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The Quarantina potatoes

In the lastest few years, potatoes’ prices have reached 600 to 1200 Liras/Kg. This is due to the characteristics of the season and the market; you can also buy them in France, even though they are slightly more expensive, 3 to 5 F/Kg (about 900-1500 Ls/Kg). A French potato species, the "Ratte", can be bought at the following prices: 12 to 16 F/Kg (about 3600-4800 Liras/Kg). There are other species of French potatoes, such as the Vitellotte Noire potatoes and the Bonnotte de Nourmoutier potatoes, that are very expensive. The Bonnotte potatoes’ prices reached 18000 Liras/Kg.

What’s so special about them?

This species of potatoes tastes excellent and it is a traditional and typical species and it is not produced at the industrial level. They belong to a traditional species because this latter has been passed on from one generation to the next one. What’s more they belong to a very narrow area, where farmers had been working over the centuries and had selected this special kinds of potatoes. It is, thus, deeply linked to this area’s farmers for historical, personal, economic and environmental reasons. People belonging to this area, feel this is their potato species (its taste is this land’s).

French farmers know how to increase their products’ values: their origins, the strong relations between the local communities and their histories, the organic cultivations, their first-quality products and the most appealing package for the product to be sent in: this means increasing your products’ values.

This is what we are doing in Italy as well. The Quarantina white potatoes are being cultivated in Genoa’s inland since 1996: this is the most famous potato species of the area and it has been cultivated and used since the end of the XIX century. These potatoes are round, have a cream colour, their pulp is white and their eyes are pink, they taste excellent when cooked.

The typical and traditional potato species have gradually disappeared in Italy (1n 1935 they were more than 130); this is due to their substitution with foreign potato species, which produce much more and whose cultivation started after the II WW. What’s more all those traditions linked to the preparation of the pure potato bulb-seeds have been abandoned. This caused the quality of this species and the quantity produced to decrease: in the latest few years the following proportion has been registered, 1:4 (4 Kgs of potatoes to 1 Kg sown bulb-seeds).

We aim at producing the same quantity of potatoes as in the past and having this species officially registered by using the few potatoes we still had. That’s why the Co.re.pa. (The Organising Committee for the protection and the improvement of the value and quality of the potatoes grown in the fields of Genoa’s mountains) has a three-fold objective:

1) It aims at raising money for treatments to defeat all those viroses affecting the tubers; this is being done with the help "Centro Interprovinciale di Sperimentazione Agroambientale M. Neri-Interprovincial Agro-environmental Research Centre" based in Imola (Italy); 2) It aims at involving the producers, who still raise this species of potato, and at developing a new market for this product; 3) It aims at establishing a protection consortium, which is to be managed by those same producers.

Co.re.pa. includes 2 regional parks, 12 municipal institutions, a number of restaurateur associations and small producers. The Quarantina white potatoes are sold at 2000 L/Kg by their producers, even though they have not been fully cured and safeguarded yet.

Once this species of potatoes has been cured and produced following a clear and definite procedure and properly protected, it is likely to guarantee a turnover amounting to 35 million Ls/hectare and net proceeds amounting to 18 million Ls/hectare for its producers. The species of potatoes, which is the most widespread over Liguria’s inland - the Kennebec white potatoes - , guarantees a turnover amounting to 18 million Ls/hectare and net proceeds amounting to 11 million Ls/hectare.

The Quarantina white potatoes are typical of the Genoa’s area and belong to the most widespread and famous species of potatoes; it is not the only one, which has been rediscovered though. Researches have been carried on since 1996 and traces of many different species of potatoes have been discovered: they were just a memory of people living in the area and were thought of being lost, among these: Cannellina del Tigullio potatoes (an elongated and tapering body, white pulp, cream-coloured skin, the Prugnona potatoes (a round and bumpy body, white pulp, lilac and cream coloured skin, shallow eyes, cooking-resistant) and the Giana Rionda potatoes (round and big, yellow and cream coloured pulp, cream coloured skin, very deep eyes, floury kind of potatoes).

Co.re.pa. and the protection consortium are working hard to develop this area’s terraces again and to give Liguria’s cuisine one of its most excellent products back.

For further information:

Co.re.pa. c/o Provincia di Genova – ufficio promozione territoriale, V. Maggio 3 – 16147 Genova