Potatoes are one of my favourite foods. They go with just about everything. They can be baked, fried, boiled, steamed, and grilled. They can become a cool potato salad for a hot summer day, or a thick steaming soup for a cold winter night.

When we visited Bolivia and Peru years ago, I got to see and taste a wide range of potatoes I’d never experienced before. One of my most vivid memories is sitting in a boat travelling across lake Titicaca watching a group of local men pull out their lunches—handfuls of small, colourful potatoes that they ate like apples. Most of those potato varieties never make it out of South America, and our cuisine is poorer for it.

Purple potatoes (and purple beans, too) add a lovely colour contrast to other vegetables.

Supermarket potatoes are a rather uniform lot, but a greater variety can be had in seed potatoes. My all time favourite potato is Purple Heart. Even if it weren’t delicious (which it is), its purple colour would win me over. The colour remains during cooking, and adds a splash of whimsy to a plate. Purple mashed potatoes, anyone?