In Peru, which color potatoes are grown, in addition to white?

In Peru, purple and black potatoes are grown alongside white potatoes. These colorful tubers are part of Peru’s remarkable Andean potato heritage, where farmers have maintained thousands of native varieties adapted to different elevations, soils, and climates.

Purple potatoes contain anthocyanins, the same family of natural pigments found in foods such as blueberries and purple cabbage. Their color can range from lavender to deep violet, while some black-skinned varieties appear nearly black on the outside but may have pale, yellow, or purple flesh. “Black” is therefore often a description of the skin or cultivar name rather than a perfectly uniform interior color.

Peru is one of the world’s major centers of potato diversity, and potatoes have been cultivated in the Andes for thousands of years. The Spanish introduced potatoes to Europe after the sixteenth-century exchange between the Americas and Europe. A common mistake is assuming that white potatoes represent Peru’s full range; they are only a small part of its native diversity.