Record harvest sparks mass giveaway of free potatoes across Berlin
Germans love their potatoes. They eat on average 63kg a person every year, according to official statistics. But the exceptional glut of potatoes produced by farmers during the last harvest has overwhelmed even the hardiest of fans. Named the Kartoffel-Flut (potato flood), after the highest yield in 25 years, the bumper crop has inspired one farmer to organise a potato dump on Berlin, with appeals going out around the German capital for people to come to various hotspots and pick them up for free. Soup kitchens, homeless shelters, kindergartens, schools, churches and non-profit organisations are among those to have taken their fill. Even Berlin zoo has participated in the “rescue mission”, taking tonnes of potatoes that would otherwise have gone to landfill, or to produce biogas, to feed its animals. Two lorry loads have been sent to Ukraine. Ordinary city residents, many feeling the squeeze over the rise in the cost of living, have arrived at pre-announced potato dump locations, filling up anything from sacks and buckets to handcarts. Astrid Marz queued recently in Kaulsdorf, on the eastern edge of Berlin, one of 174 distribution points spontaneously set up around the city, to stuff an old rucksack with spuds. “I stopped counting at 150. I think I’ve got enough to keep me and my neighbours going until the end of the year,” she said. The operation, called 4000 Tonnes after the surplus a single potato farmer near Leipzig offered in December after a sale fell through at the last minute, was organised by a Berlin newspaper with the Berlin-based eco-friendly not-for-profit search engine Ecosia. “At first I thought it was some AI-generated fake news when I saw it on social media,” Marz, a teacher, said. “There were pictures of huge mountains of ‘earth apples’,” she recalled, using the word Erdäpfel, an affectionate term for the potato sometimes used by Berliners, “with the instruction to come and get them for free!” The excitement has lifted spirits at a time when arctic cold has Berlin in its grip, hampering travel, grinding public transport to a halt and leaving pavements hazardously icy. “There was a really party-like atmosphere,” said Ronald, describing how people cheerily helped one other with heavy loads and swapped culinary tips when he recently picked up potatoes for his family at the Tempelhofer Feld. As a result of the buzz, the potato is receiving something of a new lease of life. It has helped resurrect stories about how the humble tuber first became popular in Germany, after Prussia’s Frederick II issued an order for its cultivation in the 18th century, known as the Kartoffelbefehl (potato decree), establishing it as a staple food despite reported initial scepticism over its strange texture and form. Recipes galore are being shared online as those who have scooped up the spuds try to work out what to do with the surfeit. Although the potato has sometimes been spurned in recent years as some fitness gurus have recommended avoiding carbohydrates, experts have highlighted its nutritional properties, such as vitamin C and potassium. Celebrity Berlin chef Marco Müller of the Rutz restaurant has said now is the ideal moment to give the potato the Michelin-star treatment. He uses an innovative technique to make a rich broth from roasted potato peelings and a sought-after potato vinaigrette. Another of the recipes doing the rounds is Angela Merkel’s Kartoffelsuppe (potato soup), which the former German chancellor first shared with voters in the run-up to 2017’s general election in an interview with a celebrity magazine. Her hot pot tip? To give it the necessary lumpy texture, she revealed: “I always pound the potatoes myself with a potato masher, rather than using a food mixer.” Criticism has come from farmers in the region, who say the market in Berlin is even more saturated and their crop has been devalued further still by the vast giveaway. More widely, environmental lobbyists have said the glut in part stems from a warped and out-of-control food industry, and that the mountains of potatoes pictured in storage facilities across the region is reminiscent of the notorious butter mountains and milk lakes of the 1970s, when farmers were overly incentivised to produce food owing to the European Economic Community’s guarantee to buy up surplus products at high prices. While it’s the potato’s turn this year, last year hops were in surplus and next year, it is predicted, it will be milk. A last hoorah for the intervention is expected in the coming days, and those keen to participate in the potato party are urged to keep a close eye on the organisers’ website for the next drops. There are, in theory, about 3,200 tonnes (3,200,000kg or 7,056,000lbs) still up for grabs.
