"Irish Apples" a Bit Sweeter, Healthier in Alaska
Forget digging for a four-leaf clover. Why not celebrate St. Patrick's Day by taking a bite out of an Irish apple, Alaska's number one agricultural product?
Potatoes, which taste a bit sweeter when grown in the Last Frontier, have been bulging in Alaska soils for more than 200 years, said Carol Lewis, department head of the Resources Management Program at the University of Alaska Fairbanks.
Their lineage probably has roots in potatoes planted by Russian explorer Grigorii Shelikhov, who planted a crop on Kodiak Island in 1784 while setting up the first permanent white settlement in Russian America.
Potatoes were first cultivated centuries earlier in the mountains of Peru, according to the book Seeds of Change by Herman Viola of the Smithsonian Institution. After Spain conquered Peru in 1536, potatoes were transplanted throughout Europe. Spanish fishermen introduced the potato to Ireland in about 1650.
The Irish discovered that a whole family could survive on just an acre of nutrient-rich potatoes. Many lived on potatoes, fresh milk, and not much more. The average adult ate about 12 pounds of potatoes every day until 1845, when the "late blight" fungus began infesting potato fields throughout Ireland.
The fungus weakened the plant, allowing other organisms to attack the potatoes and turn them into an inedible, smelly goo. Over a few years, the entire potato crop failed on the island country. More than one million Irish died in the potato famine, and one million more escaped starvation by moving away to the U.S., Canada, and other countries.
Although late blight still exists, the fungus has never been a major problem in the potato fields of Alaska, which is relatively free from viruses that plague potatoes elsewhere.
"This is as good a place as I've come across (to grow potatoes)," said Bill Campbell, a scientist who studies potatoes at the Plant Materials Center in Palmer. "We really are at the prime growing regime for the plant to do well.
Cool soil temperatures make Alaska an ideal place to raise potatoes, which stop growing when the soil nears 80 degrees F. Here, farmers experiment with a variety of potatoes, with "Bake King" and "Yukon Gold" among the most popular.
The combined area of commercial Alaska potato farms was 780 acres in 1994. Because these farms are spread out in clumps from Southeast to the Interior, diseases aren't easily passed from farm to farm. Also, Alaska farmers are quick to uproot and destroy infected potato plants, Campbell said.
Alaska's potatoes are a bit sweeter than those grown in the Lower 48 because cool soils and a short growing season don't allow them to completely convert sugars to starch. The leaves of a potato plant convert sunlight to sugars, which are pumped down to the underground part of the stem, called a "tuber." The tuber, the part recognized as a potato, is actually a food storage unit for the plant.
Farmers can adjust the sweetness of potatoes by storing them at different temperatures, according to Campbell, who has experimented with potatoes in Alaska since 1984. Stored above 45 degrees, sugars convert to starch; below that, starch is converted back to sugar.
"You can mess with them a lot," Campbell said. "A potato is a little living ball of carbohydrates."
Sweet Alaska potatoes often show their true colors when cut up as french fries or potato chips. When hot oil reacts with the sugar, they'll darken, or "caramelize." They won't turn green on March 17, but they'll taste a lot better than a snow-covered four-leaf clover.
