This may look like any old potato, but this is a special spud - the makah ozette potato. It is culturally significant to my state, and it almost went extinct not to long ago.
I just attended a youth con all about food, and a presentation there by Slow Food. One of the goals of Slow Food is to preserve the diversity of foods we eat. There are ecological and food security reasons to diversify our crops and food animals, but there is also a taste reason. Why restrict ourselves to the few tastes given to us by monoculture and agribusiness, when there are so many flavors and textures and subtle varieties out there?
I love to plant heirloom varieties in my garden, and get funky and flavorful veggies to cook with. The Slow Food folks gave me this one ozette seed potato, and you can bet it's going in my garden. I plant other heirlooms as well, usually from my favorite seed catalog Territorial Seed, but I also really love the work the folks are doing over at Seed Savers.
Eat it to preserve it. Keep our food diverse and tasty!
This year I am really, truly going to get serious about growing food! In years past, I've planted a few tomato varieties and I like to have a little herb garden, but this year I'm going to be more ambitious!
ReplyDeleteThanks for the seed links--I'll check them out!