Spilled Milk

Episode 703: Yukon Gold Potatoes

Episode Notes

Today we bring you a topic suggested by the Yukon itself. Listen as Matthew undermines Molly at every turn and the phrases 'banana belts' and 'potato sex' appear as The Devil's Potato is discussed even if its not such a hot potato anymore. Then, we encounter a touch of the midday blight before Molly gives Matthew a diseased quiz.
 

Potato Gatto

Episode Transcription

Unknown Speaker  0:04  

I'm Molly, and I'm Matthew,

 

Molly  0:05  

and this is spilled milk, the show where we cook something delicious, eat it all, and you can't have any

 

Speaker 1  0:10  

See, I was about to say, wow, we're really just jumping into this. We're so business like, but I literally texted you and said, like, we have probably a long record today, like we should jump right into it so that I was surprised when we did exactly the thing I said, we should. I mean,

 

Molly  0:24  

I try to be professional, and Matthew just undermines me at every turn. That

 

Speaker 1  0:29  

is kind of our dynamic. It has been for the last 15 years, 52 years, and this episode is about Yukon gold potatoes. That's

 

Molly  0:38  

right. This episode was suggested by us while we were in the Yukon. Yeah,

 

Speaker 1  0:42  

we were in the Yukon. We were probably eating potatoes in some form. And we were like, Yukon, gold potatoes. Are those from the Yukon. And

 

Molly  0:49  

then we looked it up, and you know what? They're not. Okay. Spoiler alert. Of episode, end of episode, no, but we've got, we got some good stories for you people.

 

Speaker 1  0:57  

Okay, but do we have before we have before we do those good stories. Can we do? We do memory Lake,

 

Molly  1:05  

yeah, yeah, Yukon gold potatoes. So I remember my parents getting really excited about these in the 90s. This was whenever my dad would roast potatoes, and my parents got really into roasting in the 90s. Oh,

 

Speaker 1  1:17  

yeah, everybody did because, because of barbacoa. Yeah, that's right. Yukon Golds

 

Molly  1:21  

were the potatoes that he would buy to roast. He would always roast them with a little bit of rosemary, which now I avoid like the plague. I just, I don't want rosemary. Yeah. And then I remember, so when I was in eighth grade, my cousin Sarah, who was a couple years older than me, did a study abroad program while she was in high school, and she lived with a family in northern Germany, okay. And for spring break that year, my mom took me to visit Sarah wow and her host family. They fed us what they called, like chili, and it was made with, like a Maggie brand seasoning packet. Okay, okay, we came home with a whole bunch of these seasoning packets because I loved them. Okay, yeah, but of course, like the Maggie chili con carne packet in the States is not the same thing as what they had in Germany. I am very mild, but all this to say that during that brief period of time when we still had those seasoning packets, I had so many wonderful meals of this Maggie chili con carne over boiled and split Yukon gold

 

Speaker 1  2:29  

potatoes that sounds like, in like a big German way to eat chili. Yeah.

 

Molly  2:34  

So good. And of course, you know, we always called them Yukon gold potatoes, the name. I mean, we're going to talk about the name, but the name is a big part of what has made these potatoes. Oh, yeah,

 

Matthew Amster-Burton  2:45  

it's a great brand name. My memory lane for these, I think, starts with Lynn Rosetta Casper and her book The Italian country table, which has a recipe for potato Gato, which I've talked about on the show many times. It's like a mashed potato pie with cheese and salami and peas and caramelized onions and all kinds of stuff. It's really good. It she calls for, I think yukon gold or yellow fin potatoes. Okay? And so I think that's, that's when I, like, first started to realize, oh, yeah, like, there's, there's not just the brown potatoes and the red potatoes. There's also a different potato. There's, there's different potatoes. I've also definitely used them to make John thorns home fries recipe, which is kind of a wild recipe from his book, serious pig. And I know he calls for like, various types of Maine potatoes, like Kennebec or Green Mountain or something like that. But I think the closest analogy is, is Yukon Golds, and you cook them really slow in butter in a skillet. And when I say really slow, I mean for like, an hour on low heat. And they are incredibly good. I hardly ever make them because I don't want to stare at a pan of potatoes for an hour. But are they, like, cubed? They're cubed, yeah. And it's amazing how much they shrink as you're cooking Interesting,

 

Molly  4:00  

yeah? Well, I guess they probably are. I mean, potatoes like that, as we will talk about, Yukon Golds are very high in moisture compared like to a russet, for

 

Speaker 1  4:10  

instance. Yeah, by the end of an hour, they've shrunk down to microscopic size. But so delicious.

