Seeing our plants blooming, our Swedish neighbor told me that where she came from, when the potatoes bloomed it was the perfect time to rob the first baby tubers from the plants. Eaten with the skin on and served with dill, sour cream, and herring on the side, they were so amazing, that people would kill to have some.I assumed this was a figure of speech, but you never know -- the most unexpected things can make certain people homicidal.
"So, if I dig around and find no new potatoes, we'll know that you crept over in the middle of the night and took them, right?" I asked.
"I can see the entry in the police log now," she offered. "'Resident called to report their baby new potatoes had been stolen from her plants during the night. Soiled footprints lead to a neighbor's home. An officer was dispatched to investigate,.'"
To avoid such a possibility, I "rooted" around under a few plants and came up with a few, dear little potatoes. Oblong, they were 1.5" long at most. I'd have to have done some further digging around to find the label that would have told us what the variety was, which I haven't managed to get to yet. Though looking at the flower, skin, and flesh colors, plus the large size of the plants, my first guess is Rio Grande Russet.
I boiled them for 8 minutes, dressed them with olive oil, salt, pepper and dill. We skipped the herring this time as our herring seeds got into the ground late, and aren't bearing fruit yet.
My husband and I ate some, and they were very, very, very, very, VERY good. Nothing that would drive either one of us to violence, but we have another 10 or so potato varieties to try out in the next couple of weeks -- could be one or more of those might incite murder under the right circumstances.
Illustration: From the Potato Museum website. Interestingly, the caption says, "Swedish illustration of a farmer embracing a bouquet of potato blossoms. Artist unknown, 1970's". No further comment is needed, is there?
