The Accidental Potatoes

Happy Saint Patrick’s Day to those who observe. I’ve attended more than my share of St. Patrick’s Day parties and bar crawls, and I’ve worn my share of culturally questionable outfits and colors. This year, I’ll be keeping it quiet and will be thinking about my genuine Irish heritage on a zoom with my family as we plan a trip to Ireland in May. Finding myself comfortably sober, I have little to no desire to go out on one of the worst drinking nights of the year so I’ll be quite content at home behind my barricaded doors.

But just to prove I’m not totally dull and boring, dinner tonight will include potatoes. It’s a thrill a minute around here.

I eat a lot of potatoes. I often buy yukon gold potatoes at the Ferry Building Farmers Market. Yummy things, really. They have a delicious nutty flavor and a pleasing, calming yellow color, fry up beautifully and make a fried egg all the more enjoyable first thing in the morning. Mash them up and they go well with pork. Boil and then toss them in an aioli and have them with some greens at lunch. I even grow them.

Not long ago, I bought a bag and when I got home I put them on the counter of my workbench, fully intending to use them soon. But as has happened a lot in the past year, what I didn’t eat right away got moved around and then moved again as I navigated work and school and homework and some other unexpected life-level commitments. At some point I got irritated and threw them in their bag on a sheet pan and then onto my speed rack, where they were instantly pushed to the back by something else and there they sat, out of sight for a month or three.

I only really found them again when I was looking for something else that had also gotten moved and removed and repositioned multiple times until I had lost track of where it was forcing me to pull everything off the speed rack at once to find them. The potatoes had enjoyed their time undisturbed in the dim light of the speed rack where they had resided in the warm, humid spring-like temps of my kitchen and sprouted bright purple eyes that had pushed their way out of the plastic mesh like aliens in a ‘70s scary B-movie. I felt like they had decided for themselves that they were not to be eaten and had greater plans in mind, so I threw them in a Cambro and left them on top of the dryer.

Where they sat, ignored (again!!!), getting shuffled back and forth between loads of whites and darks. I am nothing if not consistent.

But, let’s backtrack a little bit to the spring of last year. I had pushed a few potatoes that had grown eyes (I like calling them leggy) into a pot (instead of leaving them to get shuffled around my kitchen) and then promptly forgot about them. When I did come back to inspect the pot several weeks later, nothing had happened (aside from some varmint digging around in there) so I just moved the pot to the side and left it alone for the summer. In September, I happened to glance in the pot and, lo and behold, the potatoes had pushed up after all. I guess they needed a nap before they got to work.

I put the pot out into the sun so it could take advantage of the brief summer-like temps we get in SF in September and October. I kept them watered and hilled them when they needed it (and when I remembered to do it). About three weeks ago, I glanced at the pot while watering my quarter acre yard and could see the stalks were withering and the blossoms had never really gotten going. I decided now was the time to harvest, expecting maybe one or two spuds.

I dug my hand down into the dirt and felt a squish. Ugh. Rotten potato. I dug around a little more and found one good-sized large solid tuber. And then another. And then another. All in all, I got five decent sized potatoes out of one plant in one pot. All by accident!

I was elated.

I retrieved the neglected leggy potatoes off the top of the dryer, lined up a few medium-sized pots, and got everyone in some dirt. As for the pot that I had just harvested from, I left one baby potato in there for good luck and took the harvested ones inside.

I don’t need to tell you what happened next, do I?

Yes, I’m afraid so. They sat in a bowl on my counter for two weeks before I got around to eating them. Some people say it’s good to let potatoes cure a bit before eating so I suppose I did the right thing. But when I did get around to cooking them, two things happened.

One… I chopped them up and boiled them and then tossed them with butter, salt and pepper and had them for lunch, where I did a shimmy. Not a jig. A shimmy. Because they were delicious, nutty and aromatic and really satisfying. Especially since I had grown them myself. I shimmied in potato pride.

Two… I discovered that one of them had grown hollow. How utterly strange, I thought. I wondered if some worm or other pest had gotten to it but after some googling, I discovered that the way I had grown them with intermittent watering and fluctuations in temperature was to blame. It’s a common occurrence called hollow heart, and the potatoes should still be edible, but they make lousy potato chips. So I tossed them in the pot with the others and figured that the next planting cycle would get more regular attention from me.

The potatoes I planted a short while ago are already doing well. They sprouted quickly and needed to be broken up and transplanted. Now that I’ve done that, I’ve got six pots going and should have a new crop by the middle of the summer. I took the opportunity and the motivation to get some chilis and peas in pots as well as some squash and cukes. We’ll see how all that does with San Francisco’s notoriously cold summers and very, very (VERY!) persistent critters who want to dig up everything I plant. I just ordered a jar of cayenne as a natural deterrent and I hope that will save my crops a little.

One friend says he grows potatoes year round and I may try and emulate him somewhat. I’ll never be able to grow enough to actually feed my belly regularly, but I will feed my soul and my pride just a little and the ghosts of my Irish ancestors will be proud of me as well.

Happy St. Patricks Day, everyone.