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Berlin: Record harvest sparks mass giveaway of free potatoes

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/jan/31/record-harvest-berlin-giveaway-potatoes
38•novaRom•1h ago

Comments

dr_dshiv•1h ago
Weird abundance problems. Should we get used to it?
solatic•1h ago
> “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

Fun fact: the Hebrew translation of potato, תפוח אדמה, is the portmanteau of "earth" (אדמה) and "apple" (תפוח).

If you should ever be so fortunate as to have too many potatoes, see if you can shred them with a food processor and combine with onion, egg, salt, and pepper to make potato kugel, which freezes exceptionally well.

docdeek•1h ago
The French term for potatoes is also ‘earth apple’: pomme de terre
epolanski•1h ago
Polish is ziemniaki, where ziemia is earth.
sleepychu•1h ago
I'm fairly sure that is the origin of Erdäpfel. We certainly thought this was a funny name for potato when we learned French in Scotland :-)

When I learned German the word for potato was Kartoffel.

HPsquared•1h ago
I suppose this "earth apple" formulation coming up in several languages is partly because potatoes are from the New World, and Old World languages won't have a "traditional" word for them. Whereas in English it's basically a loanword.
technothrasher•56m ago
It also makes more sense when you realize that 1) pomme in older French meant fruit generally, not apples specifically, and 2) sweet potatoes were introduced to Europe well before white potatoes were. So "earth fruit" seems fitting.
notepad0x90•1h ago
Potatoes originated from the Americas, so I suppose that word was created in the past 500 years. But even for modern computer names, I would thing old languages would just use amalgamations like that.
seydor•47m ago
the same in many languages, french pomme de terre, greek geomilo,
yorwba•1h ago
Previously: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46618544
Flavius•1h ago
This is a massive missed opportunity for financialization. We need a 3x Leveraged Bull Potato ETF immediately. Tokenize the crop, lock it in a vault and trade futures against the harvest. Why feed people for free when we could create artificial scarcity and pump the price 10x by next week?

McDonald’s fries pricing suggests the market has already priced in a massive supply squeeze. They are generating better margins on a sliced potato than the Central Banks get when they print fiat.

assaddayinh•1h ago
Leave it to [capitalism|socialism] to organize artificial scarcity..

why does endstage one starts to feel like the other..

ahartmetz•52m ago
The scarcity in socialism is all real! Organic, if you wish.
seydor•48m ago
Duh. Just set up a viral potato coin and then short it to death
scirob•1h ago
It's good they didn't flood the market and tank the price.

It's real btw. I got a whole wagens worth and distributed amongst my neighbors

Flavius•1h ago
> It's good they didn't flood the market and tank the price.

God forbid the price of food ever goes down. That would kill millions.

nosianu•49m ago
> God forbid the price of food ever goes down.

They did give it away for free...?

And not letting farms go bust is not the worst idea. Crops are not like industrial products, how much gets produced has a significant random component. Relying on market forces alone does not appear to be the best solution in this field, no?

That's independent of how much big agro-businesses benefitting from policies they asked politicians to create for them is a problem too.

Anyway -

my recommendation for potatoes is "Kartoffelpuffer"! Can be combined with a large number of things, applesauce is the most simple and laziest choice.

https://youtu.be/obs5MhNA4Rs (German Potato Pancakes | Kartoffelpuffer | Reibekuchen Homemade)

This is very easy to make, the only problem is that you may end up with a lot of oil splashes around your pan. I cover everything around the pan with kitchen paper towels, carefully leaving a few millimeters of space around the heating circle, so that afterwards all I have to do is collect them at the end, no other cleanup necessary.

They need to be as brown as shown at the beginning of the above video for best taste, and not too thick.

They do it all manually in the video, but I just use a mixer, which is much faster and the resulting texture is more to my liking anyway compared to having solid stripes of potato in there. It is also the more common method. Do it like in the video if you prefer them made out of small solid stripes.

cj•47m ago
That assumes the demand for potatoes would meaningfully increase in response to the drop in price.

If they flood the market, you might end up with a lot of unsold potatoes even with extreme discounts.

The parent describing "getting a wagon full and distributing them to neighbors" likely results in more overall people eating potatoes. It's likely that distributing free potatoes doesn't actually meaningfully decrease the demand for store bought potatoes if the free potatoes are going to people who don't regularly buy them.

Or at least that's a viable counterpoint. Not sure I actually buy it.

doctorwho42•45m ago
Your sarcasm is valid, up until you dig past first order effects.
seydor•44m ago
Indeed it would. Below a price level, cultivation would become unprofitable. Hence why subsidies exist
Animats•25m ago
The US has a soy glut and a corn glut, and Germany has a potato glut. What to do with all those carbs? Feed cattle?
novaRom•19m ago
Fun facts from Germany:

- Fresh Aldi potatoes are like 0.5 Euro per 1 Kilogram - basically the same price as 25 years ago when Euro currency was introduced

- Our national TV channel now shows a great collection of "potato recipes" videos on demand on its main page

- Price of McDonalds/BurgerKing fries is around 4 Euro, and 5-6 Euro as a street food

- Crisps like Pringles are like 15 Euro per 1 Kilogram (a typical 2.50 Euro for 175gm pack)

seb1204•1m ago
I heard the potato harvest was generally good in Germany. This particular company is rumored to transition to organic farming in the next season.

I think it is great to ensure the product gets used but I also heard that it puts many other potato farmers under price pressure in the area.

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Berlin: Record harvest sparks mass giveaway of free potatoes

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/jan/31/record-harvest-berlin-giveaway-potatoes
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