Bintje

Kornelis Lieuwes de Vries (1854–1929) was a schoolteacher in Suameer (Sumar), in the Dutch province of Friesland, who also taught horticulture and agriculture and bred potatoes alongside his teaching. Around 1904–1905 he crossed the varieties Munstersen and Fransen and selected the best of the seedlings. It was introduced in 1910 and named Bintje, after his favourite pupil, Bintje Jansma.

For much of the twentieth century Bintje was among the leading potatoes of the Low Countries and northern France. Growers liked its high yields and wide adaptability; cooks liked its yellow flesh and its suitability for every kind of cooking. It remains the most popular fry potato in Belgian frietkoten.

Good fries need a potato with enough dry matter — mostly starch — that the inside cooks through rather than staying watery, and a low level of reducing sugars, so the outside turns golden rather than dark brown before it is crisp. Bintje has a medium dry-matter content and a long oval tuber that cuts into long, even batons. The 1960 Dutch variety list describes it as only slightly mealy, firm and fine-textured, suitable for every cooking method and especially for fries and crisps.

So Bintje is a fairly firm, fine-textured all-rounder — not truly floury — which fries pale and evenly. Firm salad potatoes such as Charlotte still hold slices better. See Belgian frites for the method.

Bintje is highly susceptible to late blight (Phytophthora infestans) in both foliage and tubers — the water mould behind the Irish famine of the 1840s. Keeping a Bintje crop healthy in a wet summer needs repeated fungicide sprays. Its continued popularity is a reminder that a food tradition can make a single variety hard to replace, even when more resistant cultivars such as Agria exist.