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You like baked potatoes?


ComputerGuy

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On the lateral across from Actinver in Ajijic, by the Post Office, the cook from Ninette has started a little cart business. Would make a good food truck elsewhere. For 40p you get a foil-wrapped baked potato, which is next chopped up. Then he loads it with cooked chopped veg, onions, and cheese, all heated up again on the flattop. Wraps it in its foil and tucks it into a container.

For 60 or 70p, you can have it with chicken, beef, and I think I heard him say shrimp. We had some last night to go with just veggies... wow, big meal. Oh, yeah... that huge dollop of crema on top sort of made it too good to be true.

Open from sometime in the afternoon 'til midnight, depending on foot traffic...

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He usually opens later in the evenings, around 8 or later. Great guy, delicious potatoes and hamburgers too.

Valerie :)

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  • 2 weeks later...

What kind of potatoes is he baking? Are they a russet or a russet-like potato or the kind that are usually served in local restaurants which never really get fluffy or crispy but rather are what a friend of mine once described as "boney." That makes a huge difference to me. Also, at least in my opinion, potatoes "baked" in foil are not really baked but rather steamed. They don't have the fluffy center nor the crispy skin that I like in a baked potato.

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I've bought a few papas sucias at SuperLake recently, and while they are definitely dirty, they are just (big) plain old potatos, too. So now I'd like to discover what exactly is meant by that term realistically, or if it's just a name being used to fool us.

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By the end of this month I will know if my new way of bringing in garden seeds to Mexico will work. I am extremely confident that it will. Then I will be ordering some TPS (true potato seeds) potato seeds (and few tomatoes) from Tom Wagner's new website, which now include TPS. Notice that he offers the Maris Piper variety as a seed. This is by far the most popular potato in Ireland and the U.K.

http://www.tom8toes.com/index.php/potatoes/tps.html?p=2

The first grow will be to produce a small crop of potatoes and a large quantity of seeds. I then hope to find a local farmer who can grow large quantities of this, and other varieties. I will help with marketing. The advantage of TPS seeds and what they call "land race" farming is that the potatoes are much more immune to illnesses and disease. If they grow from clones - seed potatoes - they often have to use a lot of chemicals because a disease would wipe out their whole crop. If anybody knows of a farmer who might be interested, pleaase pass on the contact through private email.

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Specifically on the papas sucios. I believe they are a spinoff Russet species growing in Northern Mexico. They are constantly battling with the American potato farmers over the Mexican market. Here is a very old article about the potato industry in the U.S.A., and I'm sure the same here. It is very much biased against GMO potatoes, but consider how little inroads that argument has made in Mexico over the last 16 years. Potatoes are just too hard to grow if you want to grow from clones, and the market requires a perfect shape for machine processing. Ecuador, on the other hand, has 600 varieties of potato, of every taste, color and shape

http://www.wedge.coop/newsletter/february-march-2000/potatoes-pesticides-and-genetic-manipulation

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Boy, I wish I knew street names better! I could show you in a heartbeat, but I'm only there in the summer housesitting, and all I can say for sure is that it's on the mountain side, near Colon, I THINK just a bit east, but somewhere within a very few blocks. It's painted a light lime green. I have bought russets in Joco from a fruteria a block west of the Mercado on the lake side, the one with a big table out front. You may have to ask there, sometimes they are hidden away. Good luck!

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Specifically on the papas sucios. I believe they are a spinoff Russet species growing in Northern Mexico. They are constantly battling with the American potato farmers over the Mexican market. Here is a very old article about the potato industry in the U.S.A., and I'm sure the same here. It is very much biased against GMO potatoes, but consider how little inroads that argument has made in Mexico over the last 16 years. Potatoes are just too hard to grow if you want to grow from clones, and the market requires a perfect shape for machine processing. Ecuador, on the other hand, has 600 varieties of potato, of every taste, color and shape

http://www.wedge.coop/newsletter/february-march-2000/potatoes-pesticides-and-genetic-manipulation

The ones currently for sale at Super Lake are labeled "baking potatoes." They are a Russet-like potato, not a true Russet, at least in my experience with baking them.

I believe these Russet-like potatoes are grown in some areas of Michoacán. There is a town that I have driven through many times on the way to Zacapu called Villa Jimenez and I have often found these Russet-like potatoes for sale there.

I have also heard them referred to as "papas sucias." (By the way, "papas sucios" would be "dirty popes" as el papa is the pope and la papa is the potato.)

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There WAS that Borgia Pope.......now HE was a dirty one! Brilliantly played by Jeremy Irons on PBS. But I'd rather microwave something at least CLOSE to what I remember...load on the butter and sour cream, and take me back to 1950, Genoa, Texas, south of Houston, needless to say, no microwave but a monster Chambers stove! and I would kill to taste an Ecuadorean potato, any variety!

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The potato variety you guys are calling 'regular old Mexican potatoes' is the ALPHA (or ALFA). It was originally bred in Holland and is much cultivated in Canada as well as in Mexico.

The reason Mexico doesn't import the russet and other potato varieties (think Yukon Gold, for one) is due to opposition from CONPAPA, the Mexican potato growers' organization. Read more here:
http://www.thepacker.com/fruit-vegetable-news/Mexican-potato-growers-sue-border-closes-262537391.html

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