Well, I did the camp thing yesterday. I drove my son and his buddy to Space Camp in Atwater, California, 260 miles north of Santa Clarita, just north of the raisin Capitol of the world and my birthplace, Fresno. I brought my Dad along for company on the ride back. During our drive he remembered eating the greatest potatoes in his life at a restaurant in Shafter. Apparently, he and my Mom discovered this treasure back in the late 1940’s when they were living in Fresno. Fifty-nine years later, Dad could still taste those potatoes.
Sure enough, right after Bakersfield, we drove past Shafter. We saw trucks stuffed to the top with Shafter potatoes. For the rest of the journey up to space camp, the boys and I heard every conceivable story about Shafter potatoes. It hadn’t been the first time I had heard those stories.
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| What an excellent gift idea! |
As we drove back home, Dad started getting more excited. He began rattling off all the potatoes he could buy for friends and family so they too, could experience the joy of a potato from Shafter. Hundreds of pounds of potatoes were accounted for in Dad’s thoughtful gifts as the miles decreased to Shafter.
When we finally got to the Shafter exit off the freeway, we were only ten miles away, and Dad insisted we find a place that sold potatoes. I was game. Stupid me.
We followed the trucks the into the town of Shafter. Tijuana has more Anglos. I was driving my wife’s Navigator and felt like Clint Eastwood getting ready for a showdown in one of his Spaghetti westerns.
We drove up and down the streets. There wasn’t a store sign in English. Siete-Once (7-11) was the closest. That wasn’t our only problem. There wasn’t a place to be found selling anything resembling a potato, but Dad was determined. He wanted to pull over a couple of truck drivers and see if he could negotiate for a couple hundred pounds of potatoes. Luckily I was driving.
After a great deal of searching, we finally found one store that sold produce. It was a little Mexican Mom and Pop grocery store. Everything in it was Mexican. Our Mexican grocery stores in Oxnard, Palmdale and Santa Clarita have a combination of Anglo and Mexican. Chef Boy-R-Dee is right next to the salsa. But here, there was nothing even close to Anglo.
It was already 6:00 P.M. on a Sunday, but the store was filled with old Spanish woman pushing old-fashioned hand carts.
We located the potatoes. They were from Oregon. Dad was beside himself.
Back in the car, we followed the trucks loaded with the potatoes out of town and back toward Highway 99. They approached some railroad tracks. There were about 100 train cars, just sitting there all stuffed to the top with Shafter potatoes, millions of them and more coming by the truck-load. Dad couldn’t contain himself. He was ready to jump out of the car and stuff his pockets with as many potatoes as he could snatch!
Luckily, I had been on enough missions in my younger years to know our little adventure would have a funnier ending (and probably happier) if we left without any potatoes and without any police citations. We headed down the highway with nothing but fond memories of potatoes from a different era.
When I returned home, my father-in-law was at our house visiting. He’s a produce expert, having worked in the industry his entire career. I relayed the story of our journey. He informed me all the California potatoes from the Shafter area are used for potato chips.
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| Smackin' Fresh! That says it all for me! |
California imports most of the whole potatoes we actually eat. So the next time you nibble on a Laura Scudder’s, think of my dad.
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