Ode to Tubular Tubers

Ruth Ozeki's book All Over Creation is as mouthwatering as it is inspiring. All the talk about potatoes, activism, and conscientious communities has made me want to take a different look at what I can do with that old bag o' potatoes in my fridge. I also found a yam, an onion, and some radishes. Talk about TUBULAR TUBERS. That's all I could think about as I was slicing these amazing root veggies. Their color, lack of scent, but amazing tastes put potatoes pretty high on the list of everyday diets, but unfortunately I believe that there is more to these pre-transformation fries. This something is indefinitely connected to bio-diversity, local knowledge, and sustainable agriculture as is described in Ozeki's book.

So this Sunday, rainy Seattle afternoon, let's give a moment to praise and probe the Potato.

Livin' in the city ain't easy. So separate we metro's are from the toil, soil, and stakes that go into the Dick's fries which I dip in my milk shakes. It's quite a shame. I have been exploring this as a stepping stone by which to help myself have more control over the lifecycle of my food.

FUN FACT: There are over 150 different varieties of potatoes. When Indigenous South American's first began cultivating potatoes they had over 250 varieties. In Idaho today, 99% of all potatoes grown are of the Russet variety.

As we have been learning in Ozeki's book, the stakes in potato farming are very high. It's almost like gambling, you put all your energy into one cash-crop, hoping for a nine-dollar potato jackpot, but knowing that the attack of blight and weather are unpredictable risks. While I spent time in Ecuador for a study abroad opportunity, I visited potato farmers who were struggling with the pressures from bio-chemical companies and fertilizers while also feeling the physical side-effects of high input potato farming. The main struggle for the farmers was how to quit the toxic pesticides cold turkey. The threat of decreased yields and blight outbreak, is terrifying and when your livelihood is invested in a single crop it is hard to want to take any more risks than you have to. However, local people are re-discovering that the pesticides have become less effective and their yields are decreasing. This has encouraged a rediscovery of local, more traditional methods for preparing the soil, planting the potatoes, and for using an integrated crop system in order to discourage the use of pesticides. This learning is being transmitted through many educational mediums such as Farmer Field Schools. These are integrative and community knowledge based groupings that work in a horizontal, non-hierarchical fashion in order to test and share farming techniques. The locality of FFS's is what makes them so effective in producing site-based solutions to site-specific problems.

I think that Americans can learn a lot from the Farmer Field School's methodology about sharing and dispersing information rather than patenting and concealing it; I think that in the least we would all be less afraid of this wild natural world of ours and be more obliged to explore and experiment with its quirks and synchronicities.

In conclusion, for my wild night of experimenting with introspective Tators, I created a feast from nothing:

1. Cut potatoes, yams, onion, radishes, whatever you want to bake and put them in a zip lock bag

2. Set oven to 400 degrees

3. In the zip-lock bag add some oil, salt, lotsa pepper, some curry, i picked fresh rosemary from outside, again WHATEVER you're experimenting here. Put it all in the bag and shake shake shake!

4. Pour all the goodies out on a pan, preferably greased with that fancy spray stuff but dont worry if you don't have that cuz they are pretty greasy already.

5. Stick em in the oven! This will take about 25-30 minutes, but use your senses!

6. Start piling something else together to go with your Special fries, for your special guy.

<--my special guy

oooh flavorful

And VOILA! A beautiful home-cooked experimental and experiential Chili with Tators au Spicy!

This is your world! Do what you want! Especially in the kitchen: there are no rules, only possibilities..