In 1996 the United States hit peak potato. Americans were eating 64 pounds of the vegetables each year—more than at any point since modern records began in 1970. A record-breaking harvest had flooded the country with so many spuds that the government had to pay farmers to give them away. In the White House, the Clintons were foisting potatoes—fried, marinated, boiled, garlicked—onto princesses and presidents at official dinners.
“It was a crazy time,” says Chris Voigt, whose long career as a potato-pusher started in the potato frenzy of the late 1990s. “Literally you could buy buckets of french fries.” But as Voigt made his way up in the potato industry,
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