In 1537, conquistadors ransacking a mountain village in Peru discovered a store of lumpy tubers that they mistook for truffles, but in reality they were potatoes.
Today the worldwide potato industry represents over $ 100 billion (2008 prices), thrice as much as all the gold conquistadors ever looted from the Incas.
Potatoes are the powerhouse of nutrition and feed considerably more people per hectare planted than grains.
They grow at cool temperatures and in the tropics, or at high altitudes, in poor soils, and are the fourth most important harvest after rice, wheat and corn. Grains store well potatoes do not. Incas invented the forerunner of freeze-drying by leaving the spuds out of doors overnight and trampling them the following morning to squeeze out the water. The process was repeated several times to obtain white flour that was easy to transport and which could be stored for very long periods.
When Spanish priests who were always travelling with conquistadors brought the plant to Europe they encountered several problems – the population rejected potatoes because there was no mention of potatoes in the Bible and they were ignorant of the deadly leaves of the plant, and had no knowledge of potato.
All kinds of false rumours about the tuber circulated in Victorian England. Here are some – causes syphilis, sterility, leprosy, they are poisonous.
But there were also people familiar with botany who advocated planting, Frederick the Great of Prussia had his officials distribute potato seeds to farmers. Those who refused to plant were threatened with the loss of their noses.

John Foster in 1664 (England) advocated potato farming, but the most successful promoter of potatoes was Antoine- Augustine Parmentier, a French army pharmacist who had to subsist on potatoes being a prisoner of war during the Seven Years’ War (1763). After he was released he convinced Louis XIV to promote potatoes, through lavish banquets for courtiers and which offered any courses containing potatoes.
B. Franklin, the American ambassador to France, was sufficiently impressed to promote potato cultivation in the U.S.A.
Parmentier’s greatest genius was to plant a field that was heavily guarded. This made local farmers exceedingly curious. One night the ordered guards off duty and farmers stripped the field bare to plant the crop in their fields; he had expected that to happen.
To this day, there is a potato preparation called pommes Parmentier in his honour.
In war-torn and starving Ireland the potato found an eager audience when it arrives at eh beginning of the 17th century. When Europeans started colonizing the worlds, potato cultivation went with them to India, Asia, Canada, the U.S.A. Port Royal (Nova Scotia) records show potato cultivatio0n in 1623, and Price Edward Island in 1773.

The potato is almost the perfect food with sufficient potassium, high fibre, vitamin C and happens to be fat free. Germans, Poles, Russians are big potato fans, and have many recipes, but the French invented most and most sophisticated ones to the tune of more than 110.

Guest Writer – Hrayr Berberoglu E-mail or interested in his books?.

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Tags: Potato, vegetable

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