I love "floury" potatoes. What kinds should I look for in North America?

September 29, 2018 11:42 AM

While living in the UK I discovered that I love very floury potatoes. Kerr's Pink was one variety among many that was wonderfully easy to get at the local farmers market, but there was also usually a wide selection at supermarkets and greengrocers. Apparently the ubiquitous Russet is about as close as we can get in the US and it's only semi-floury. Are there any more floury potato varieties similar to Kerr's Pink grown in the US and if so, where could I find them in the NYC area?

I guess I'm also wondering why there's such a lack of potato diversity in the US considering how much of a food staple it is. It would be great to see an effort to popularize more cultivars like what's been done with apples and some other fruits in recent decades.

posted by theory to Food & Drink (10 answers total)

In answer to your last question. We live in Germany and waxy potatoes reign supreme. No fluffy mash ever. When we go to Ireland we send back 5kg of potatos to mash and put in the freezer. We have just accepted that the waxy potato is local taste, and they like it like that and they aren’t interested in floury potatos. Maybe the same is true in the US.
posted by catspajammies at 11:46 AM on September 29, 2018 [1 favorite]

The potatoes at my local store which are advertised as "baking" potatoes are probably the flouriest. Recently I boiled some yukon golds that turned out nice and fluffy as well. I share your preference and I'll be watching this thread closely!
posted by dbx at 11:53 AM on September 29, 2018 [2 favorites]

Best answer: Have you tried the Greenmarkets? Union Square probably has the best selection, with a lot of heirloom-focused growers, and you can ask the farmers/vendors directly about varieties they grow and what might be available in coming weeks and coming seasons. We're getting into proper potato season now, so it's worth investigating. Bradley Farms, Race Farms, and Madura are a few booths I recollect having lots of varieties. I'm not sure if any were floury; fingerling and Yukon Gold variants were most common. But just as wider varieties of tomatoes and apples have started to come into the marketplace, potatoes seem to be following suit, so you may be able to find those potatoes yet.
posted by halation at 12:03 PM on September 29, 2018 [4 favorites]

I am intrigued by this If you have any outdoor space available, you can grow potatoes. You can grow them in a barrel on a sunny balcony, as long as you understand that a barrel of dirt with water weighs quite a bit. They have a pleasant green vine on top. Potatoes from a local farmer's market are probably not treated and could likely be used as seed.
posted by theora55 at 12:31 PM on September 29, 2018 [3 favorites]

The Maine Potato Lady sells seed potatoes by mail and has an extensive list with descriptions including some UK varieties such as Maris Piper. You could consult the online catalog and ask about particular types at a farmer's market. If you want to grow them as more than an experiment it's worth getting certified disease free potatoes but you can chit store bought potatoes to see if they are viable and produce a startling yield in a large tub.
posted by Botanizer at 2:37 PM on September 29, 2018 [1 favorite]

You can wash the starch out of bolied potatoes to make them fluffy.

As a generalization luxe potatoes in the us are waxier.l
posted by JPD at 2:44 PM on September 29, 2018

For some history of the potato in the U.S., read The Botany of Desire by Michael Pollan. Also includes the history of apples.
posted by Armed Only With Hubris at 2:51 PM on September 29, 2018 [2 favorites]

Best answer: Michael Pollan probably knows more than I do, but I used to work with a potato extension scientist, so I know that in the US, heirloom varieties have the best chance to be found at farm stands. One grower used to sell "Green Mountain" potatoes at his farm stand and always sold out because they were so delicious but no longer suitable for large-scale farming. Potato harvest machinery for large scale production requires uniform size, and consumers require that potato "eyes" not be sunken. Combine that with the need for resistance to potato blight, and that limits the variety of potatoes on the market. The American market is divided into pretty much two categories- baking and boiling potatoes.

Every winter, this scientist would haul 20-30 varieties out of cold storage to peel and cook in our laboratory's autoclave. He'd then pull them out and rate them for texture, color, spots of discoloration, and taste. There would be fifty to sixty pounds of cooked potatoes after the rating, and so we'd all make potato salad in January.
posted by acrasis at 6:55 PM on September 29, 2018 [3 favorites]

I can occasionally get Dutch Yellow potatoes at grocery stores, and I find them to be delightfully fluffy - I sometimes roast them British-style and I also find they make wonderful mashed potatoes. See if you can find some of those?
posted by olinerd at 7:04 AM on September 30, 2018

Seconding Theora55 and just grow them next year. You probably can't get them to grow at the moment (unless you're trying to grow new potatoes for xmas) but potatoes are one of the easiest things to grow. They also are served well in a planter on a balcony and you will get a very surprising yield from a few seed potatoes. I usually get about 100 kg of potatoes from my allotment and I don't do anything special to improve the yield, but if I really tried to maximise it I bet I would be pushing 200 kg of potatoes. They even tend to grow faster than the weeds, so they're quite a stress free crop. They also taste much better fresh, but that might just be confirmation bias from digging them up yourself.
posted by koolkat at 12:45 AM on October 1, 2018