 

Molly  4:17  

Well, so Okay, let's talk about what these things are. Yeah, what are these things? Okay? So basically, it's, it's just a type of yellow potato. It's a yellow potato with a really thin and smooth skin. And you almost never see these guys produce an eye true, yeah? Yukon Golds like are relatively eye free, okay, uh huh. They have a really moist yellow flesh. Do you

 

Matthew Amster-Burton  4:41  

like me? Enjoy it when you have some potatoes that get super sprouty and they look like aliens, I wouldn't say I enjoy it. I mean, I don't do it on purpose, because like that would kind of spoil the serendipity of it. Yeah, but if I forget some potatoes,

 

Speaker 1  4:58  

have you ever planted one? No? Huh? Oh, you should, but then, like, I might end up with a plant that I have to take care of.

 

Molly  5:04  

That's right. Anyway, Yukon Golds. Another thing about them, which I had never really considered before, is that they tend to be on the larger side, like, larger than, like, red potatoes, for

 

Unknown Speaker  5:15  

instance. Yeah, that's true. It's a pretty chunky potato. Yeah.

 

Molly  5:18  

And I think often when I think of Yukon Golds. I tend to think of like those, like little yellow potatoes, yeah. But that's, that's not actually necessarily a Yukon Gold, okay? I do like the little potatoes, also the ones that they call, like Dutch yellow smashing. I mean, in short, like it's, it's a type of yellow potato, it's a type of yellow potato, yeah. But this one has a pretty interesting history and is like, the most famous thing to come out of the like, plant breeding program at the University of Guelph in southern Ontario. Oh, okay, so we're gonna be talking about Guelph a lot today, probably the namesake

 

Matthew Amster-Burton  5:55  

of Guelph Park in Vancouver, also known as dude chilling Park. Dude chilling Park. Oh, you're not familiar with dude chilling Park, no, I think I can show you a photo of like me and a cots D chilling at dude chilling Park. Oh, cool. So the story is, and I've probably told the story of the show before, but there is a neighborhood park in Vancouver, BC that was slash baby, officially still is called Guelph park, but had this like, modernist sculpture in it of like a, like a reclining stick figure. And because of that, some, some lovable prankster, added to the park sign a very official name plate that said, Dude chilling park over the Guelph Park sign, love that, like, people loved it so much that they kept it and like and like made a, you know, constructed an official version of it. That

 

Molly  6:44  

is fantastic. Well, okay, so in the 1960s the development of this potato began in just a second. We're actually going to go even further back in history. Okay, I'm ready. But basically, when they invented Altoids, that's right, no, I just want to start out by saying that the guy who is credited with creating this potato, his name is Gary Johnston, and he was a,

 

Speaker 1  7:07  

no, you wrote, you wrote here is Garnett. Gary Johnston, yeah, his, I guess his first name was actually Garnett. Okay, I feel like Garnett. Gary Johnston sounds like a blues man. He does,

 

Molly  7:17  

doesn't he? Yeah, basically he began working on this, I think, in 1966 and it was ready to go to market in 1980

 

Unknown Speaker  7:29  

like plant breeding, things take a long time.

 

Molly  7:31  

So let's talk more about this, because I found myself really kind of amazed by the history of the Yukon gold. So I guess it's important to know that early in the 1900s there were lots of Dutch and Belgian immigrants who settled in this part of Southern Ontario that often gets called the banana belt. Why? Because it is warmer than all the surrounding areas, like, warmer than a lot of other parts of the same

 

Speaker 1  7:58  

region. Okay, but do they actually grow bananas? Okay, but it's got a more mild

 

Molly  8:03  

climate. It's got a more mild climate. And the banana belt, I mean, picture a belt, it's, it's more than just Southern Ontario, right?

 

Speaker 1  8:10  

And picturing a belt, right? And it's got, like, a big gold buckle, that's right, banana Bucha, yeah. Have you tried my banana buckle? So

 

Molly  8:20  

that sounds so gross. Can you even imagine how slimy that would be? Okay, so anyway, they were kind of a Long Lake Erie, and they began doing a lot of farming there these Dutch and Belgian immigrants. Apparently, I learned a lot of this from an article in Maclean's, the Canadian magazine. Canadian magazine. The farmers there around this time, or the farmers in most of North America, were only growing white fleshed potatoes, okay, around this time, but these farmers, these immigrant farmers in southern Ontario, they wanted to grow yellow fleshed potatoes, like what they had in Europe back in the old country. And so they began petitioning for breeding rights and licensing for this yellow fleshed potato. And somehow, historically, this is linked, I don't really understand it, to Gary Johnston, who, at that time was a young plant biologist and researcher at the potato Development Laboratory at the Ontario agriculture college, agriculture college at the University of Guelph. I feel

 

