RAND ISLE, Me. - About two hours north of Bangor, the forest opens up and a patchwork unravels of green, gold, and copper-colored fields set off by stands of evergreens and hardwoods ablaze in autumn colors. All along US Route 1, untended farmstands offer Yukon Gold, Shepody, and other ''new potatoes'' in five-pound bags for $2. In one town, an illuminated sign announces ''School out for harvest'' in black letters.
It's potato season in Aroostook County - New England's northernmost corner - where high schools suspend classes from one to three weeks during the fall harvest. A century ago, families picked the entire potato crop by hand with round, wooden-handled ash baskets. Picking now is largely mechanized, but teenagers are still needed to help out on the big windrowers and air harvesters.
One farm harvests the old way: At Skylandia Organic Farm in the village of Grand Isle, less than a quarter mile from the Canadian border, Jim and Kate Cook and four of their five children gear up before dawn to hand-pick their crop of fingerlings and other heirloom potatoes.
In the eastern sky, as a pink ribbon of light slowly spreads across the horizon, the Cook children go about their morning chores in the dark: Marada, 19, Leah, 17, and 16-year-old identical twins Land and Skylar down mugs of hot chocolate before heading out for a 10-hour day in the fields.
The Cooks' potatoes are sold under the Crown O'Maine Organic Cooperative name to Boston restaurants such as Radius, L'Espalier and Boston Harbor Hotel and stores including Bread & Circus, Wild Oats, and Harvest Co-Op markets.
On restaurant tables, potatoes aren't just potatoes anymore. They're called by name, as in fingerlings, which are the long, stubby tubers resembling a knobby finger or thumb. These are heirloom varieties, with intriguing names such as Ozette, Rose Finn Apple, Swedish Peanut, and Russian Banana. Favored for their small size and unusual shapes and textures, their hues ranging from cranberry to a startling deep blue.
Chefs fork out was much as $4 per pound for heirlooms if they can count on a certain size and and unblemished appearance. ''They're more versatile than the large potatoes,'' says Daniel Bruce, executive chef at the Boston Harbor Hotel. ''Whether it's a Russian Banana, Rose Gold, or Peruvian Purple, each one is different.''
Bruce might cut some Rose Golds (a variety of yellow potatoes) into penny-sized slices, fry them, and use them as garnish on a potatoe puree. Or, he'll slow-cook Swedish Peanuts with pearl onions and red Kuri squash and arrange them with duck or venison. ''It makes this beautiful mosaic on the plate,'' he says. ''It evokes these fall colors.''
Quality is everything at Skylandia Farm. Kate Cook oversees and does much of the grading in a dark, cavernous 40-degree barn. The potatoes are left here for the skins to ''set'' after picking. Then she separates the potatoes into more than a dozen sizes, including one as small as a grape. Damaged or cosmetically imperfect spuds are culled out. Those passing muster get gently dry-brushed before being packed for market.
''We measure fingerlings by the inch and quarter-inch,'' she says. ''When they leave the farm, they need to be so clean that all a chef has to do is rinse off dust that may have settled in the box.''
Out in the fields, under a clear blue sky, Kate Cook directs the hand-picking, which is done with 5-gallon pails. Tall and
slim, her tawny brown hair tied back in a braid, the Maine native sets a brisk pace for the picking crew: her four children (daughter Rivera, 19, a twin to Marada, is at Bennington College), a neighbor, and his young son. Mid-morning, she orders everyone to stretch and take a half-hour break over homemade poundcake topped with applesauce.Then it's back to harvesting to fill an order for Bread 7 Circus for the light-yellow fleshed Yukon Golds.
Jim Cook markets the 20 varieties his family grows. He also sells produce for the seven farms who make up the Crown O' Maine Organic Cooperative. He used to make potato runs in his big red van but a Boston distributor now handles that. Six foot six, with a ponytail and full white beard tinged with red, Jim cuts a striking figure.
A former car salesman who was raised in Long Island, Cook is a polite, affable guy not shy about knocking on the door of tony restaurants and asking to see the chef. ''I just got the phone book out,'' he recalls. He learned not to call around lunch or dinner. ''There's a certain amount of diplomacy and protocal involved.''
Cook is also articulate and passionate about his product. He delights in telling how Russian Bananas, a firm, waxy fingerling, were first brought in feed sacks by Russian settlers. Or the fact that Ozettes, another heirloom distinguished by deep-set eyes, were grown by the Makah Indians in the Pacific Northwest. ''We've found a real key to selling is harnessing consumers' curiosity,'' he says.
Surveying the brown furrowed fields, Cook consults a roughly sketched map and can't resist digging up a sample of almost every variety of potato his family grows. In one row, he unearths a Caribe, a purple-skinned tuber with snow-white flesh, which makes light, fluffy, and flavorful mashed potatoes.
With a quality product and some marketing saavy, Jim and Kate Cook have created a niche in the high-end food business. It's allowed them to make a living in a pretty, but economically stark, pocket of New England, where the population and income have been declining for decades.
Night falls in Grand Isle and lights go on at the potato farms that flank the St. John River, which separates Maine from Canada. Over pizza from downtown Madawaska - the family voted on pizza; they vote on everything - the tuckered Cook tribe compares notes on how many potatoes each has picked.
They have all spent the day bent over in the fields, which is backbreaking work. But when the children were in grade school, they voted to buy the farm and they do the work willingly. Kate Cook, who has taken the fewest breaks all day, rises and stretches, then bends over to touch her toes. ''If I can put the palms of my hands on the floor,'' she declares, ''I'm ready to pick for another day.''
Skylandia Organic Farm's heirloom potatoes are available under the Crown O'Maine Organic Cooperative label in late October and November at Bread & Circus stores, Harvest Co-op, and Wild Oats markets. The farmers can be reached by mail at P.O. Box 565, Madawaska, Me. 04756. Telephone 800-743-7783.
