Many of us might’ve chuño, Andean-style preserved potatoes, without even knowing it. Every few years, you might be down in the basement storeroom or under the sink and find something rock-hard and shriveled that could be useful for scrubbing off callouses. “Oh,” you remark, “that must be a potato that missed the bin.” It might’ve gone bad in the process, turned mealy, and stunk to high heaven, but it also might’ve lucked its way through a few gradual drying steps and be quite comfortable staying like that for a decade. It may even be ready for reconstituting and cooking up into a delicious breakfast with some cheddar, chives, and eggs.
While it isn’t prudent to fish mystery relics off the cellar floor and start cooking them in hopes they won’t make you sick, intentionally drying potatoes is a terrific way to prolong shelf life if your harvest is going to be too big to consume in a season. People in the mountainous Andes region of South America have been deliberately preserving potatoes through a stash. Here in North America, we might not have access to the astounding variety of specialty potatoes available in Peru and Bolivia, but we do have the means to preserve potatoes.
