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Since the potato has only been eaten by Europeans and North Americans for the past few hundred years, heritage potatoes are generally those varieties that were cultivated in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Some heritage varieties to look for include: the Duke of York (1891), Golden Wonder (1906), Red King Edward (1916), International Kidney (1879).
Did you know? There is no such thing as an "Idaho potato". Ninety-nine percent of potatoes from Idaho are actually Russet varieties that stores will call Russet Idaho potatoes.
The Yukon Gold potato was developed at the University of Guelph.
- Archaeologists have uncovered potatoes in South America dating back to 500 BC.
- The first Europeans to discover potatoes were the Spanish in the mid-1500s. Bringing them back from Peru, they realized that sailors who ate potatoes on the ship did not develop scurvy.
- By the 1600s, potatoes were common throughout Britain and European countries.
- In 1872, the Russet Burbank was developed by an American horticulturist named Luther Burbank. This hybrid was more disease resistant that other varieties, so Burbank took it to Ireland to help overcome the "Great Potato Famine".
- The Russet Burbank potato - also referred to as Russet potatoes, are the most common variety of potato in North America.
- The Great Potato Famine occurred in Ireland in the 1840s. The local potatoes became diseased and since they were Ireland's main source of nutritious food in those days, approximately one million people died of starvation. This terrible potato disease was caused by a fungus called Phytophthora infestans.
- In 1883 a French botanist, Alexandre Millardet, developed a fungicide that was capable of killing the disease.
*Growth Stages of the Potato Plant graphic was provided courtesy of the American Phytopathological Society
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