Speaker 1  9:30  

like maybe we should have called the University of Guelph for this episode. We probably should have, yeah, so apparently, and the only reason we didn't is that we never call anyone. Oh, I called the White Horse the White Horse tourism bureau. That's true. Yeah, as mentioned on our white horse episode, yes. However you, you asked them, Is there snow on the ground? But you didn't ask them anything about, like, what activity should we do in Whitehorse? So I'm gonna, I'm gonna call that like, 40% of a call. Oh, it

 

Molly  9:56  

was such a good call, though, especially because, as we discussed. There was absolutely snow on the ground, but they couldn't win a straight answer anyway, okay, in the 1950s Gary Johnston had a graduate student in his lab, and this young man was from Peru, and this guy told Gary Johnston about these like, small, rough, yellow fleshed potatoes that were grown by indigenous communities in the Peruvian Andes. Okay, these like delicious little potatoes. And Johnston somehow got to try one of these, thanks to his unnamed thanks, thanks to his connections

 

Unknown Speaker  10:30  

in the potato underworld, that's right.

 

Molly  10:32  

And he was totally enchanted with it. And he set out to breed a potato with the same color and flavor characteristics, but larger and smoother, I guess, sort of, you know, more marketable and and that were similar to what these immigrants wanted to be growing or something. Okay, Ontario. I just want part. I just, I was like, Well, I mean, it sounds like,

 

Matthew Amster-Burton  10:52  

it sounds like the like the university breeding program is, like, responding to the the needs and requests of farmers in the region, yeah, yeah. Also, I we should mention that we'll put a link to this in the show notes. You put a photo of Garnett Gary Johnston in the agenda, and he's making a face that he's holding three potatoes. He looks absolutely joyless. Yes, you make a face that says, in no uncertain terms, you can take one picture. I'm putting these potatoes down three seconds from now,

 

Molly  11:23  

and he's definitely sitting like on a, like, 1980s recliner. Oh yeah, uh huh. Okay, so sometime around 1966 he started work on this with his team. What they did was they crossed one of those, like, yellow varieties from Peru with a potato that was native to North Dakota called the nor gleam, all right, and after 14 years of cross breeding on the 66th cross of 1960 sixes. Okay,

 

Speaker 1  11:56  

so how long does it take start? So I guess you can cross potatoes a few times a year, maybe,

 

Molly  12:02  

I mean, because, yeah, then you have to wait for it to grow. Yeah, like, produce

 

Speaker 1  12:05  

seeds. I mean, there are seeds. I guess

 

Molly  12:09  

I don't, like, fully understand this, but basically, they started in 1966 and their 66th Cross, which would have been about 1980 produced a true breeding seed, meaning that it produced a seed that, when planted and grown, would yield consistently the same kind of plant that they so

 

Matthew Amster-Burton  12:30  

I think that whether they're trying to get, like, maximum homozygosity, right, so like, when they start by crossing these things, there's like, a bunch of genetic diversity, like within the genome of the cross, like, you know, it's got, like, some alleles from one, I can't believe I'm doing this cross this, how do they do this? Oh, I'm gonna say grafting. I was gonna say, the only thing I know is that even crossing maybe, like, maybe, I don't know, how do potatoes have? Potato sex? Is this unmasked?

 

Molly  13:00  

There are well, so I know that, like the crosses that they did, oh, one of them was a male and the other was a female.

 

Unknown Speaker  13:07  

The researchers,

 

Molly  13:10  

I know I didn't write it down here, but I think that the the yellow variety from Peru was a female and the male was the nor gleam

 

Speaker 1  13:20  

again, or these were these dioecious plants,

 

Molly  13:23  

I'm not sure. But So would they just take the pollen from from the male that's what I'm now on the female flower,

 

Speaker 1  13:30  

yeah, but only if they're, only if they're dioecious, because, like otherwise, all the flowers will have male and female parts within the same flower. No,

 

Molly  13:37  

they, they don't, I, I don't think they do okay, because it said clearly that there was a male plant and a female brand.

 

Speaker 1  13:45  

So, so we're, we're going on record. We think potatoes are dioecious unless, unless the thing we're saying is actually money. Just okay.

 

Molly  13:54  

So this true breeding seed they developed, they called G, for Guelph, 6666, because it was the 66th cross from 1966 Okay, great. They called it G, 6666 dash four. Why?

