I found these in the market the other week, and got some small ones to grow on. The stallholder had no idea what the variety is. The tubers are deep purple-black, with violet flesh. From what I can make out, the two most likely varieties are Vitelotte, 19th-Century French, supposedly imported originally from Peru, and Congo, 19th-Century British. Both are late maincrops from what I've been able to discover, though someone suggested that Vitelotte may be a bit earlier than that. Congo seems to be very late indeed. I don't know what the chance of it surviving trhe blight is, but I'l try.
Anyone got any ideas?
PS. I've added a pic of the inside. It's not much good but I couldn't see what I was doing. Namissa just said it looks just like black pudding.
There are quite a few potatoes that fit this description. I have grown seed (true seed, from the little fruits that occasionally follow potato flowers) from a variety called Salad Blue - a second early I believe. One of the potatoes I've selected to grow on is black with purple flesh. As a second early you can usually get away without blight.
ReplyDeleteThere's also Shetland Black and Mr Little's Yetholm Gypsy. (I may have misremembered a bit of the last but it's something like that.)
Mr Little's is multicoloured. I'll see what they turn into when I grow them! If we get a reasonable summer I should get a crop. The big worry is that blight is now endemic on the site; last year, we had that dreadful spell of wet weather in June, and it spread like lighting, wiping out much of my crop. We need a couple of dry summers to counteract it!
ReplyDeleteYes, they do look very much like Vitelotte, a French potato. They are a cross breed like Charlotte and something else. I grew these a couple of years ago from some potatoes I bought in Borough Market. If you do a word search on my blog you will see some.
ReplyDeleteThat's the problem, all these spuds look so similar! I'll have to grow it and see if I can leanr more. Vitelotte is turning up on sale here and there, so it's looking the most plausible so far.
ReplyDeleteI would go with Matron's identification, it does look like Vitelotte (which I've never grown, but is the only one I've seen with that kind of internal colour and patterning). Shetland Black has a similar outward appearance, but is cream-fleshed with only a fine ring of purple inside it. Salad Blue does have the solid blue flesh, but it looks very different from this - it has a pale band under the skin but not those whitish blotches, and is not such a dark inky indigo. The tuber shape here also looks too knobbly to be Salad Blue. It's great that these very special varieties are finding their way into markets, even without a clear identity. The flesh should keep some of its colour when it's cooked (mauve mash and sky blue roasties) and is full of healthy anthocyanins.
ReplyDeleteHi Robert, we're growing Vitelotte this year in a potato tower. We chose it partly because we like purple potatoes, and partly because potato towers require late varieties, and Vitelotte is a 130-day spud, the latest sold in the store! We found the seed potatoes in a regular garden store, sold as an ancient variety; maybe it's easier to find in France than elsewhere.
ReplyDelete