Potatoes!

(One round of future french fries)

(Finished dome. Ready for fire and then potatoes.)

Potatoes are in full harvest! Humberto actually harvested the vast majority (and there was a ton) earlier this week. Everything left over is for the boys to "glean" or play with. I am presented with mountains of dirty potatoes by small groups of boys begging me to make french fries for them. The older boys have a little freedom in the kitchen in the evenings, so they dig them up to cook later on, but always stop by my door with a gift of potatoes for me. I've been eating potatoes non-stop. But they are still really good! And I've been peeling and chopping potatoes until I literally have blisters. I even bought some ketchup for them only to find out they prefer mayonaise.

This weekend the boys have been showing me how to make potatoes "in the ground." Apparently in some parts of Bolivia this is the traditional way to cook many things, from potatoes to chicken to rice to bananas. I forget what they call it though. Basically, they find a spot where the ground is very hard and the dirt packed very tight. Then they use a pick axe to dig a whole, preferably keeping the earth in large, hard chuncks. They use those dirt chunks to build a dome over the whole and then build a fire inside. They burn it down until the whole is filled with red coals. The potatoes go directly into the coals and then the dome is knocked down over the entire thing. The chunks are stompped on until they break down and everything is buried. About 20 minutes later you dig up the hot baked potatoes! It works best if you count your potatoes as you put them in, so that you don't loose any, and if you don't do this at dusk. In the dark it is difficult to distinguish between a potato and the coals and it isn't fun to grab the wrong one!