 

Speaker 1  14:14  

And then people tasted and they were like, wow, this video is so good. You must have made a deal with the devil. They're like, No, we didn't. Why did you think that? So

 

Molly  14:20  

anyway, okay, so, yeah. So G for Guelph, the 6666, 4y which, yeah, 4y means fourth selection from the cross, and Y for yellow, but also

 

Speaker 1  14:30  

means 6666, for you, that's right. Okay. So

 

Molly  14:35  

anyway, obviously, they're not going to market it by that name the devil's potato. So, Johnston, he named it a Yukon. And apparently he was already into naming his like potato creations after bodies of water. Yeah, why wouldn't you? He had one named the Huron and one named the Rideau River in Ontario. He named it Yukon. Both. For the Yukon River and for the Yukon rivers association with the Klondike Gold Rush, because, right, we had a yellow potato here. Yeah, so it looks like a big old gold nugget, yeah. But one of his colleagues unclear whether it was Walter shy or Charlie Bishop, suggested the word gold I and it became the Yukon Gold Okay, Walter

 

Speaker 1  15:19  

shy and Charlie Bishop are both good names, but I really want to give this to Walter shy, right?

 

Molly  15:24  

He deserves it, yes, so shy, I know. Anyway, he

 

Speaker 1  15:27  

came up to, he came up to Garnett. Gary Johnson said, I have a potato idea. Walter shy,

 

Molly  15:38  

so Johnston. You know, as I mentioned before, is a legendary figure among potato breeders. This guy developed and brought to market more than a dozen potato varieties. Do you

 

Speaker 1  15:49  

know any of the others? Well, obviously, the Huron, right? The Huron, yeah, the shy guy.

 

Molly  15:56  

But I don't really know what the other ones were, except, except yukon gold. However, another Canadian potato breeder, there was this quote in Maclean's, said that Johnston's yellow fleshed potato was, quote, a revolutionary concept. He was a pioneer. He had a vision for yellow fleshed potatoes.

 

Speaker 1  16:17  

I'm sorry he had a jaundiced eye for potatoes. I don't

 

Molly  16:20  

understand what is so revolutionary about wanting to create a potato that is a color that already exists in many other parts of the world.

 

Speaker 1  16:31  

I mean, I think, like, first of all, he was probably a white guy and so, so maybe got more more credit for this concept than was strictly deserved. Oh, that doesn't happen. And, but also, like, you know, like he was famous within, within his, you know, potato community. No,

 

Molly  16:48  

he's probably, I don't know, like, the most famous potato breeder.

 

Unknown Speaker  16:52  

Well, what about russet?

 

Molly  16:55  

I think that's No, but I think that's a description of, description of the skin anyway. Okay, so, yeah, everybody ask around. Do your friends know about Garnett Gary Johnston? Yeah. What about creator of the Yukon Gold?

 

Speaker 1  17:08  

What about new potatoes named after Bernard new

 

Molly  17:13  

I'm gonna share a quote about the marketing of the Yukon Gold, because I think part of what has made this such a successful potato is it really was one of the first potatoes to be marketed like by its brand name? Okay, yeah. And to have a really recognizable brand name, yeah? No. And it is a fantastic brand name, yeah. So here's a quote from Gary Johnston that I found on Idaho potato.com Sure. Yeah, to be clear, Yukon Golds are not from Idaho. They're from Ontario, Canada. Just to reiterate, all right, here's what Gary Johnston said, to succeed, I believed the Yukon gold would require good publicity. Harrow Smith, a national magazine published an article I wrote called, there's gold in these hills. Sure. Shortly after, I was asked to do several interviews for TV and radio. I did one for a radio station in Yellowknife, Northwest Territory. Later the magazine American vegetable grower did an article with front page coverage the biggest so he went viral when two large Ontario growers printed yukon gold in large letters on their 10 pound paper packages of potatoes, which were sold in many supermarkets, 10 pound

 

Unknown Speaker  18:26  

paper packages of potatoes. Peter Piper, yeah.

 

Molly  18:30  

Anyway, this enabled customers, if they liked the product, to come back and ask for the same phrase if you buy name. Isn't that a great quote?

 

Speaker 1  18:38  

It is a great quote. I want to hear this same quote, but like, translated into, like, how, like, a modern young person would say it like, this shit was really popping off. That's, that's what a young, like, 36 year old person would say,

 

Molly  18:53  

yeah. So anyway, yeah. People really liked these things. And the Yukon Gold was the first Canadian bread potato variety to be promoted, packaged and marketed by name like this, yeah, yeah. And you know, the truth is, is that by, like the early 2000s its popularity had started to wane. Because, I mean, I have to imagine that all these other potato varieties that were already in existence, they got much better marketing campaigns, when people saw how the Yukon Gold did,

 

Speaker 1  19:23  

yeah, but, I mean, they're still in every supermarket in North America I've ever been into big

 

Molly  19:28  

time. But you know, these days I think in like, the specialty market, they're not like the hot potato like, see what I'm saying.

 

Unknown Speaker  19:42  

Yeah, yeah.

