Potatoes — mashed, roasted, au gratin, you name it — are a Thanksgiving Day tradition. But for fourth generation farmer Sponheim, they’re a year-round focus, as she helps grow red and white potatoes at Michael Family Farms in Urbana with her brother and her dad.
As “passionate potato people,” Sponheim said a family tradition is hosting a potato bar where everyone creates their own dish with unique toppings. However, her personal family favorite is how her mom makes mashed potatoes on Thanksgiving.
“I like seeing the different takes on it, especially when more and more you see the traditional — the scalloped, the mashed, but we’ve gotten feedback on different recipes, using more like a southwestern seasoning and flavors,” she said. “Still having potatoes for Thanksgiving, but they’re more cultural flavors, which is cool.”
Credit: Bill Lackey
Credit: Bill Lackey
Sponheim worked at John Deere for 11 years after she graduated from The Ohio State University, and started working with the farm in 2019. Michael Family Farms started in 2014 and the current facility was built in 2020.
The farm is a year-round supplier for the Great Lakes region. The family stores their round white and red potatoes at the farm in Urbana, but the russets and yellows are grown and stored by their partners in Southern Michigan and Northern Indiana.
They grow potatoes and then harvest from August through October. Sponheim said to store the potatoes, they want it to be 55 degrees or lower so they don’t sweat because moisture isn’t good for them. The location has to be dark and have air circulation with forced air and fans to make the “best sleeping environment” until they are needed.
“Our storages hold about 5 million pounds of potatoes. In comparison, during Thanksgiving time, we’re doing 80 to 100 semi-truck loads a week. This is our Super Bowl,” she said a week before Thanksgiving. “Last week and this week is our Super Bowl of potatoes, and we’re in the fourth quarter. In a normal week, we’re doing 40 to 60 loads a week.”
Sponheim called the potato a versatile vegetable that will keep you energized all holiday season long. With more potassium than a banana (620 mg in a 5.3-ounce serving), 30% of daily Vitamin C (27 mg), 3g of plant based protein and 2g of fiber, potatoes can be made in many different ways.
Credit: Bill Lackey
Credit: Bill Lackey
“My family’s always on the go. But we eat potatoes at least four to five times a week,” she said. “Potatoes have complex carbohydrates, which give you energy over time, and they don’t spike your blood sugar. You eat a baked potato, you’re going to have energy, the carbohydrates your body needs to work out and so it’s kind of fueling.”
Around Thanksgiving, Sponheim said they also sometimes have taken the peels of the potatoes and made potato chips out of them to eliminate food waste. She said you take the peels, dry them out, put them in the air fryer, and you have chips that you can eat or smash up as a crunchy topping.
They’ve also used leftover mashed potatoes to make potato pancakes. A new potato tradition is lefse, which is a Norwegian potato that’s like a tortilla, but made out of potatoes, that you can use for breakfast burritos or a dessert.
Her other favorites include her aunt Beth’s cheesy potato casserole, her mom’s potato soup recipe, and something she calls firecrackers, which are little red potatoes, roasted, smashed, seasoned with a red pepper mix and roasted again. She said they come out like thick chips.
As for the history of the farm, Sponheim’s great-grandfather started growing round white potatoes seasonally around the New Carlisle area, then her grandfather moved up to the Urbana area, then her dad continued the farm with his brothers. In the 2000s, they decided to go year-round, with her uncle also growing vegetables, and partnering with Fresh Solutions Network to be “locally grown with a national reach.”
Credit: Bill Lackey
Credit: Bill Lackey
The family grows, packs and ships to several larger chains and serves local distributors.
“We like serving local communities and that’s what our, I call it, bread and butter, is,” Sponheim said, explaining that she and her brother like feeding their neighbors because that’s what they “grew up on” and would “like to continue to try to keep it local.”
As a potato advocate, Sponheim serves on the National Potato Council as the delegate for Ohio, and on the board and nutrition committee for Potatoes USA, to give them a voice when Washington D.C. is making decisions that can impact the farm and so they can give them good information.
Sponheim’s family has few limits to their potato involvement — her kids love the “Supertato” children’s books for a “fun way to see vegetables in action,” they have stress balls in the shape of a potato, a potato quote sign she keeps in her kitchen and a collection of Mr. Potato Heads. There’s a book that shows all the different types of potatoes the family sells, and several stickers that say “Saved by the Spud”, “Teenage Mutant Ninja Taters” and “Power Potatoes.”
“Potatoes I think are unique from a vegetable standpoint in that they have high nutrient value but they’re also economical ... Potatoes are a great staple. They’re versatile. I tried to name all the different ways that you can make dishes out of potatoes and its infinite. And kids love it,” she said.
Credit: Bill Lackey
Credit: Bill Lackey
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