The World’s Biggest Ever Potato Turned Out To Be A Liar And A Fraud
Doug the spud took a DNA test and it turns out it’s 100% a gourd tuber.
The true identity of the unofficial World’s Biggest Potato has finally been re-peeled after scientists discovered it was never even a potato in the first place.
Doug — the hideous tumour-like blob that weighed the same as a small dog — was unearthed from a New Zealand backyard at a whopping 7.8kg in August. To put things in perspective, medium-sized potatoes tend to be around just under 150 to 280ish grams.
Doug was paraded around town like a local celebrity, being rolled around in a wee little cart, and even dressed up in a hat, before he started getting mouldy and smelly, and had to be chucked in the freezer. Its owners Colin and Donna Craig-Brown said at the time that they were baffled because they hadn’t even planted any potatoes — a really important detail, in hindsight.
Its only other competitor, and current record holder, was grown by Peter Glazebrook, otherwise known as that old man who also grew a really, really big onion. The British predecessor weighed just under 5kg when discovered back from 2011.
Fast forward seven months, and the leading body in all things record-worthy delivered the bad news to the Craig-Brown household about Doug’s true origin story, unmasked like a Scooby-Doo villain.
Guinness World Records emailed the family last week to say that after rigorous scientific testing, Doug was actually found to be a gourd tuber. He therefore had to be disqualified from making history as the World’s Biggest Potato. “What can you say?” said Colin to the Associated Press. “We can’t say we don’t believe you, because we gave them the DNA stuff.”
Colin, originally from Victoria, said his newfound dreams haven’t been crushed just yet. While Doug was self-sown, and failed him on the world stage, he’ll now invest his time deliberately growing potatoes from seed with the intention of harvesting an actual record-breaker next time.
Watch out Peter, there might be a new potato sheriff in town soon. “Doug is the destroyer from Down Under,” said Colin. “He is the world’s biggest not-a-potato.”