 

Unknown Speaker  19:51  

They're a very versatile potato, yeah. So

 

Molly  19:53  

let's talk about why people love these things. Why do you love them? You know,

 

Speaker 1  19:57  

we've just been together a long time and like. We like, you know, we threw a lot. We've been through a lot together, UConn gold and I, so yukon gold and I,

 

Molly  20:08  

there's so many eyes as a

 

Matthew Amster-Burton  20:10  

Canadian James Bond movie, UConn gold and I, yeah, so I like them because they are a middle ground between, like, a very starchy russet potato and a very waxy red potato. So they're not, they're not as starchy as the russet or as waxy as the red, and so you can kind of do anything with them. And they're also really easy to peel and clean. You

 

Molly  20:36  

know, it's kind of like, like Sam wise Gamgee says you can boil them, mash them, stick them in a stew. Yeah, I do all those things, me too. Yeah, me too. Yeah. I think that they are a really good boiling potato, but they do fall apart. Unlike they do fall apart unlike, you know, a waxier red potato, for instance, they're great for mashing, although I think that, like, they can get kind of gluey if you go too far. But I've never, I think you have to really go far

 

Speaker 1  21:02  

so often, if we have a Yukon Gold potato or two in the root cellar, wattle will make mashed potatoes for herself for lunch, and always enjoys them. Very much.

 

Molly  21:11  

Me too. They've got a really smooth consistency, you know, no matter what you're doing with them. Yeah, and the flavor. So apparently, people talked a lot about the flavor when they were first developed, they were marketed as, like, not even needing butter. No, they still need butter. They need butter. They need butter, but they do have a really nice flavor, yeah.

 

Matthew Amster-Burton  21:33  

Like, I use them, we'll get into like, what we do with them, but I use them for making, like, hash and home fries, and they, like, hold their shape really well. Like they, they're very easy to dice, and then they are really pleasing to dice. They don't they don't fall apart as easily as a russet potato in the pan. And so they're really good for pan frying. Oh, man, I use them for so many things. It's my favorite potato.

 

Molly  21:55  

No, it's a fabulous potato. I most recently used it for this stew that was like, kind of a whole bunch of, like, fresh herbs. It was like sort of Greek style. It was a chicken stew with a lot of lemon juice, fresh herbs, potatoes, spinach, and you serve it with feta on top. Okay? And they were great in that and also really pretty. The yellow color is appealing. Another thing is that people who grow potatoes really like them because they're relatively disease resistant, although we'll talk yeah, they grow well, and apparently they're also pretty resistant to

 

Matthew Amster-Burton  22:32  

bruising. Yeah, growers do tend to like things that grow well. They do. Yeah. For a while on my potato farm, we were growing this variety called the 0000,

 

Speaker 1  22:44  

Y, and you just kind of put the seeds in the ground, and then you like, wait for a few years, nothing happens. Yeah? And I've grown those two, yeah, my potato farm went out of business.

 

Molly  22:56  

Well, so you know, when I was reading about diseases that Yukon Golds are susceptible to. Because, despite the fact that Wikipedia and Maclean's both told me that Yukon Golds are disease resistant, they're susceptible to a lot of diseases. Okay, sure. But anyway, I was quite enchanted by all the potato disease names, and I decided to make you a quiz. Okay, Molly's unfolding a dossier. Okay, so Matthew, obviously you know how this works. You're gonna tell me which ones are real and which are fake. Yeah, late blight, real early blight, real midday blight, fake. That's fake common

 

Unknown Speaker  23:31  

scab, although I definitely have felt the midday blight, okay,

 

Molly  23:36  

common scab, real, real crusty scab, real, fake. Eaten scab.

 

Speaker 1  23:43  

Eaten scab like e a t o n, t e n, eaten scab

 

Molly  23:51  

like, if you pick your scab and eat it real, it's fake. God, okay, black, dot, real pink rot, real hot pink rot, fake potato, leaf roll virus, real potato, leap frog virus, you're fake. That's right. Rhizoctonia,

 

Speaker 1  24:14  

fake. You made that up. No, it's real. I know.

 

Molly  24:18  

Okay. Rhizome,

 

Speaker 1  24:22  

I mean, that is a real thing, but it's not a potato disease. Deleuze. Deleuze, like D, E, L, E, U, z, E, yes. Uh, real. It's fake. What does it mean? Wasn't he one of the like Deleuze, one of the rise or something? Wasn't he one of the rhizome people? I ever paid attention, but you were talking about who the rhizome people were. Silver scarf. Skirf, like s, curve, S, C, u, r, F, yep. Real black. Skurf, fake, real Papa Smurf. I mean, we all know Papa Smurf is real, and if you go into the forest, you'll find the little Smurf houses. Yes, but not a potato disease,

 

Molly  25:01  

Gargamel.

 

Speaker 1  25:05  

Gargamel also, also real. And I am afraid of Gargamel, fake

 

Molly  25:11  

verticillium, real diverticulitis.

