Mr Potato Head

As most of you already know i'm a sucker for potatoes. It's probably my English upbringing or something. When we decided to move to Cambodia I was a bit apprehensive about a whole year without my favourite food, but was resigned to getting by with Fish Amok and other tasty Khmer dishes. So, I was pretty surprised to find potatoes first in the supermarket, and then on most market stalls in Phnom Penh vege markets. Sure, it's obviously not their biggest seller, but they're not too expensive either ($1 US / kilogram at the supermarket and cheaper at the market).


I consider myself a potato crusader, and frequently bore my friends with "...potato is a super-food" type comments, but I was genuinely surprised that the potato plant could be so versatile as to grow in tropical climates. Anyway, I did some internet research, and it turns out that, yes, potatoes are grown in SE Asia. Apparently, countries like Thailand and Vietnam are increasingly rotating potatoes and rice (rice in the wet season and potatoes in the dry season). I guess this means that potato harvest is right about now, and hopefully doesn't mean I won't be able to buy them any other time of the year. I haven't been able to work out what variety they sell here, there seems to be only one and it's red, a little like desiree. I also haven't been able to work out yet whether they're actually grown in Cambodia or are imports from Thailand / Vietnam, but my gut feeling tells me that if the local market has them they should be local produce.

Regardless, I baked some the other night and they were top. If you've made it this far through the dullest blog entry in the history of the internet, you owe it to yourself to check out these two web-sites - some funny pics and a great ode to Mr Potato Head.

http://lanra.dac.uga.edu/potato/index.html
http://www.potato2008.org/en/index.html