• Project description and varieties listing (features' overview)
• Catalog with pictures and variety description - Potato cultivars are linked to specific recipes, like this one.
• Heirloom Potato Recipies Listing - all Potato Recipes are listed in alphabethical order, and offer specific cultivars suggestions, varieties that are recommended for each recipe.

At a Summer Festival I asked a few Italian tourists to tell me their favourite Italian Potato dish. The tourist hailing from the Region of Calabria have grown up eating thinly sliced potato, fried in olive oil with sweet bell peppers.

Mpacchiuse [pron: m-pack-key-ooz-ay] is Calabrian dialect for sticky. One lady told me that the tubers are first boiled ... while someone else insisted that the potato slices are fried raw.

Parboiling the sliced potato disks brings the starch to the surface, which accelerates the crisping process. Starting with cold water, bring to a boil then reduce temperature to simmer for about 5 minutes. The parboiling process is a surface treatment and the core of the disks should still be hard at this point. You will find this tip in the recipe for really Crisp Roasted Potatoes ... in that recipe the potatoes are first sliced 1/2" thick, while for Patate Mpacchiuse the potato disks are 1/4" - if you decide to parboil before you fry ... you may want to slice the tubers a little thicker to prevent breaking ... or simmer for just 2 minutes after the water reaches the boiling temperature.

Use waxy, yellow flesh potato. Slice 1/4-inch and fry in no-stick pan until brown, about 20 minutes. Half-way into potato cooking time add sliced red bell peppers and sweet onion rings (Tropea Red Long Onion is the best ingredient).

Sausage is a possible addition. A spicy version would include hot pepper. Whole, uncut for medium heat - cut open to expose the pepper seeds for increased heat.

• American Fries
• Crisp Roasted Potatoes
• Home Style Crunchy Fries
• Roesti (Swiss recipe)

Oblong, waxy, yellow fleshed tubers, like Belle de Fontenay.

How do you select the cultivars that you grow in your garden?

Would you be enticed to try different cultivars if these would make interesting dishes?

We believe that future generations will more likely grow heritage cultivars if we offer records and recipes of best use in the kitchen!

Please email recipes suggestions to: recipes@curzio.com