How can potatoes taste different if they are from another country?!


Question: How can potatoes taste different if they are from another country!?
A friend of mine just returned from a trip to Ireland and said that the potatoes tasted so good you wouldn't believe it! We are Canadians (West Coast) and she said that our potatoes are absolutely tasteless compared to the Irish spuds!. If they are the same vegetable what would account for the difference in taste!?Www@FoodAQ@Com


Answers:
Hi, im an agroindustrial engineer and currently working on a research project about andean potato varieties in the andean region!.!.!.

First of all there are about 4000 types of potato, having different sizes, colors, textures, taste, properties etc etc!. Each type of potato has a different structure, starch metabolism, antioxidant production, antinutrient production; and with that comes different types of harvest methods, that range from changing temperature, humidity, harvest time, soil environment etc!.

Anyways, potato can range from the normal Idaho potato (has a high starch content, high volume production, easy harvest) to some types of andean potato that have fiber (in the skin) high mineral content, and the most surprising thing is that they have really cool antioxidant properties, similar to those of green tea,

so yeah, there are taste differencesWww@FoodAQ@Com

It's "terroir," pronounced TARE-wah!.

Originally this applied to wine grapes, but it can be very loosely translated as "a sense of place" which is embodied in certain qualities, and the sum of the effects that the local environment has had on the manufacture of the product

http://en!.wikipedia!.org/wiki/Terroir

Www@FoodAQ@Com

Don't green apples taste different than red apples!? There are different varieties of fruits and veggies, some are better than others!.

We probably don't have the same varieties as they do in Ireland because of growing conditions!. Www@FoodAQ@Com

Could be a different variety of potato or the type of soil/climate they are grown in!.Www@FoodAQ@Com





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