'Red Lasoda' IIRC are usu not the ones at the store. Nonetheless, I don't know what you did but might be a tad early - even though I've grown 'Red Lasoda' and the new potatoes were quite yummy. The fam requires me to set aside some of the crop to be harvested as new potatoes.

Dan

Red La Soda is an improved variety of Red Pontiac (which are the reds you buy at the store) but all potatoes except those new very small ones you want to eat as "new potatoes" need some storage time before they are ideal for cooking. It takes time for the sugars and starches in them to convert.

Each variety of potato has its best preparation methods and its wost so you need to research and know your varieties. Red La soda is considered ideal for oven baking and only marginally ok for boiling. But it can do ok if boiled in chunks rather than whole and for a longer than normal amount of time. They are done when you can stick a fork in them.

Diced, they make a great Red German potato salad.

Dave

BTW, blues generally do not keep well, but they must be stored properly as well. I recommend reading the catalogue of the vendor from which you purchased your seed potatoes to understand what you have and which varieties get cooked a certain way. A couple of my reds this year are for breakfast potatoes, the others for baking or mashing.

Dan

It is not too early in San Francisco, because we have no frost, I planted them last Dec. But, I did try microwaving and it was was much better then boiling. The blues however, did not take to microwaving, but were better boiled. Someone should make a chart.

Someone should make a chart.

Many have.

There is tons of potato info available on the web about both how to grow and how to cook them. The growing info is available from many gardening info sources and the cooking info from cooking oriented forums and sites. In fact you might want to check out the cooking forum here at GW for more info.

The easiest way to start learning about them is just to Google them by variety name.

Linked one source to get you started below.

Dave

Here is a link that might be useful: Best way to cook different potato varieties

When I order new varieties of seed potatoes I specifically look at the descriptions in the catalog. The descriptions generally include how best cooked and storage life. We're pretty set on our vars now (same with garlic) but every once in a while we try something new.

Dan

Is La soda different from soda? The link said Lasoda can be boiled. These were just marked red soda, I got the seed potatoes at nursery, so I did not have a catalogue. They can't ship vegetables to CA anyway with all the quarantines we have here. I did searches for red soda, but could not find cooking tips relating to red soda online. I did find one link of growing tips.

There is no variety called just "soda". The name is Red La Soda sometimes spelled Red Lasoda and as I said above it is just a more disease resistant form of Red Pontiac and is basically the same potato. They just didn't have the full label name on them at the nursery apparently.

It is a commonly grown and sold variety so you can search it using 'Red Lasoda potato', Red La Soda potato', Red LaSoda potato' or even 'Pontiac potato'. All the same, just different spellings.
Dave

Here is a link that might be useful: Red La Soda potatoes info

I don't know the variety, but your description of it staying hard and crunchy no matter how much you cook it, sounds like what happens to potatoes after they've re-sprouted.
Did it have a strange 'glassy' texture?
Did you try a few different potatoes?
I imagine it's something else, especially so early in the season...

It did have a glossy look. But, it had not re sprouted. I got a smaller one and microwaved it, that was much better. It could be microwaving is better, or it could have been old, as I planted them in Dec. but the bush is not dying yet. I may have to harvest all the red sodas, because that bush is blooming.

These were planted in December? Then they have been in the ground for going on 6 months? These are 80 days DTM potatoes. So yes, you are getting re-sprouted potatoes.

It is normal for potatoes to bloom and blooms are not a sign that they need to be pulled but as old as these are I'd sure dig them up to salvage what I could from them.

Dave

I am now harvesting my second crop of the year. It was touch and go when I replanted, but I found one of the blues was above ground so I harvested that one potatoe. Since the blues don't keep but they are my favorites, I am eating them as I go and leaving them on the plant to keep.

Here is a link that might be useful: photo of the blue potatoes