 

Speaker 1  25:17  

I mean, like, I don't want to say it's fake, because if you suffer from it, like, I don't want to, I don't want to, I don't want to just dismiss your experience, but you're probably not a potato. Okay? Black leg, hmm, okay, this is, this is maybe the first one that I'm actually not sure about

 

Molly  25:31  

real. It's real. What's the leg? I'm not sure. White leg is

 

Speaker 1  25:37  

the next one gonna be wet. Leg, no. White leg, also real. That one's fake, okay, stanky leg, obviously real.

 

Molly  25:47  

Alfalfa mosaic virus,

 

Unknown Speaker  25:49  

hmm,

 

Unknown Speaker  25:50  

fake. It's

 

Speaker 1  25:52  

real. Why would that attack a potato? I don't know. Okay. Beta, mosaic

 

Molly  25:56  

virus, real, fake alfalfa.

 

Speaker 1  25:59  

Beta, yes, it's the Greek alphabet. Yeah, I got it. Whatever that was, my potato. It's alfalfa, beta, Gammon. That's right, backgammon, backgammon, yeah, that's what comes after women does backgammon. The game is that like, refer to like a type of ham. It's that because sounds like a type of ham, right? That way, does it? But gammon is ham. It's a

 

Molly  26:23  

ham on or jambon, G,

 

Speaker 1  26:27  

A M, M O N, is a type of ham in, in, like, Old English, you know, like old in, like, I mean, I think even modern English gammon, yes. Listeners, listeners in in gammon producing regions, please write in contact at spill milk podcast.com is gammon real? Because there's no other way for us to fuck out. And is it related to backgammon? We'll we'll have an update in a future episode. Yeah.

 

Molly  26:51  

Okay, so here are the diseases that Yukon gold potatoes are susceptible to. Seed decay, black leg, early blight, late blight, early dying, early

 

Unknown Speaker  27:02  

dying, wow, P,

 

Molly  27:04  

V, y, that's potato something. Virus, yeah, soft

 

Unknown Speaker  27:10  

rot, dry rot, potato. Virus, yep,

 

Molly  27:14  

soft rot, dry rot, leek, pink rot leek, ew, silver scarf and black scarf,

 

Speaker 1  27:19  

okay, but not that often, because they're considered a disease resistant, yeah. What about the potatoes that aren't disease resistant? I know, like the list must just go on for pages.

 

Molly  27:29  

Those ones definitely get the stanky leg, yep. And the Gargamel

 

Speaker 1  27:33  

for sure, yeah. But if you boil six of them, they turn to gold. This was what Gargamel wanted to do to this person. I mean, among other things, did

 

Molly  27:41  

he think they would turn to gold? Yeah. Oh, had he ever, like, actually succeeded in doing that?

 

Speaker 1  27:47  

Oh, yeah. It was a very upsetting episode, like the little screams, no, I don't think

 

Molly  27:52  

so. Okay, and is that Azrael? Because it's another potato

 

Speaker 1  27:56  

virus. He was, like, it was like, one of those bumbling cartoon villains that were made bumbling so that they would never like actually do any atrocities, I guess. Gosh, how is it that we remember his name? Why do we remember Gargamel? Gargamel and Azrael? Yeah, and I think I have not gone back to watch the Smurfs. I think it's amazingly bad.

 

Molly  28:16  

Okay, Matthew, is there anything else we should say that we like to do with yukon gold.

 

Matthew Amster-Burton  28:21  

Okay, I love putting them in a Japanese curry. Now, having said that, I did serve you Japanese curry for lunch today, and I didn't put any potatoes in it because I didn't have any around. But like, they're I really like the texture, like, in a in kind of a thick curry. Me too, yeah. And I use them for making hash. Like, what I'll do is I'll dice them into, like, kind of half inch dice. I'll throw the the diced potatoes into a pan and boil them for a couple minutes, just, just like par, cook them, and then throw them into a pan with a lot of butter and salt and crisp them up, and then throw in, like, some meat and, or onions and, or greens, herbs, really good stuff.

