Cross potatoes

“It was 7:30 PM, December 4th, 2005. The second Sunday of advent, in Joshua Tree, California. Personal Chef Karin Winkler started to prepare dinner. While thinking about upcoming Christmas, she was peeling and cutting a potato. Everything appeared to be normal. When she was peeling and cutting the second potato in half, a miracle happened: the symbol of a perfectly shaped holy cross appeared on both halves of the potato.”

I stumbled recently upon a picture of a cross potato, and in the course of searching for more information about it I found that there have been a number of these things.

I list the ones I found here for your edification.

Karin Winkler found one on December 4, 2005. (picture above). Sharda Ganpat found one on December 17, 2008. Victoria Kratzer of Eastampton, N.J. on Easter 2009: “I cut the potato open and there it was: a cross on both sides of the potato,” she said. “I couldn’t believe it.” Dennis Bort found a cross potato Christmas Day 2009. According to the eBay advertisement-you can own this holy spud for $1000- “I was preparing Christmas dinner and in the process of making mashed potato’s [sic]. I peeled and sliced this one and noticed a spoiled spot in the middle of it.  I was about to cut it out when I realized it was a holy cross symbol. It is currenly [sic] wrapped in foil and in a bowl of water. I will provide additional photo’s upon request to any interested buyers.” Jim and Connie Gross found one on New Year’s Eve 2009.

Now I’m not a religious guy… oh wait, yes I am.  But what is interesting from a C&C perspective is the way relevance plays into these discoveries: much of what is supposed to be significant about these–at least in the reporting–is that they are discovered on holidays.  The first one would seem to be an exception, but in the report the day is identified as the second day of Advent and the chef is said to be thinking about Christmas as she is cutting the potatoes.  The second cross potato was also not found on a holiday–and it is also the only one that did not become the basis for a news article.  So it would seem that the newsworthiness of cross potatoes lies largely in their discovery on holidays.  I would assume that people in fact see these things all the time and do not think “Hey, that’s a cross!” just because there is nothing to make that identification relevant, but who knows?

It’s also interesting that the second discovery, the one that was not identified with a holiday, was by a (presumably self-identified) Hindu.  The cross is much bigger in hers than in the others, and I wonder if she would have thought it a cross if she had instead cut open one of the other ones, say number 5.

I don’t have any really important point to make with this, but hey, cross potatoes!