A History of Food: The Potato.

The modern potato plant, Solanum tuberosum, is tuber crop from the nightshade family; it's root, known for its starch as well as its high vitamin and mineral content, is grown and eaten all around the world. The plant originates in the Andean mountains of what is present-day Peru, where it was an essential crop of the Moche and later the Chimú and Inca peoples. The word potato -- at one time more commonly spelled potatoe -- came from the Spanish word patata, which originally referred to its relatively distant cousin, the sweet potato, brought back by Colombus to Spain. Originally, all potato plants produced fruits like little green cherry tomatoes full of hundreds of tiny seeds. From these, several thousand varieties of potati were bred. Although most types of potati still create seeds, most commercial varieties, inconveniently known as 'seed potatoes', have a defective flower that does not generate a fruit. Instead, the potato is left alone in the dark for some weeks to sprout roots from its 'eyes', which are subsequently cut from the potato and planted to create genetic replicas of the original plant -- a worrysome prospect which has contributed to several major crop failures throughout the years, most famously the 19th century potato blight in Ireland.


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When the potato made its debut in Europe, it was not originally well thought of. After all, its use in the Spanish Colonies was limited to the lower classes, used more often for hospital inmates than in Spanish-household meals. According to legend, Sir Walter Raleigh brought potati back to the court of Queen Elizabeth, where it was celebrated with a feast containing potati in every dish. Unfortunately, the cooks served the stalks and leaves rather than the tubers, making everyone present violently ill and causing a ban to be placed on serving potati in court. Whether or not the story is true, it illustrates the European understanding of the poisonous nature of the plant. It was not until the late 18th century that potati gained a solid foothold in Ireland, where many native Irish people had been forced to occupy relatively infertile plots of land, where few things save potati -- and thus, the people -- were able to thrive. The dependence of the Irish on this one genetic strain of potatoes would be their downfall when the potato blight struck, forcing many Irish to face the choice between emigration and starvation.

Mainland Europe, however, was slower to adapt the potato for regular use. In France, Antoine-Augustin Parmentier, a French chemist and botanist, introduced the potato to French cuisine after winning 'a contest sponsored by the Academy of Besancon to find a food "capable of reducing the calamities of famine"' (Stradley). This same Parmentier also called for the first mandatory smallpox vaccination as Inspector-General of the Health Service in the Napoleonic era and was a key figure in learning how to extract sugar from sugar beets. He even studied food conservation methods such as refrigeration. However, he is inevitably remembered for his contribution to potato history.

Parmentier first ran across the potato while a political prisoner in Prussia. At the time, it was forbidden to cultivate the potato in France on the grounds that it destroyed the soil where it was planted and moreover contributed to several diseases, including leprosy, syphilis, scronfula, narcosis, early death, sterillity, and 'rampant sexuality' (Stradley). Upon his return from Prussia, Parmentier successfully petitioned King Louis XVI in 1785 to encourage the cultivation of potato plants. That year there was a major grain shortage, which in Northern France was kept at bay by their adoption of the new plant. Two years later, Parmentier requested and was granted permission from Louis XVI to plant 54 Parisian arpents of potatoes on 'a miserable and unproductive spot of ground' near Neuilly on the west outskirts of Paris (Rayment).

He began by hosting large dinner parties featuring potato dishes and sending large bouquets of potato flowers to the royal family, which the Queen and her followers wore as decorations in their hair. However, in case these attemempts did not produce the reaction he desired, he set up a guard around his entire plot, rousing the interest of the neighbouring community. Then, when night had come and security was more lax, he allowed his curious neighbours to acquire their own potati, which was thus adopted as a valuable form of produce.

Once adopted in France, the potato gradually became accepted as normal fare throughout Europe for all levels of society, after which time it gradually spread eastward into Asia, where it has allowed people to live in places like the Himilayas which were previously uninhabitable; during this time, it also spread back across the Atlantic to North America, where it is still an important crop, today.

Works Cited:
Stradley, Linda. What's Cooking America. History of Potatoes.
Rayment, R. J. Potato! - History