Who Doesn’t Love a Potato Soup?

What’s in this Article?

• Can Be Made Vegetarian
• Potatoes, where do they come from?
• French Fries Anyone?
• Potato Introduction to Oregon
• According to the Oregon Potato Commission
• Potato Introduction to the Klamath Basin
• Chunky Potato Soup Recipe

In this case, the potatoes turned into a Chunky Potato Soup that gets smokey notes from the Traeger Smoked Garlic Confit and Oil it was cooked in. There is no bacon in the main ingredient list for this soup but you can add if you would like to give a boost in the smokiness. Obviously don’t forget bacon, how can you go wrong.

Can Be Made Vegetarian

Apologies to my vegetarian and vegan friends. Although it is not written as such, this is an easy recipe to convert to vegetarian by substituting the chicken broth for a vegetable broth. Not to mention, it is gluten free as well. Give this Chunky Potato Soup a try!

Potatoes, Where Do They Come From?

If I were to take a poll asking, what state do the potatoes in your grocery store come from? The answer most likely to be given is Idaho. Playing the game of percentages you would technically not be wrong.

Idaho comes in first with the largest production of potatoes, with more than 1/3 of all potatoes grown in the United States! Meanwhile Washington, Wisconsin, Oregon and North Dakota round out the top 5 potato growers.

To give you an idea of how many potatoes are grown in Idaho and Washington each year, Idaho grows almost 5 times and Washington grows 4 times as many as potatoes than Oregon, North Dakota and Wisconsin individually grow.

French Fries Anyone?

Although Idaho holds the title for the most potatoes grown in the country. But 60% of the potatoes grown in the state go directly to frozen french fry production. Think Ore-Ida company, which is named for the Oregon-Idaho potato production because of where they grew potatoes for their production.

Burbank, Norkota & Ranger are the three largest varieties of the Russet potato grown in Idaho making up 97%. 3% are other types of potatoes by comparison.

Potato Introduction to Oregon

As has been noted in the Southwest Sweet Potato Salad recipe, the Sweet Potato made its way from South America to Europe via the explorers of the 15th century. Consequently all potatoes originated from South America with many coming from the Andes Mountains of Peru.

Potatoes made their way back to Europe and then were introduced to the new colonies. Subsequently it took some time to get people to warm up to the idea of eating them. Potatoes are part of the nightshade family of plants. During this time, many of the vegetables in this category were viewed as poisonous for hundreds of years and not eaten.

According to the Oregon Potato Commission –

• The first recorded planting of potatoes in the Oregon Country was made by the crew of the ship ‘Ruby’ (qv) under Captain Bishop, on an island in the Columbia River, near Cape Disappointment in 1795.
• At Fort Astoria (qv) twelve shriveled potatoes, all that remained of a supply brought from New York by the Astor ship ‘Tonquin’ (qv) were planted in May 1811; these produced 190 potatoes the first season and permitted the sending of a few plants to inland traders
• In 1812 fifty to sixty hills planted at the fort produced five bushels; in 1813 two bushels planted produced fifty bushels.
• At Fort Vancouver (qv) 1,300 bushels of potatoes were produced in 1835
• From the time farming first began at Fort Astoria until enough wheat was raised to support the inhabitants, potatoes were the main substitute for bread.
• Indian chieftains, to whom a few of the tubers were given, failed to see any advantage in what they termed “Boston Root” over their own popular Wapato root, and did not go in for potato cultivation except in a desultory way.
• With pioneer settlement, potatoes became a generally increased crop and a staple of diet. In the Willamette Valley, in the 1880’s, their extensive cultivation brought fame to John Dimick as the “potato king”

Potato Introduction to the Klamath Basin

As time went by, potato growing spread throughout much of the state. Although potato crops spread to the Willamette Valley in the 1880s, today the majority of the potato production is in much of central and eastern Oregon. In the 1920s, introduction of potato farming to the Klamath Basin.

The Klamath basin is located east of the Cascade Mountains and north of the California border. This region one of the top four regions of potatoes grown in the state. Oregon is a large producer of potatoes and Klamath Basin being a large producer for the state. It is amazing people from Southern Oregon are unaware that potatoes are grown so close to home.

In the Klamath Basin, there are many potato growers. One of the growers of potatoes in this region is Cal-Ore Produce. The farms they grow on are in the Klamath Basin which spans both sides of the California and Oregon border. If you head south out of Klamath Falls, you will run into miles and miles of potato farms that stretch down past Tulelake, Ca.

Cycling for Potatoes

Cal-Ore Produce had sponsored a cycling event based out of Tulelake, CA I had ridden in a few years back. The ride was fun and had great scenery. There is a leg of one of the routes that take you up to the Lava Tubes National Monument. (A very interesting stop if you are there.)

After the race they fed us with a baked potato bar, obviously appropriate for the area. The potatoes that were served were HUGE, and definitely tasted amazing! When we were leaving they presented each of us with a 10lb bag of potatoes to take home. Man, I need to get up there again to do that ride.

Enjoy this Chunky Potato Soup with some Crusty Bread!

If you have made this Chunky Potato Soup share on your favorite social pages!