Fluffy inside, potato skins near me outside, these roast potatoes are a perfect sidekick to any roast dinner. They’re even better the next day, eaten straight from the fridge! Read our guide for more insight into how to cook the perfect roast potatoes. The British potato season begins in April with waxy Jersey Royals, which continue into June.

Other early potatoes, including waxy salad varieties, start to appear in May. September and last through to April, but the main potato season begins in October. Despite this humble tuber’s popularity, shoppers have generally been offered very little choice about what types of potato to choose from. Supermarkets and some farmers’ markets are increasing their range of old and new potato varieties, with myriad tastes and textures. Whichever you buy, they should be firm and well-shaped with no eyes or green patches. The British tend to prefer white-fleshed tatties, whereas the Dutch and Spanish like yellow-fleshed potatoes, but colour makes little difference to the taste.

Once cooked the texture of potatoes can range from smooth, waxy-textured flesh perfect for salads to floury-textured flesh ideal for fluffy mashed potato, so it’s important to know what type of potato you’ve bought before you decide how to cook them. Store in a cool, airy, dark place, such as a larder or a shed. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Read about our approach to external linking. On this Wikipedia the language links are at the top of the page across from the article title. The potato was the first domesticated vegetable in the region of modern-day southern Peru and extreme northwestern Bolivia between 8000 and 5000 BCE.

It arrived in Europe sometime before the end of the 16th century by two different ports of entry: the first in Spain around 1570, and the second via the British Isles between 1588 and 1593. There is also recent evidence from stone tools of potatoes suggesting evidence of potatoes existing as far back as 3400 BC. Archeological evidence also shows that throughout the formative period from 1500 BC to 500 BC and Tiwanaku period in the Andes, potatoes and tubers became increasingly popular as a crop and food. Boiled and steamed potatoes and tubers replaced soups throughout the formative period. Aside from these remains, in the Peruvian archaeological record, the potato was uncovered as a design influence of ceramic pottery in the Altiplanos, often in the shape of vessels. In the Altiplano, potatoes provided the principal energy source for the Inca Empire, its predecessors, and its Spanish successor.

Andean people prepared their potatoes in a variety of ways, such as mashed, baked, boiled, and stewed in ways similar to modern methods. The Andean people also prepared a dish called papas secas, which was a process that involved boiling, peeling, and chopping. Columbian Mapuches, “specially in the southern and coastal Mapuche territories where maize did not reach maturity”. Sailors returning from the Andes to Spain with silver presumably brought maize and potatoes for their own food on the trip. Europeans in South America were aware of the potato by the mid-16th century but refused to eat the plant. For the Spaniards the potato was regarded as a food for the natives: the Spanish conquerors speak most favourably of the potato, but they recommend it especially for the natives who have to do the heaviest jobs.