Potatoes

[Nectaris]

I like potatoes, we grow them ourselves. We have purple potatoes, red ones, yukon gold, russets, etc, nine varieties at least. This year due to the weather and a bad potato beetle infestation we didn't get even half as good a harvest as last year. Although it is technically too late to plant them, we have had some luck with volunteers, so we went ahead and planted some that were too small to eat in hopes that we might get a few out of them.

Edited July 16, 2013 by Nectaris

[Mupen64 Man]

Boil em', Mash em', Stick them in a stew.

[KoalaNoob]

I don't care how the potato is cooked, as long as it isn't raw. I have a history with raw potatoes. It had something to do with potato juice, every day.

Potatoes are awesome, plain and simple.

[TCA]

When potatoes are sprouted or green, they naturally contain a dangerous neurotoxin known as solanine. However, you'd have to eat 2 pounds of green potatoes in a single day to get sick if you're a healthy adult- just don't feed green or sprouted potatoes to kids, they're smaller so they can be affected by lower dosages. The rest of the plant contains so much of this toxin that it's seriously unsafe to eat, though.

 

The more you know~

[KoalaNoob]

There are yams and potatoes with HUGE saplings sticking out of them in my pantry. My mom is going to plant them, when we have room.

[Mupen64 Man]

When potatoes are sprouted or green, they naturally contain a dangerous neurotoxin known as solanine. However, you'd have to eat 2 pounds of green potatoes in a single day to get sick if you're a healthy adult- just don't feed green or sprouted potatoes to kids, they're smaller so they can be affected by lower dosages. The rest of the plant contains so much of this toxin that it's seriously unsafe to eat, though.

 

The more you know~

You are a god amongst tubers.

[Syaoransbear]

If I discovered a plant with testicles, I don't think eating those testicles would have crossed my mind.

[TCA]

^ Also the rest of the plant is poisonous. You do have to wonder who figured out the potatoes were safe to eat?

[Nectaris]

^ Also the rest of the plant is poisonous. You do have to wonder who figured out the potatoes were safe to eat?

Probably hunger. Though it may be similar to how tomatoes were figured out, considering that tomatoes are a part of the nightshade family, and were assumed to be toxic because of it until someone decided to try them.

[KoalaNoob]

Wait, tomatoes are part of the nightshade family? I would never have guessed. But wouldn't they have eaten tomatoes before they figured out the nightshade family?

[Ninetails]

I love garlic potatoes! *q*

[Thunderwing]

Sweet Potatoes >>>>> Regular Potatoes

 

There are many, many plants that have an edible portion while the rest is either not nutritious or outright poisonous. Tomatoes have long been known to be part of the nightshade family - if you look at the flowers, tomatoes, potatoes, and nightshade all have flowers that are similar in shape. And nightshade fruit look like itty bitty tomatoes. They even smell like tomatoes. And tomato hornworms will eat potato plants, if they can't get tomato ones.

 

Google says:

French botanist Tournefort provided the Latin botanical name, Lycopersicon esculentum, to the tomato. It translates to "wolfpeach" -- peach because it was round and luscious and wolf because it was erroneously considered poisonous. The botanist mistakenly took the tomato for the wolfpeach referred to by Galen in his third century writings, ie., poison in a palatable package which was used to destroy wolves.

 

The English word tomato comes from the Spanish word, tomate, derived Nahuatl (Aztec language) word, tomatl. It first appeared in print in 1595. A member of the deadly nightshade family, tomatoes were erroneously thought to be poisonous (although the leaves are poisonous) by Europeans who were suspicious of their bright, shiny fruit. Native versions were small, like cherry tomatoes, and most likely yellow rather than red.

 

The tomato is native to western South America and Central America. In 1519, Cortez discovered tomatoes growing in Montezuma's gardens and brought seeds back to Europe where they were planted as ornamental curiosities, but not eaten.

 

Most likely the first variety to reach Europe was yellow in color, since in Spain and Italy they were known as pomi d'oro, meaning yellow apples. Italy was the first to embrace and cultivate the tomato outside South America.

 

The French referred to the tomato as pommes d'amour, or love apples, as they thought them to have stimulating aphrodisiacal properties.

 

In 1897, soup mogul Joseph Campbell came out with condensed tomato soup, a move that set the company on the road to wealth as well as further endearing the tomato to the general public.

 

 

Potatoes, on the other hand, have been domesticated for, like, 10,000 years.

[catmosphere]

potatoes are pretty great.

i'll have them just about any way, i love scalloped potatoes in a cheese sauce, as well as diced, sauteed potatoes with my breakfast. pretty frickin good.

[0023567467]

My favourite way to have potatoes is mashed. Roast is alright but mashed is even better.

[HawktalonOfRiverClan]

Potatoes taste really bad raw. My Dad tricked me into thinking they were good... No, not good at all. Never will I eat one like that again

Really? Oh I love raw potatoes! A little salt and pepper, and mmmm!

 

On that note I also love them fried, baked, mashed, "smashed" (my mom's unpeeled mashed potatoes). The skins are also delicious when filled with cheese and sour cream and chives... or just plain. I usually eat the skin when I have a baked potato.

 

@Syaorans- Makes you wonder who thought to eat the dragon fruit. Or cow's milk.

[Jennie]

I love nugget potatoes boiled, with butter, salt and pepper on them. I love baked potatoes with sour cream. I love potatoes roasted up with a beef roast or a chicken or a turkey. Yum. Oh, and mashed potatoes too. Anything else? Oh! Yams are great. There, that about covers it. :-)

Edited July 17, 2013 by Jennie

[TCA]

Sweet potatoes are not actually in the same family as potatoes, and yams are even more distant from both of them. Neither sweet potatoes nor yams are poisonous, even though potato plants are.

[sarrepta1]

oh god someone made a potato thread.

 

I hate sweet potatoes anyway.

[Wiccan]

lol..very funny.

[eritated]

Mmm potatoes. My favorite food. I could live off them, if they were healthier, of course.

[Drakelina]

Yum I could have potatoes mashed, boiled, baked, or stewed! One of my favorite foods around, I would kill for a baked potato with bacon bits right now

[AuroraSkyy]

I'll take a lovely baked potato, with butter, sour cream bacon bits, chives, the whole deal.

 

DELICIOUS.

 

And french fries, I love them. & tater tots. Yumm.

[Playing_doctor]

I have learned that potatoes are a surprisingly epic when used to make chocolate cake.

Now how does that work?

[Fortune86]

I love potatoes!

 

Mashed potato, baked potato, boiled potatoes, jacket potato, chips, fries, crisps...etc

[RheaZen]

Now how does that work?

Potato flour, I'd guess.

 

Potatoes are okay. It's a pity I only like them when they're processed or otherwise unhealthy.