Showcasing Washington and Oregon potatoes in Asia

Washington Ag Today July 23, 2010 Retired Timberline Lodge executive chef and Oregon Potato Commissioner Leif Benson, helped promote Washington and Oregon potatoes in Asia last year and he will be doing it again this fall.

Benson: “We were in some of the local markets similar to our high-end markets here and we had a very good response especially with the colored varieties. We had some purple ones called Purple Pelisse. We had some AmaRosas which were really interesting. They were red-skinned on the outside and red flesh on the inside and in Asia they have just never seen this before. So I made a warm potato salad with four different colored potatoes that were eye-popping and had an extremely good response. The bags of the potatoes that were from the Northwest were flying off the shelf so we are going to give that another shot.”

Benson will again be at the large Wine and Gourmet show in Macao.

Benson: “It is an emerging market with a lot of interest. And what we were impressed with is that we didn‘t see a lot of U.S. potatoes being used their at all. It was really kind of lacking that. So we think it is an exciting market especially with westerners coming in too, because we in the west love potatoes including myself.”

And Benson loves promoting the Northwest.

That’s Washington Ag Today. Brought to you in part by the Washington State Potato Commission. Nutrition today. Good Health tomorrow. I’m Bob Hoff for Northwest Aginfo Net.

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