What is your favorite potato variety?

I am just starting to step my toes into the wide world of potato genetics and realize there are more types out there than Yukon Gold and Russet.

What is your favorite potato variety?



Is it something you can grow easily? Is it rare?

Let us know!

I live near the Adirondack Mountains in New York which has led me to discover two local varieties that I am experimenting with.

Adirondack Blue and Adirondack Red potatoes.

Both potatoes are stated to be low starch and have great flavor. They are lauded for potato salad where their blue and red color really stands out.

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Adirondack Red Potato

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Adirondack Blue Potato

Good question. Not sure that I have a favorite. If I had to pick I'd say a variety!

I've grown French fingerlings and Russian bananas for years. They don't let me down and good for all my needs.

Last year I grew a bunch including a "new" one called Huckleberry gold. Purple outside and gold inside. Similar to Yukon gold. I really liked that they tasted buttery without any butter. Supposedly they are better for diabetics in some way too. I'm growing more this year.

It would be fun to start some from seeds. I meant to try that from last years but forgot about them and fermented my berries too long.

If you are like me and are new to potatoes, I found the following video great for figuring out what to do with new potatoes.



I'm going to try and hunt down some Upstate Potatoes next year, apparently they originate from my state as well!

Last year I grew yellow fingerling, pinto, and sangre. We have a short season. Of the 3, sangre produced first, but not spectacularly. The pintos were nice, but too few. The yellow fingerlings seemed like they weren't doing anything at all. I finally dug them up to avoid a frost... they had out produced the others (dug up the last of those earlier the same week) and we prefer the taste.

All of them I bought from ME potato lady.

Most of my taters don't have variety names because I grow from TPS. I probably still have some pure Gunter Blue in my rotation. In general, the darker blue or red, the more it's my favorite, as long as it isn't gross.

Potato history is fascinating. It got discovered by the Spanish king who took them to Europe and used it to feed his Catholic army to wage war on the protestant north. He noticed how strong the Peruvians were on a diet often consisting of much potatos. From high up into the mountains to the jungle to the sea people had cultivated and adapted potatos to their environments. They contain differing vitamins from different spots, can be dried and taken along as a mountain trail survival food. The king was so impressed with potatos he kept it secret for the rest of Europe and forbidding scientists to write about them for if i remember correctly 200 years. Then slowly it started adapting to colder climates. But the French wouldn't eat them, so the king had a plan, he guarded the royal gardens day and night until the peasants got too curious and at a big guardian party they came and stole that royal superfood. At least this is how the story goes.
We in the West have pathetic genetic variety. China grows the most potatos nowadays and after India.

I talk about my true potato seed varieties here:

https://permies.com/p/2623170

Two varieties have come out being particularly well adapted, an unknown yellow fingerling from a local farm, and a large, lumpy, relatively early white potato with purple-tinged eyes. They seem to skirt around the diseases that occasionally pass through and plague the other potatoes. (Papa Chonca, a rare, purple winter-hardy varietal, is more disease prone.) The fingerling is entirely winter hardy but the white potato appears to have died back from last winter. Fortunately I had some tubers saved.

I can’t overestimate the vigor and liveliness of the white seed grown potato. I call them “baroque” from its root meaning an oddly shaped pearl, which is just what it looks like. However a friend grew them and thought they were bitter, but waited until the last moment to harvest so maybe that is why. Or it could have been the different soil. I haven’t noticed any bitterness. However I heard that the potato was easily distinguished from the others by vigor. I gathered seeds last year but they likely were lost due to unfortunate circumstances, however I’m still looking.

This year I have a great crop of Yukon Gold ….so YukonGold is my favorite.

Red Pontiac is my favorite. I know it's not a very exotic variety, but I love the flavor, especially the young spuds.

I love the taste, ease of growing, and how long Yukon Gold store.  But I also grow All Blue, which is my kids' favorite to eat.

My favourite variety is the rooster, something that, as far as I know, we can't acquire easily here in The States, its a variety they used in Ireland a lot and when I went over to visit they tasted so creamy and amazing and I've been comparing everything to them ever since, but that was almost 20 years ago so I don't know whether they're still popular over there or not, but they're the best I've had.