Dekker: crumbly Eigenheimer potato from Vroomshoop

Who's behind it

Dekker farm sits on Twistveenweg in Vroomshoop, next to Westerhaar in the municipality of Twenterand. It's an arable farm that's been there since 1911. Since 1968, the family has sold directly to customers, starting with the early Parel potato, and at home they have a farm shop where they sell on weekdays and Saturday mornings what's in the field: potatoes, vegetables and homemade processed products. In 2007 they converted part of the old barn into a gallery. Eigenheimer is one of the varieties they maintain and which reaches us.

That maintaining is less self-evident than it sounds. Eigenheimer has been displaced by newer potatoes that grow faster and store longer. Dekker grows it because there are still buyers for it, and that choice gives you a potato that you barely find fresh and loose anymore in regular wholesale.

What really makes it different

Eigenheimer is not a trendy product. Breeder Geert Veenhuizen created it in 1893, a cross of Blauwe Reuzen and Fransen. By around 1925, two-thirds of Dutch potato growing was his work; most of those varieties disappeared around the war, this one stayed. What you get is purely crumbly, cooking type C. Light yellow flesh, the characteristic deep blue eyes in the skin, and a structure that falls apart when cooking instead of staying whole. Exactly what you want for puree and mash, exactly what you don't want for a salad or gratin. Know therefore what to use it for.

Just as important is how it arrives. We get it unwashed, with soil still on it; in the catalog it's not for nothing listed under dirty potatoes. That looks less neat on the invoice, but it works in your favor. Unwashed, it keeps longer, damages less easily in the crate and gets no wet spots from a wash line. You wash it when you need it. Count on work on your end: sorting and washing yourself, and a size that varies as it should with a real field product.

How to set yourself apart with this

If you put your puree or mash on the map, you can explain what you make it with: an Eigenheimer from a grower in Vroomshoop, not anonymous crumbly from a big sack. That's a variety with a name and a place behind it, something most competitors can't name.

Practically, the variety suits one thing: preparations where the potato can break down. Puree, mash, mashed puffed potato, croquette filling. Keep it away from anything that needs to stay whole. Do that, and Eigenheimer works for you instead of against you, and you taste the difference from a standard potato right away.