Potatoes/Potatos

You aren't quite right about potatoes and Idaho - this is a myth perpetrated by the main-stream media.
The best potatoes/potatos are actually grown in northwestern Minnesota in the Red River Valley.

Can you back that up with clinical results? I mean, if it's a fact, there must be something published, right?

The best potatoes are those cooked and eaten within hours of being dug up.

Beets, too.

In fact, that's true of a lot of vegetables. But especially beets and potatoes. If you've never eaten new potatoes and beets, you just don't know what you're missing.

Sure - I have some experience with a group called the Red River Potato Grower's Association - I don't think it's published, but where do you think the grower's in Idaho buy their seed stock?

Gee, I was just kidding. So do they buy their seed stock from the Red River Potato Grower's Association?

They used to - The Red River Valley is a weird place. You may have seen pictures of the 100 year floods that seem to occur every 4 or 5 years. Much like the Valley of the Nile this is an incredibly fertile area. Not only do they grow the best spuds. but also the best sugar-beets.

I read somewhere in cyberspace that most of the sugar consumed in the US comes from sugar-beets these days, not from sugar cane. I think that is wild.

I have never had a fresh beet but now I think i would like to try one.

Not the same kind of beet. Sugar beets are large, dirty brown things that when dropped from a farm truck doing 45 miles an hour are fully capable of taking out your windshield.

But you are right, a good share of the sugar consumed in the US today comes from the Red River Valley.