Tuberific! The Life and Times of the Potato

Those potatoes boiling on your stove have a history like you wouldn’t believe.

The household potato, the treasured tuber, the savory spud; today, this vegetable is globally regarded as a nutritious and all-important food staple. The potato’s worldly fame was made even more apparent when the United Nations deemed 2008 the International Year of the Potato. But humanity’s love for the potato, which manifested most strangely in the invention of ‘Mr. Potato Head’[1], was not always so heartfelt. Just a few hundred years ago, potatoes were completely unknown to the inhabitants of North America, and, in many parts of Europe, were considered a commodity fit only for the lower class.
             Even before the potato’s advent outside the New World, the spud was being joyously consumed, copiously cultivated, and even worshipped by indigenous Peruvians. Atop the Andes Mountains of South America, where the potato found its beginnings, ancient pre-Inca societies discovered both its nutritional value and rugged durability. As the Incan Empire grew, it flourished on the wholesome longevity of potatoes. Incas were able to preserve potatoes to be used over an extended time, stashing them in concealed bins in case of war or famine[2]. They buried potatoes with their dead and, believing potatoes to have medicinal properties, rubbed the vegetables on the skin of the sick. These South Americans began cultivating potatoes some 7000 years ago, but it wasn’t until the 16^th century that Spanish conquistadores would introduce the potato to Europe.

Spanish explorers first set foot on Peru in search of gold. While potatoes are not gold, the Spaniards indeed found them fascinating and thus worth a notch in the notebook. Pedro de Cieza de Leon, whose name is only almost as exaggerated as his writing style, recorded the following:

 "...the potatoes, that they are of the roots similar to the tubercoli, supplies of one rind more or little hard; when they come bubbled they become to hold like the cooked chestnuts."

Perhaps de Leon was just too overcome by the prospect of his potatoes becoming bubbled, but it wasn’t until Gonzalo Jiminez de Quesada arrived on the Peruvian frontier, in 1565, that potatoes found their passage eastward. And although the Spanish were simply incorrect when declaring the newfound thing a truffle, they were correct in recognizing the potato as a preventer of scurvy[3]. Still, the potato was not even close to a place in high class society. Over the next three decades, the potato spread throughout Europe, although more as a specimen for study than as a side dish, and was kept hesitantly from dinner plates by both fact and fiction.

To rise to any amount of popularity, the potato was forced to overcome the challenges of Europe’s ingrained eating habits, its reputation as a food for the lower class, and its relationship to poisonous plants. The latter hardship was brought to light in the banquet hall of Queen Elizabeth I, where the chefs, seemingly uneducated in the art of potato cooking, tossed out the lumpy tubers and served, instead, a dish of boiled stems and leaves, which happened to be poisonous[4]. All who attended turned promptly ill and the potato was banned from the court. In France, word of the potato’s ill-effects became slightly exaggerated, as the potato was accused of causing leprosy, syphilis, narcosis, sterility, and rampant sexuality. Ironically, some believed that potatoes destroyed the soil where they grew, and certain towns banned them outright. Meanwhile, in Russia, the Orthodox Church rejected potatoes completely since they were not mentioned in the Bible.            

Eventually, the potato’s major breakthrough came in Ireland[5] during the 1780’s. At last, the vegetable was recognized for its potential as an abundant, nutritious food. An acre of potatoes could produce more food than an acre of corn or wheat, and all while providing most of a diet’s necessary vitamins. Of course, Ireland’s thrice daily potato celebration was brought to a crashing halt when a fungus sparked the infamous Irish Potato Famine. By 1852, Ireland’s population had been reduced 25% by either starvation or emigration. Still, the successful years the Irish gained from potato farming were a testament to the potato’s fecundity.

Potatoes made their way back across the Atlantic to North America in the 1620s. Spreading slowly throughout the colonies in limited qualities, it wasn’t until Thomas Jefferson served them at the White House that potato prevalence began a steady uprise. Backed by a continual influx of potato-loving, Irish immigration, potatoes were soon commonly seen all across the nation. The United States is also responsible for the popularization of the “potato chip”, since it was invented in the classic American style: by accident and with bad manners. When a customer rejected his serving of potatoes for being too thick, George Crum, head chef of a restaurant in Saratoga Springs, became enraged. He cut the potatoes outrageously thin, fried them in hot oil, and covered them in salt before sending them back to the customer who, to Crum’s amazement, found them delectable. Potato chips have been an American craze ever since, as sales thrive even during economic recession.  

Today, it’s more difficult to find someone who hasn’t enjoyed a potato than someone who has. An estimated 19,500,000 hectares around the world are used for growing potatoes, and China is now the biggest potato producer; truly, potatoes have spread clear to the other side of the world. In 1995, the potato became the first vegetable to be grown in space, and it is expected that the potato will be ideal for growth and consumption during long-term space missions of the future. Potatoes can be found growing on the arid tips of mountains, all the way to damp island forests. They are universal, delicious, and for some peoples, indispensable. They are as varied as they are tubular, with over 5000[6] extant varieties. With all those potatoes in the world, and so many ways to eat them, a person would be hard pressed to experience them all. But let it be known that if someone were to undertake such a mission, they would be sure to enjoy it – as long as they stayed away from the green bits.

---

[1] Although still produced and sold successfully, Mr. Potato Head has come just about as far as actual potatoes. George Lerner, inventor of the original Mr. Potato Head in 1952, designed kits that included various body parts but required a real potato for face making fun. Even when production was handed over to the Hasbro toy company, instructions were included that suggested the gouging of real vegetables, and a plastic potato wasn’t added to the kit until 1964. 

[2] The Incas were the first to develop a freeze-drying process to store potatoes as “chuñu”. After freezing, the potatoes were trampled and mashed by foot, and then were left in the sunlight to dry completely. Stored this way whole or ground into flour, chuñu could last for up to ten years without rot or waste.

[3] Potatoes are actually incredible sources of vitamin C. According to the USDA, a one cup serving size of potatoes with skin can provide up to 50% of the daily value for vitamin C. Compare this to one cup serving sizes of oranges (160%), apples (10%), and pears (35%).

[4] As a member of the nightshade family, potato leaves and stems are, indeed, poisonous. But the potential dangers of this considerably humble plant don’t stop there. If left too long in the light, potato skin begins to appear green which reveals the accumulation of solanine. Solanine causes a potato to taste bitter and can cause diarrhea and vomiting in humans.

[5] A similar boost in potato popularity was to be seen in France, where Parmentier, a chemist and botanist, cleverly devised a way to increase potato acceptance. Parmentier planted 100 acres worth of potatoes and kept them heavily guarded until local farmers assumed the crop, while highly watched, was also highly valuable. One night, Parmentier left the guards off duty and, sure enough, opportunists swooped in to confiscate the potatoes and plant them on their own farms.

[6] In fact, Peru recently sent thousands of potato seeds to the Svalbard Global Seed Vault near the Arctic Circle. Created as a failsafe gene bank for food crops in case of worldwide catastrophe, the “Doomsday Vault” was built to sustain all sorts of disaster from global warming, to nuclear warfare, asteroid strikes, and earthquakes.