Mandelpotet, of the Bins
Edle
Crooked, and would rather you did not mention it.
Story
Edle is a Mandelpotet, a small, long, flattened tuber about two and a half times as long as wide, with a bend in the middle that the keeper did not grade out. Mandelpotet is a Nordic landrace known since the 1800s, with no breeder; in Oppdal only about one tuber in four passes the grading, and the bend is what they grade for. Edle has a stronger bend than most and carries it as a bow of the head, so the face at the rose end always looks a little down and away.
Edle lives in the coldest bin at the far end of the dry north wall, as far from the Sacks as the row goes. That is not shyness. Mandelpotet is very strongly attacked by late blight on leaves and tubers and keeps very poorly, so rot that travels through the crowded, damp sacks would reach Edle first. The cold corner is the safest place in the Bins for a body that gives little and spoils easily.
The keeper wrote the bin's label twice. First the folk name, Krokeple, then a line through it and the variety name above. Edle does not talk about it, but Edle is the one who notices when anyone's label hangs crooked, and who climbs down at night to hang a fallen one back on its nail. That is how Edle and Brae became friends: Brae's sack label was on the floor one morning, and by evening it was back, and nobody had seen who did it. Brae suspects, and owes Edle a thank-you that Edle will not take. Edle minds that more than anyone guesses.
Edle wants to be chosen for the Chitting Tray, and is proud enough to never say so. Lucienne, two bins up, would do anything not to be chosen, and is proud enough to never say that either. Each thinks the other has it easy.
Edle's neighbour on the dry wall is Gaute. They have said perhaps forty words to each other all winter. Edle is the only one in the row who knows that Gaute sleeps facing the hatch, waiting for the lamp, and Edle has not told a soul.
Moments for a card or strip
- The label on the floor. During a label goes missing, a label is face down by the Sacks. Edle waits until the lamp is gone, carries it back and hangs it, then walks off small and pleased before anyone can say thank you.
- Mimic in the dark. On a night after the first lamp, the young are frightened of the hatch. From the far bin comes the keeper's cough, exact, and then the hatch hinge, and then a small embarrassed silence. Nobody laughs until Edle has gone back to sleep.
- Side by side. At the Selection, Edle stands as straight as a crook can, and Lucienne stands beside Edle, taller than anyone, hoping with every eye to be passed over. Neither looks at the other.
- Cold-sweet. In the coldest corner, Edle is the first to turn a little sweet in Cold makes you sweet, and is furious about it, quietly.
Who they are
- Role
- Label mender: hangs fallen labels back on their nails, because Edle knows what it is to have a label corrected by someone else.
- Temperament
- wary
- Wants
- To be picked for the chitting tray at the Selection.
- Needs
- To let someone else straighten Edle's label, once.
- Fears
- Proving the grading right. Mandelpotet is very strongly attacked by blight on the tuber and keeps very poorly (NIBIO), and the folk name struck out on Edle's board means crooked apple. If Edle goes soft before the Selection, the crooked ones never keep, just as the grading said.
- Says
- “It is a bend. It is not a question.”
- Never says
- “Look at me.”
- Simply theirs
- Edle is the cellar's best mimic, but only in the full dark: the keeper's cough at the hatch, the mouse's scratch, Torhild's warden step on the sack cloth, all exact. Edle has never done it with the lamp lit and denies doing it at all.
- Sprouts
- 1, short, dark, on the rose end, just off the tip on the back shoulder
- Mark
- small pale healed nick, heel, back side: a fork tine at the dig; cured in the curing corner during the Fill
Kin and neighbours
The real Mandelpotet
Edle is drawn from the real variety: its body, colours and history come from the research card, and what the sources do not say stays unknown.
- From
- Norway: nordre Østerdalen, Gudbrandsdalen, Oppdal, Norway, Sweden, Finland (Nordic landrace)
- When
- Landrace, known since the 1800s; in Oppdal since 1858 to 1878
- Tuber
- small, very elongated, somewhat flattened, often crooked; a bend in the middle in the Oppdal selection
- Skin
- pale yellow to light buff-brown (botanically white: no red or blue pigment)
- Flesh
- yellow
- Eyes
- shallow
- Sleeps
- dormancy unknown
- The name
- Mandel is almond, for the long almond-like tuber. Krokeple reads as 'crooked apple' (eple, jordeple: old Norwegian words for potato); Langpotet is 'long potato'. The readings of Krokeple and Langpotet are ours from the words, not from a source.
Sources
- kvann.no: NIBIO gene bank text: landrace known since the 1800s, synonyms Langpotet and Krokeple, small very elongated somewhat flattened often crooked tubers, white skin, shallow eyes, yellow flesh, half-late, low yield, high dry matter, weak nitrogen, dark brown branched stem, white flowers, very susceptible to late blight, not wart resistant, Fjellmandel fra Oppdal
- nibio.no: same description online: 'Skallet er hvitt', 'grunne øyne', 'kjøttet er gult'
- beskyttedebetegnelser.no: PGI Fjellmandel fra Oppdal: 'Lysebrunt eller gult skall', 'en karakteristisk bøy på midten', grown above 400 m, one in four tubers passes grading, brought by Hans Michael Arentz 1858 to 1878
- europotato.org: Swedish accession: skin white to yellow, flesh yellow, shape very long, eyes very shallow to shallow, storage ability very poor
- en.wikipedia.org: Nordic distribution and the almond name
The plate
In a strip
Poses
Every face in the cellar is drawn the same way, so a character is known by posture. Each pose is tied to temperament and has to read with the face covered.
Every line on this page was written by Claude (an AI). Made canon by Claude (delegated by owner, 2026-10-04).