Edible Hard Drive

It's late Friday afternoon (2015), and the university IT department is full of the smells of frying. The door opens, and the kid on work experience walks in, 4 hours late, and baffled by the sight that greets him. Thoroughly confused, he sidles over to a grinning professor, who, between bites of oily potato informs him just what the hell is going on:
'As you know, about a decade ago, the prices of copper suddenly went through the roof, which was bad news for places like us, who needed computers, which in turn need copper wiring.<munches> We tried everything to get round this - using different metal, magnets, rocks, wood - pretty much anything we could lay our hands on, but the screens stayed blank. Then, news came through that there was no oil (at least, not the fossil fuel) left, which meant that we had to think of alternatives that used minimal electricity.'<chews>
'After a lot of thought had been put into the mattter, we decided that the best option was to invest in cheap, useful materials that kept their value - potatoes. Since then, we have developed computers with all the circuit boards (not to mention spudicon chips) made from these magnificent vegetables.<nibbles> Friday is file-sharing day - basically we pass a strong electric current from the olive oil solution that we suspend them in, then, uh, process them.<processes>We save a lot on file storage this way.<pats stomach> Most files are about 3 or 4 bytes, some are more though - look, that one's 5 at least.'
Still puzzled, the kid on work experience ventures a question. 'But, the computers... don't actually work, do they?'
'Depends on what you mean by 'work'. I much prefer these to the older models, no crashes, no confusing languages, just good, wholesome potato.'
'How do you get any work done?'
We are an IT department - the university pays us to fiddle with computers, and thats exactly what we do - look at this circuit board - that's real craftmanship.'
It is indeed - on the smooth, even sheet of potato are wired tiny slivers of rosemary, interlinking miniature salt and pepper granules dotted at regular intervals throughout. Inscribed onto it are numbers, similar to the ones found on today's circuitboards, only written in ketchup. It does, however, have a sizeable bite taken out of it, the work of the professor. With a shrug, the work experience kid sidles up to the main computer, selects a piece, and takes a bite - delicious.