the Farmers' Markets. There was a Slow Food Fair in Fiskars last weekend and plenty of potatoes for sale.

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Re: Potatoes anyone?

Post by harryc » Wed Mar 19, 2014 11:22 pm

first batch of Timo
thanks for the recommendation - I've heard from friends and couple of restaurant chefs I know - that Timo CAN be very good - but is very much subject to soil quality and storage - one can easily get 'duds' - so it's a case of trying to know the grower.

New' potatoes have become some kind of joke - in the 'olden' days one could get some really tasty ones - I wasn't clever enough to ask the variety back then. The stuff they sell now is 'same looking' baby potatoes and the closest one can get to identifying them in shops is to see country of origin. One can forget the Swedish and Spanish ones I've managed to get.
Perhaps you should take a moment and ponder if perhaps it is you who doesn't taste the potatoe.
Well it hasn't just been me - here's a poster from the other day - Priki:
Well, I'm a Finn, and only like siikli and rosamunda. I quit eating potatoes a couple of year ago, though, only some fresh siikli on the summer, and occasional mash or spiced lohkoperunat, regular potatoes only when visiting parents-in-law or some other relatives. Potatoes in general are tasteless bulk, and I had to eat far too much of them when I was a kid.
But now we have Puikula and selected Timo as candidates.

The red-green-yellow potatoes are 'fine' if one wants a vehicle for gravy etc. But after a number of tries they are 'tasteless' for the most part - and confirmed to me by restaurant people who say they really favor Rosamunda for proper potatoes.

It's not a question of 'fine' as in 'they aren't spoiled or taste 'bad' - but knowing IF a taste exists and WHAT KIND of taste it is. I don't want potatoes as just some kind of filler or safka.

btw - The correct spelling in the suingular is 'potato' - Dan Quayle made quite a wave with his spelling 'potatoE' in front of a class - we really haven't heard much about him since :wink:

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Re: Potatoes anyone?

Post by harryc » Sun Apr 13, 2014 9:49 am

Someone call the police please!

I bought the Lapin Puikula at Lidl for 1.50 for 2 kg that I mentioned above (good!) - I just saw the same bag/brand at S-Market Tapiola for €4.55!!!!

(Similarly got fresh good red cabbage at €1.30 kg last week at Lidl -- 2.40 K/S!)

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Re: Potatoes anyone?

Post by Rosamunda » Mon Apr 14, 2014 8:16 pm

Did you notice the price of the cucumbers? Same story.... close to half the price they sell at in Citymarket.

Going back to potatoes.... why don't you grow your own? It's possible to grow potatoes in pots, bags, dustbins... anything with 50-60 cms depth. That's the only way you'll get the earthy taste of 'real' new potatoes.

http://lifeonthebalcony.com/potato-proj ... container/

http://www.thompson-morgan.com/how-to-g ... es-in-bags (also includes a video)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2637Ga0YUgM

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Re: Potatoes anyone?

Post by harryc » Mon Apr 14, 2014 11:13 pm

close to half the price they sell at in Citymarket.
But you get BONUS points at K (and S)!!!! :lol: :roll: :!:

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onkko
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Re: Potatoes anyone?

Post by onkko » Mon Apr 14, 2014 11:57 pm

Rosamunda wrote: anything with 50-60 cms depth.

I have been harvesting and planting potatoes since birth and i can say thats something what is just not true. Potatoes are in few centimeters underground.
Never seen any potato 50cm underground. More than few centimeters is rare.
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Re: Potatoes anyone?

Post by Upphew » Tue Apr 15, 2014 8:00 am

onkko wrote:
Rosamunda wrote: anything with 50-60 cms depth.
I have been harvesting and planting potatoes since birth and i can say thats something what is just not true. Potatoes are in few centimeters underground.
Never seen any potato 50cm underground. More than few centimeters is rare.
But roots go deeper and I'm sure they would like to have soil too rather than swarm against bucket's bottom.
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