Potatoes Dressed Up Like Chocolate
Headline: Officials find potatoes disguised as chocolates…What???
A traveler who recently arrived at Miami International Airport must pay a $300 penalty for trying to smuggle fresh sweet potatoes from Bolivia into the United States by disguising the vegetables as a candy. Officials found the prohibited vegetables in the luggage of a passenger arriving in Miami from Bolivia. The sweet potatoes had been wrapped in the commercial wrappers of a popular Bolivian candy and hadn't been declared. When I read that report, I have to confess I was more than slightly inquisitive. Why in the world would someone go to all the trouble of smuggling 18 potatoes into the United States dressed up as chocolates. I mean you can probably buy that stuff at the airport gift shop. Being not just inquisitive but also naïve, I turned to Gerry Wright, past President of the United Potato Growers of Idaho for an answer:”What they’re trying to do is get seed stock, essentially seed germ. You can take a single cell of a potato and you can grow an entire plant from it.”
