Potato

Potatoes are a food item that can be planted, consumed or cooked in a furnace to make baked potatoes.

Farming
Potatoes can be farmed, harvested on farmland, the same way as farming wheat and carrots, and are only found as a crop in villages or as a rare drop from Zombies. When farmed, they will take 8 stages to grow. However, there are only 4 distinct textures, so only 4 visible stages: every two stages have the same texture, except that growth stage 7 keeps the same appearance as stages 5-6, so that only stage 8 has the final, 'mature' appearance.

Fully grown potato crops drop 1 to 4 potatoes and have a 2% chance of dropping an additional poisonous potato. As of Minecraft 1.5, potato yield can now be increased using a tool with the Fortune enchantment; previously Fortune had no effect on potatoes. Currently, potatoes can be found as a rare drop from zombies and also in NPC Villages alongside wheat and carrots. Bone meal can be used to mature the potato to its last stage of growth (as of 1.5, it may take a few applications of bone meal). There is a bug that if you jump on the Farmland potatoes and Carrots will not drop into an item when Farmland is turned into Dirt.

As a cooking ingredient
Baked potatoes can be obtained by cooking the raw potatoes in a furnace with some kind of fuel.