 

Molly  29:00  

I think that a lot of people use Yukon Golds for potato salad. That said, I find them, I find it hard to get, like, the sweet spot when I'm boiling, the skin starts to peel off, or they start to fall apart just at the same time that they are, oh, that is so true, which I don't mind if I'm just going to be like, tossing them with butter and, you know, fresh herbs or just butter. But if I'm gonna be making them into potato salad, I want them to be in cubes. So I know my dad, my dad, for as much as he loved the Yukon Gold, he always used red potatoes for his

 

Matthew Amster-Burton  29:35  

Yeah, that makes sense. That actually, like, sends me back down memory lane a little bit, because when I make the potato gateau from Linda Lynn, Rosetta Casper, the first step is to simmer the potatoes skins on until they're until they're cooked through, and then remove the skins, which is a very satisfying process. They slip off very easily. But also, like I'm very impatient, and I don't want to wait for them to cool down. And so I always burn my fingers on the. Like, Oh, yeah, I believe it. And then I say, I hurt my Fingy. Oh, your phalange. I hurt my phalange. Yeah. I remember one of my teachers when I was in elementary school teaching me the phrase, you get your phalanges off me. Like, as, like, there's a thing to say to a kid if they're if they're, like, bugging you, like, you know, poking you were hitting you, yeah, like you get your phalanges off me. Did it work? Does that stop a bully? Definitely not. But I do remember it

 

Molly  30:26  

definitely not. Matthew. I hear we've got some spilled mail. I've heard the same.

 

Matthew Amster-Burton  30:38  

This spilled mail is from listener Charlie who writes in downtime of my actual life and job, I like to plan the menu of a restaurant I will definitely never open. It would cater to those classic dishes of restaurant, food that that, through their very ubiquity, are impossible to get hold of in good, unadulterated, unfused, non, deconstructed form. At lunch, we would do soup and half a sandwich with tomato and French onion in high rotation Waldorf salad and potentially chicken alfredo, though, honestly, in 2025 who is eating that much cream? I mean, it

 

Molly  31:07  

sounds good to me. I mean, if we're gonna do if we're gonna go do it, we're gonna do it right for this

 

Matthew Amster-Burton  31:12  

at dinner, there would have to be a club sandwich served bar side with a martini or Bloody Mary and a beef Wellington for dessert, bomb Alaska, sticky date pudding and cakes from the cabinet. I think of this as being downtown in literally any city, probably with an imaginative name, like listener Charlie's Bistro, though we might be better off opening as the in house restaurant of the kind of department store that doesn't exist anymore. Totally. Yes, Trevor, like, there was this, this chef that I really liked back when we lived in New York, named Mark strausman, whose restaurant was called Campania, that was like a rustic Italian restaurant. And then he also was asked to be the chef at a restaurant in Barney's department store called Fred's. At Barney's.

 

Molly  31:52  

I remember as a kid, when I was first old enough to go with my cousin who lived in the Bay Area and take the ferry from Sausalito into San Francisco. Oh yeah. And we would be allowed to spend like, half a day on our own, and then our moms would come meet us. We would always take the elevator to the top of Nordstrom and eat grilled cheese sandwiches in the restaurant that's delightful at Union Square. So fun. Back

 

Speaker 1  32:14  

to the mail. My question to you is, what dishes Am I overlooking? A million bonus points for dishes with names, chicken Kyiv, would 1,000% be on the list if the concept didn't weird me out? Oh, I love chicken. Kia. I don't know if I've ever had it. So is it like, Hold on, I'm afraid I'm getting like stuff wrong. It's like, stuffed with like, think it's also breaded, yeah. Is it like, stuffed with cheese? I think I'm confusing it with salty boca.

 

Molly  32:41  

Okay, a dish made of a chicken filet pounded and rolled around cold butter then coated with egg and breadcrumbs and either fried or baked. That sounds great. Yeah, yeah. I've seen it stuffed with things, yeah, other things like butter, herbs, eggs, Oh, yeah. Sign me up. Yeah. That

 

Matthew Amster-Burton  32:58  

sounds awesome. Big time. Okay, I think we can, like, help you out a little bit. So I feel like this place would have to have steak Diane. Do I know what steak Diane is? It's like, it's a steak dish that involves flambeing. I know that. Oh,

 

Molly  33:11  

it would have to have peach melba. Yes, for sure. Fabulous. Yes.

 

Speaker 1  33:15  

I put lobster Thermador on here. I don't know what that is, but I think it would sure, for sure, fade it at this restaurant,

 

Molly  33:21  

quiche. Quiche, yes, Bananas Foster, which you and I really enjoyed. Really liked it. Let's see here. What about like, beef Burgin yo. I mean, a good yeah, Burton, y'all like red wine stew.

 

Speaker 1  33:34  

I feel like that's almost so good. Still too relevant, maybe. But like, because, like, I feel like I wouldn't be, well,

 

Molly  33:41  

it's truly Beef Wellington is completely irrelevant. Yeah, although

 

Matthew Amster-Burton  33:44  

it fits, there's this place that we that Watson I ate once, and then have, like, walked by a whole bunch of times, called the French table in South Main in Vancouver. They'd serve Beef Wellington, which I regret not getting when I was there, because, like, when else in my life, am I gonna have beef Wellington? I feel like they have a lot of these types of things on the menu, including, like they would have beef bourguignon and beef wellington

 

Molly  34:06  

soul manure. But, yeah, but then again, I think, I think that is still relevant, yeah, in restaurants and things today. All

 

Speaker 1  34:14  

right. Great question. Listener, Charlie, and if, if you ever open, listener, Charlie's Bistro, put us put us down to comp us a meal. Yeah, please.

