Conventional potatoes are one of the “Dirty Dozen,” pesticide-wise. Of course, I can get organic mature potatoes in the produce section of any decent grocery store.
But I never see organic new potatoes in cans, the way I see other organic canned vegetables. Why?
Do they even make canned potatoes? I know you can home-can potatoes, but I’ve never seen store bought potatoes in a can or jar, and I’ve looked. Do they even exist?
Oh yeah, Del Monte does, and the grocery stores sometimes have a house brand. I love them sauteed in butter with some parsley.
Looking at the site I linked to - they have 105oz cans? OK, I’ve never actually seen those.
Gotta hit food service/institutional places (or receive deliveries from food service providers) to see those sizes, usually. I live near a Gordon Food Service store, which vends these sizes to anyone. Restaurants, jails, hotels, schools, hospitals, etc. are the usual markets. Some grocery chains do carry them; I recall Cub Foods having a food service aisle when they were in Indianapolis.
My guess is that in general, the market for canned potatoes doesn’t overlap much with the market for organic potatoes.
Potatoes are peeled with lye before canning. Hard to make that organic.
How does peeling potatoes with lye make the food non-“organic?” You can make lye with wood, fire, and water, and it’s used in many traditional methods of food preservation.
OK, that makes some sense. But why is there not overlap with other canned organic vegetables? If I can get canned organic carrots, canned organic corn, and canned organic peas, why not canned organic potatoes?
Perhaps because potatoes can be stored for a long time?
Because people like them freeze dried instead. They store longer and not as heavy.
That would be my thinking.
And all the people I know around here who eat organic vegetables don’t often peel their potatoes so if the canned ones are peeled I would think: “why bother buying potatoes probably pricier and already peeled when I can just keep a big cheaper bag somewhere of unpeeled ones.”
(wag there, I don’t know the price of canned potatoes vs raw, I never buy cans)
I have freeze dried quarter inch dice potatoes, a box of instant mashed potato flakes, and a few cans of the baby potato sized potatoes [though I have seen sliced potatoes in the canned mode] for different applications.
I use the mashies for thickening soups and stews. I use the dice for adding to soups to bulk them out if I am out of fresh potatoes and the small peeled canned are great for faux salt potatoes [ heat through, sauce with butter, sauteed onion, parsley and paprica, a recipe my brother more or less invented]
All of the above can be accomplished with fresh potato, but preserved can be more convenient and faster.
Yes it really depends on one’s style of cooking and customs, I see it now.
Along the lines of aruvqan’s post, I wish these existed because I use potatoes in different applications, as it were. I like to cook with the potatoes I get fresh in the produce section, and sometimes I get the baby potatoes there, but they are not the same experience as canned, is all.
It’s sorta the way I like fresh spinach, and I like canned spinach, but don’t really think of them as the same food.