Sahar Mourad
Food & Wine

“The world’s biggest not-a-potato”

A New Zealand couple who thought they had grown the world’s largest potato have been informed that it actually isn’t a potato.

Colin and Donna Craig-Brown were weeding their garden on a small farm in Hamilton, when his hoe hit something hard under the ground.

Colin bent down to make sure it was a potato and tasted the strange looking object, confirming to his wife that it was a “potato”.

The couple named it Dug, took it for walks and even dressed it up when they finally decided to submit the heavy 7.8kg find to the Guiness Book of Records.

The record for the world’s largest potato is currently held by someone in Britain, who grew a massive potato weighing just under 5kg.

Unfortunately, Colin and Donna’s dreams were shattered when they were told Dug was in fact not a potato.

“Sadly the specimen is not a potato and is in fact the tuber of a type of gourd. For this reason we do unfortunately have to disqualify the application,” the email read.

He said he couldn’t fight their conclusion because they had submitted Dug’s DNA for testing.

“What can you say? We can’t say we don’t believe you, because we gave them the DNA stuff,” Colin told AP.

Despite the disappointment, Colin and Donna still care for Dug who now sits in their freezer.

“I say ‘gidday’ to him every time I pull out some sausages. He's a cool character,” he said.

“Whenever the grandchildren come round, they say, ‘Can we see Dug?'"

“Dug is the destroyer from Down Under. He is the world’s biggest not-a-potato.”

Image: Instagram

Tags:
potato, gourd, New Zealand, Guiness Book of Records