 

Molly  34:23  

Oh, that's such a good question. I love that. Matthew, what's your snack in

 

Speaker 2  34:27  

Hey, watch your snacking, dude. You gotta tell me what you're snacking or I'll release the Kraken. So watch your snacking.

 

Matthew Amster-Burton  34:40  

I'm snacking a snack from New Zealand called Whitaker's peanut slab, and you have given me. I've given you one. I'm gonna see I think I have another one in the cupboard so we can open up, open it up, and try a bite without you having to open yours and feed it to me. Oh, okay,

 

Molly  34:53  

okay, that's really generous of you. It really and you encountered these on a recent trip to Vancouver. So. You encountered them in in Canada. I think they're pretty widely available there, but not here.

 

Speaker 1  35:06  

So, yeah, I think that's correct. I haven't seen them in the US, but we saw them in several just like ordinary kind of drugstores in Canada. And did you choose it just because of the name? Yeah, because of the name and because it looks like a gold bar. It does look like gold bullion, or

 

Molly  35:21  

bullion. I thought

 

Speaker 1  35:23  

it would fit well in this episode, because it's all like yukon gold is inspired by gold nuggets, and this is inspired by a gold bar, but it's got, it's got such thickness, like

 

Molly  35:32  

an extra hefty. Mr. Good bar, Mr.

 

Speaker 1  35:35  

Gold Bar, Mr. Gold Bar. It's better chocolate than Mr. Oh. It's so good. It's great, right? Loaded

 

Molly  35:43  

with peanuts, yeah, and it's about, would you say, like, three quarters of an inch thick, little thicker than that, maybe, wow. Okay, and

 

Speaker 1  35:52  

it's not like, segmented at all. So, like, I just cut this with a knife. When you eat that one, like, open it up and just like, chaw into it. It's very satisfying. Oh, this is a great, great candy. Yeah, it reminds me of the Trader Joe's, like, milk chocolate with 30% whole hazelnuts, bar only with peanuts, just like, really, like, thick, pretty good chocolate. Great ratio of nuts to chocolate. Oh, great bar. The chocolate here is not as sweet, though, right? Yeah, I love these. Oh, yeah, great. They have several other types of slabs. We only saw peanut on this on this trip to Vancouver. But then when I looked on the Whitaker's website, there was like, There's one that had a funny name. When are you going back to Canada again? I mean, by the time you hear this, who knows? Yeah, I like that. They have a whole section on their website devoted to slabs. Oh, come on, Google. I have

 

Molly  36:41  

a whole section on my website just devoted to slabs of meat.

 

Speaker 1  36:46  

Your website, Molly's meet slabs.com Yeah, how's that? How's that going? Getting a lot of subscribers? Well, I'm gonna, I'm gonna try and make the Internet work. And in the meantime, tell me. Tell me more about your new

 

Molly  37:02  

website. Just Whitaker is too busy folding this quiz into a paper. Okay, our

 

Speaker 1  37:07  

product slabs. Okay, there's the Oh, okay. Here's what I was trying to think of, is the Hokey Pokey crunch. So someday, if I ever go to New Zealand, I'm bringing you back a Hokey Pokey crunch slab. Okay, all right. Well, our producer is Abby sercatella, yeah, that's our now, but wow, it's producer Abby. She is a Wow, a real wow. And you can rate and review us wherever you get your podcasts. You

 

Molly  37:29  

can chat with other spilled milk listeners at reddit.com/r/everything,

 

Speaker 1  37:33  

spilled milk. Yeah? Like, start a thread on like, what potato diseases have you experienced? That's right, have you ever had tape leg

 

Molly  37:41  

until

 

Unknown Speaker  37:49  

next time. Thank you for listening to spilled milk.

 

Molly  37:51  

The show that's given you three seconds to take that picture while we hold these potatoes.

 

Unknown Speaker  37:59  

I think the show's giving you three sixes,

 

Molly  38:03  

because the show that is totally 666,

 

Speaker 1  38:08  

we shout at the devil like a band, one of those bands that made the album shout at the devil. Was it Molly crew, or was it like striper? This is, this is our best outro ever. I'm Matthew. Amster Burton, I'm Molly. Weisenberg,

 

Molly  38:28  

I'm Molly And I'm Matthew,

 

Speaker 1  38:29  

wow. I said, Wow. Why did I interrupt you and think they're going so well, let's do it again. You.

 

Transcribed by https://otter.ai