Δαφνη Ευτυχια Αρθουρος

I'd seen uncooked whole blue potatoes before, and tasted cooked ones, but hadn't cooked them myself ... so when I saw what looked like the same thing in a grocery store the other night under a sign describing them as purple, I assumed that "purple potato" was just an alternate name for the blue ones.

This morning I pulled one out to cook it. In the light in my kitchen, a mix of fluorescent and daylight, it looked a little darker than I'd remembered, but hey, it had been a long time since I'd looked closely at blue potatoes in decent light. Then I peeled it and saw that parts of it were white with light purple striations and other parts were dark purple blotches, with nary a bit of blue anywhere. Cutting it in half, the interior was a much more even purple, deep, royal, mysterious, and Not Blue.

But as soon as the pieces began to cook, they did indeed turn blue. Oh, a faintly purplish-blue in a few spots, but most of the surfaces I could see were unmistakably and unambiguously blue -- not a particularly deep blue, but very much the blue I expected to see in a blue potato

Except that, just to keep me off balance (I swear, inanimate objects exhibit volition expressly to confuse me) the pieces that got cooked a little bit more than I intended ... turned purple again. A paler purple than the raw substance, but certainly not a blue. (Corners that got cooked even more turned the same light-brown/dark-gold as similar edges of the white potato I was cooking at the same time -- crunchy-potato-bits colour.)

Now I'm scared to poke at Google about this, lest the answers turn out to be as confusing the riddle. But at the same time, wondering whether other colours of potatoes perform similar chromatic tricks. At least my breakfast was yummy.

I need more sleep. (Unless I wake up later and discover that there are still two blue -- er, purple? -- potatoes in my kitchen and I only dreamt eating one for breakfast and posting this entry, in which case perhaps by then I'll have had enough sleep ... )

Now to decide what to cook to take to a party tonight, and try to sort out how I'm getting there without taking my own car out on the Interstate.

[ETA: I didn't think to run upstairs for the digicam until after I'd already finished eating and started writing this entry -- I don't usually think of a camera as something I need to have on hand while cooking, but I'll try to remember to photograph the other purblueple potato when I cook it. But I was planning to bake that one, so the rich purple raw interior won't show ...]