Look what I bought...

My mother would moan when she found clumps of soil clinging to the potatoes she had bought from the local greengrocers in the 50s, 'I don't pay to buy soil', she would say.

Yes. Half a cwt. A normal sackful. It was a paper sack.

It might have been coal that came in cwt sacks, on the coalman's back.

I can beat that, I have veg boxes delivered from local farms. Potatoes, onions, carrots, leeks etc come complete with mud. I love buying them this way, keep better & doesn't take much to clean them.

Veg is also often what is now called "misshapen" , I've got some interesting shaped carrots for tonight's dinner

We used to buy a huge bagful from the farm when the DC were still at home.

Cyprus potatoes are lovely, I can remember them from years ago too. Jersey Royals used to be tastier than they seem to be now.

I try to buy Cornish or Pembroke new potatoes when in season

We grow early new potatoes in raised beds and barrels, it's lovely to eat them within minutes of digging them up. We get giant jacket spuds from our local farm shop, with dirt on. I agree with Callistemon that Jersey Royals just don't seem to have that distinctive flavour these days, and I'm sure they're bigger than they used to be.

The Jersey Royals used to be kidney shaped too, and the skins were flakey and just rubbed off with your thumb.

GrauntyHelen, I agree, nothing like digging your own spuds up that taste amazing. Sadly, we don't have the garden anymore since we downsized, but I can dream.........

A farm sack of potatoes weighs roughly 10kg or 22.0462lbs to be precise!

Dirty Ayrshire potatoes for me! Even better with some fresh herring.
The leftovers make a tasty potato salad.

I grow potatoes in old dustbins. So easy to do.

I too got a bag from Morrison's the variety was Estima and these make great chips and roast potatoes. I was born in Cheshire and this variety along with Nadine are a local spud. These make a mean mash as well, a good all rounder.

I used to go down to the farm and buy a half cwt sack - must have been a good 30 years ago. I was born in Ayrshire and maintain that Ayrshire spuds are by far the best. When we were kids, we would see the horse-drawn carts going down to the beach and bringing back loads of seaweed for the fields. Used to joke that our potatoes were ready salted.

Anno your comment about seaweed reminded me that I had read somewhere that it was the seaweed that was used on the fields in Jersey that gave Jersey Royals such a lovely flavour, but apparently it is now too expensive to use it and they are not as flavourful.
I love Pembrokeshire potatoes; pity we can’t get them up here.

I grow my own and that's exactly how they look when I store them.
I also never used to keep potatoes in the plastic bags they came in (before I started growing them) because they'd sweat - and sprout.
There is nothing like tasting home grown potatoes, makes you wonder what they do to them on the field to make them taste so bland.