Are you old enough to remember when the potato selection at your grocery store consisted of three kinds — baking potatoes, white potatoes and red-skin potatoes? Do you remember when Yukon gold potatoes made their appearance and seemed so exotic?
These days, Atlanta-area farmers are bringing a wide variety of potatoes to market including fingerlings, small potatoes that get their name from their finger-like shape.
Erin Cescutti of Brightside Farm, who farms at Oakleaf Mennonite Farm on Bouldercrest Road in East Atlanta, is growing Kerr’s Pink and Purple Majesty fingerlings as well as Yukon Gold potatoes. “I wanted a good diversity of potato sizes, colors and flavors,” said Cescutti.
The farm’s potatoes are sold at the Grant Park Farmers Market on Sundays and are packed into the boxes of the farm’s community supported agriculture program.
Potatoes go into the ground as seed potatoes. Planted in February and March, the harvest starts 80 to 100 days later. This year, it was St. Patrick’s Day when Cescutti planted 150 pounds of seed potatoes, about 480 linear feet.
She interned with Joe Reynolds, of Love is Love Farm, for two years and credits Reynolds with teaching her a trick that would keep her seed potatoes from rotting.“He’s figured out that we get less rot if the seed potatoes are a little larger. Instead of cutting the potatoes in small pieces, each with just one eye, we plant them whole unless the seed potato is as big as a hen’s egg. Then we cut it in half,” said Cescutti.
Since the potatoes grow below ground, harvesting them is more work than picking tomatoes or cucumbers. What we eat are the tubers the potato plant produces along its underground stems to serve as food storage for the plant. “When the plants start to flower, the potatoes begin developing. We start checking a few weeks later, digging up a plant to see how the potatoes are coming along. Once the potatoes are ready, we’ll be digging for about two weeks and then we can store them for a few weeks more,” said Cescutti.
Cescutti likes her potatoes the way her grandmother prepared them. “She sliced them up and fried them in a cast iron skillet. That’s how I remember eating potatoes when I was growing up. But I also love potato salad,” she said.
Freshly harvested potatoes are full of moisture, juicy and tender. Celebrate early summer’s potatoes by giving them a role as more than a sidekick. To taste what Linton Hopkins will be doing with fresh fingerling potatoes, check out the chef demo at the Morningside Farmers Market this week.
At local farmers markets
Cooking demos:
4-8 p.m., June 20. Chef Seth Freedman of Forage and Flame offers demos throughout the evening. East Atlanta Village Farmers Market, Atlanta. www.farmeav.com
9 a.m., June 22. Chef Linton Hopkins, Restaurant Eugene, working with fingerling potatoes. Morningside Farmers Market, Atlanta. www.morningsidemarket.com
10 a.m., June 22. Chef E. J. Hodgkinson, JCT Kitchen. Peachtree Road Farmers Market, Atlanta. www.peachtreeroadfarmersmarket.com
11 a.m. , June 22. Chef Zeb Stevenson. Green Market at Piedmont Park, Atlanta. www.piedmontpark.org
11 a.m., June 23, Chef Terry Koval, The Wrecking Bar. Grant Park Farmers Market, Atlanta. www.grantparkmarket.org
For sale
Vegetables and fruit: arugula, Asian greens, beets, blackberries, blueberries, broccoli, cabbage, carrots, cauliflower, celery, chard, collards, cucumbers, dandelion, fava beans, fennel, garlic, garlic scapes, green beans, green garlic, herbs, kale, kohlrabi, leeks, lettuce, Malabar spinach, mushrooms, mustard greens, nectarines, onions, parsnips, pea tendrils, peaches, potatoes, radicchio, radishes, sorrel, spinach, spring onions, squash blossoms, strawberries, sugar snaps, summer squash, tomatoes, turnips
- from local reports
Todd Ginsberg’s Fingerling Potato Salad
Hands on: 15 minutes
Total time: 30 minutes
Serves: six
This recipe from Todd Ginsberg, chef and co-owner of The General Muir at Emory Point, makes a richly-flavored potato salad. Cooking the potatoes with caraway seeds starts the process, then a Dijon-spiked “soak” deepens the flavor soaked into the potatoes themselves. If you prefer, use warm chicken stock instead of the cooking liquid called for the soak, and that will introduce another layer of flavor.
Ginsberg suggests this potato salad as an accompaniment for fish or roasted chicken along with wilted kale or chard. Or serve it as a side dish with your favorite sandwich.
1 1/2 pounds fingerling potatoes, scrubbed
1 teaspoon caraway seeds
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon Dijon mustard, more if desired
3 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
2 tablespoons chopped shallots
1 tablespoon chopped chives
Salt and pepper
In a large saucepan, cover whole potatoes with water. Add caraway seeds and salt and bring water to a boil over high heat. Reduce heat so potatoes cook gently and simmer until tender, about 15 minutes after the water comes to a boil. Be careful not to overcook. Drain, reserving 1 cup cooking liquid.
When potatoes are cool enough to handle, peel and cut into 1/2-inch thick slices. Move to a medium bowl.
Mix mustard into 1/2 cup reserved cooking liquid and pour over potatoes, adding just enough to dress the potatoes. Add olive oil, shallots and chives and toss gently. Add more cooking water if needed, season to taste and serve warm or cold.
Per serving: 155 calories (percent of calories from fat, 40), 3 grams protein, 21 grams carbohydrates, 2 grams fiber, 7 grams fat (1 gram saturated), no cholesterol, 216 milligrams sodium.
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