White Potatoes, again.

Whatver happend to King Edwards, Lincolns,Cyprus and Jersey New Potatoes?

i tend to prefer red potatoes but in general I buy mine from the local market where they are put into paper bags and I have no problem with them. When I had a family at home I used to buy sacks of potatoes and also grow a few myself but now on my one not worth trying to do that. My tendency these days is to cook enough for two days so that I have the first day to go with casserole or whatever and then have some cold that I can saute, and have with a piece of fish , or turn into salad to go with cooked meat or whatever. One lot of work for a couple of days meals!

We changed from Maris Pipers to Vivaldi as we found them to be a much better buy from Sainsburys. We also had composted some of Maris Pipers.

We’ve just bought 4kg of reds at the farm shop today in a paper sack, we had Maris Piper from them over Christmas, all fine, no wastage.

I usually buy red potatoes - any really, though it’s usually Asda’s own. Recently I’ve had two lots of reduced (for some reason I can’t fathom - absolutely nothing wrong with them) Regal Red spuds from Waitrose.
I find the reds pretty good all-rounders.

We were on holiday in Cyprus in November.
Self catering,
I did notice how tasty the potatoes were there.

Last summer I bought majorcan new potatoes from Waitrose for several weeks. They were absolutely wonderful.

When their season finished I bought Jersey Royals and they were absolutely dreadful. Expensive as Jersey Royals are. I emailed customer services to complain and to say that they were nothing like Jersey Royals and that their supplier was duping someone!

I had to send a pic of my receipt and had a refund ofnthe amount I paid. Hardly an apology. Won't buy them again ever.

Their white potatoes are unpredictable.

The white potatoes we had last night for mash were really watery. The best potatoes I’ve bought recently were from Tesco at Christmas and they were just 15p for a bag. I think they were all rounders.

Jersey New Potatoes.
The problem with Jersey Royals is that they are no longer grown in the same way now. 40 - 50 years ago they were grown in seaweed which was collected by horse and cart from the beaches. Vraic added that unique nutty, salty taste to the potatoes so all you needed was to boil them and add a knob of butter.

I’m finding redskins the most reliable - and tasty.

Primrose53

The white potatoes we had last night for mash were really watery. The best potatoes I’ve bought recently were from Tesco at Christmas and they were just 15p for a bag. I think they were all rounders.

If you boil some varieties for too long they will go watery, choose a variety that you like and stick to them, from the same, most red varieties are better but cost more.

We buy straight from the farm. Our normal guy has retired and the 2 we have tried have not been so good.
Recently a local farm advertised them at 5p a kg because that was all he got for bagging and shipping to depot, so I guess that many are not bothering

M and S have a bag of British queen's which are nice.

It was a bad year here for growing spuds. Too hot and dry in the growing season. Intermittent irrigation causes smaller spuds with dry and wet layers of growth which cause them to burst in cooking. The black bits are probably signs of blight infection. My home grown spuds were useless this year, so I am not surprised the current offerings are sub standard. A lot of other countries also had very challenging conditions. Blame it on the climate.

I always buy red potatoes,never had any problems with them.

TBH I only ever buy U.K. grown potatoes and have nearly always found them fine.
I dare say last summer’s drought didn’t help, however.

I do open any plastic bags as soon as I get them home (ditto for all veg in fact) and any small ‘new’ or ‘baby’ potatoes are kept in the fridge.

M0nica

I just cut out the dark bits and sprouts and eat whats left. there is no need to throw potatoes away.

Me too Monica, usually you're left with 95% of the spud to eat.We used to grow them to sell & Mum always used up the "rejects" (Black blemishes, harvesting damage, too small) for our meals.

Potatoes do bruise, & they do get flung around a bit in the supermarket, I think that's what causes those annoying big black patches under the skin.

valdavi i used to grow a lot f my own potatoes, it was a amazing what strange marked and deformed potatoes we used to eat uite hppily, when I had grown them.

We grow our own potatoes & store them in paper sacks. They last right through to when we dig new ones in the early summer. We usually grow a mix of reds and whites. No problem whatsoever in keeping them that long in a cool shed.

A few months ago I read the storage instructions on bags of potatoes. Yes, I know I should always do that !
It was recommended that they be stored in the fridge, old and new ones. I always thought that was not the right thing to do but it does work. I put them in the bottom drawer, loose with a couple of paper towels over them. They don't seem to sprout or wrinkle for ages. Try it !

Even if they do sprout, what does it matter? You just cut it off. All it means is that if you planted it, the potato would be growing shoots.
It sometimes occurs to me while I’m peeling potatoes, that this is a living thing and I’m about to kill it with boiling water. 😱😂

Potatoes are rubbish wherever you buy them and however well you store them these days.

I blame Brexit.

Blame consumers wanting washed potatoes, that ruins shelf life so don’t try to store them too long.
Don’t try to store them too early, November is plenty early enough, weather is too warm before. After that as cool as possible but frost free place.

I've done some looking into this- it is accepted that potatoes are not the same quality they used to be and washed potatoes was not one of the reasons given, though I have to admit it does make a certain kind of sense. You should always wash potatoes anyway. I blame the plastic packaging as well, which has already been mentioned.
The other reasons given were:
adverse weather conditions, including both wetter weather, and drought!
The expense of using fertilisers and chemicals, making Maris Pipers especially expensive to grow.
The complex trade markets, particularly following Brexit.
The shortfall of farm workers, also following Brexit.

68% of potatoes sold are grown in the UK- the others coming from the Netherlands, Belgium and Israel. Make of that info what you will.

We grow potatoes, clean them off (not wash), they store well.