The All New Potato

How do you cook a potato? If you deep fry it, which everybody loves, it’s referred to as junk food. If you just bake it or boil it and serve it as is, its less than 90 calories and it’s loaded with vitamins. So what to do? I’m David Sparks. I’ll be right back with the conundrum. It’s amazing how much marketing attention the potato gets. The Idaho Potato Commission spends huge amounts of revenue through spokespeople and ads to let us know how nutritious, delicious and don’t be suspicious that potatoes are mmm  mmm good. While the U.S. Potato Board doesn’t sell potatoes per se it’s proposing to spend almost $16 million marketing the almighty spud all over the world. One way money was recently spent was in a seminar, held at the Culinary Institute of America at Greystone in St. Helena, Calif. where 11 professional chefs learned about and experimented with potatoes used in different ways, with a focus on Mediterranean and Latin flavors.

  Lee Frankel, President and CEO of United Potato Growers of America talks about what the folks in the potato industry are doing to change potato perception: “The work in the industry has started to stabilize and turn the incorrect perceptions about potatoes back in the right direction. Working with the restaurants to add a potato to the menu and working with the consumers at home.”

 That sounds totally logical and do-able for such an inexpensive and delicious food.