The Who
Why I keep saying potatofolk.
It is not a marketing word. It is the only word I have for what I learned from a bad Thanksgiving.
When I was a kid, I hated potatoes. Not in the picky-eater way — I mean a full-body rejection. The smell, the texture, the idea of them.
One Thanksgiving I was at the family table. I was told that if I didn't eat the potatoes, I wasn't going to be allowed to eat the things I actually wanted. I told them, plainly, that if I ate the potatoes I would throw up. They told me to eat them anyway. I did. I threw up.
Two years later, same table, same potatoes, same conversation, same outcome.
Eight years after that, I wrote an epic poem about a potato who — by the power vested in him by the sun — becomes a tater-tot hero and goes on an adventure. I have told the story many ways since. It is, somehow, the most honest thing I have written.
By the time the poem existed, I was working at an Irish pub. One night I ate a potato there. It was absolutely delicious. And in one bite, my entire opinion of potatoes flipped.
I had changed my mind. I want to underline that part, because it's the only superpower I actually trust. I changed my mind. So can you.
So who are potatofolk?
Anyone whose work touches a potato somewhere in the chain — growers, truckers, fry cooks, harvest crews, irrigation techs, cold-storage managers, grocery buyers, restaurant operators, AgTech founders, packaging engineers, ag lenders, USDA inspectors, equipment mechanics, dispatchers, CDL drivers, extension specialists, plant-line supervisors.
And, honestly, anyone who's ever changed their mind about something they were sure of. That's most of us, on a long enough timeline. If you've done it once, you can do it again. That's the soil I'm planting in.
See the full taxonomy at potatofolk.com.