Maggie's Farm

Potatoes, mashed or fried, are the most popular side dishes in North America. Rightly so - the original tiny wild potato is from the Americas although it is really inedible.

Whatever you intend to do with a potato, you need to select the variety for the job at hand. If you have ever made gluey mashed taters, or had taters disintegrate in a stew, you know what I mean. Wrong potato. All of our potato types have been genetically-engineered for specific qualities. Special thanks to Mr. Johnson who came up with the Yukon Gold a few years ago.

This is handy: All The Potato Varieties You Need To Know About

As I have commented in the past, it's fun to think about all of the foods the New World native farmers and plant breeders contributed to Old World cuisine. For starters, potatoes, tomatoes, peppers, beans, maize, zucchini and summer squash, winter squash and pumpkin, cocoa, strawberry, sunflower, sweet potato, peanut, vanilla, etc. etc.

At the time of the European invasions of the New World, there were few communities of pure hunter-gatherers (eg the Eskimos). Farming was big, supplemented by hunting-gathering. If you recall, the Pilgrims took over Indian hundred-acre cornfields.