Potato Patato

When most people think about the history of the potato, they think about the potato famine in Ireland or the push to change “French Fries” to “Freedom Fries”. When I think of potatoes, my favorite foods come to mind. Nothing is better than a loaded baked potato with bacon, cheese, and sour cream or In and Out’s Animal Style Fries. However, when we eat potatoes, many people do not understand how much history there is.

Many people have misconceptions of the potato, like they were first found in Ireland. However, this is not true. The first cultivated potato was found in Andes Mountains.

The cultivated potato, Solanum tuberosum, ultimately traces its origin to Andean and Chilean landraces developed by pre-Colombian cultivators. These Andean landraces exhibit tremendous morphological and genetic diversity, and are distributed throughout the Andes, from western Venezuela to northern Argentina, and in southern Chile. (Spooner)

Since many people do not know of this fact, including me, it is rather interesting how long ago this was found out. Since they were first found here, the way they were brought to Europe was Francisco Pizarro in 1532 (“Smithsonian”3). Francisco returned to Spain with the potato and within 30 years the potato was expanding through out Europe. The people of Europe had never seen anything else like this before; “Unlike any previous European crop, potatoes are grown not from seed but from little chunks of tuber—the misnamed “seed potatoes.” Continental farmers regarded this alien food with fascinated suspicion; some believed it an aphrodisiac, others a cause of fever or leprosy” (Spooner”). At the start, people did not know what to think of the potato. Like many other plants at this time in history, people believed that it had other kinds of power. Along with Europeans thinking that it was causing fever and leprosy, they thought that is was very odd that there were no seeds.  However they were not completely wrong. Wild Potatoes did have some things to prevent themselves for several things: “Wild potatoes are laced with solanine and tomatine, toxic compounds believed to defend the plants against attacks from dangerous organisms like fungi, bacteria and human beings (“Smithsonian”). Animals that ate these potatoes in the Andes would eat them with clay. The clay would absorb the toxins and would be passed through the body without any harm. Over time, these plants became less toxic and were able to be eaten by humans. However in Peru and Bolivia still sells clay dust with their potatoes to protect the consumers from the toxins.

The most significant part that potatoes played in history was the potato famine in Ireland. It started in 1845 when the Phytophthora infestans, which is a water mold, was brought to Europe by a trade boat. This mold destroyed much of the potato crops in Europe. The reason that Ireland was hit so hard was because the majority of their crops were potatoes. “It was reported in Ireland on September 13, 1845. Cormac O Grada, an economist and blight historian at University College, Dublin, has estimated that Irish farmers planted about 2.1 million acres of potatoes that year. In two months P. infestans wiped out the equivalent of one-half to three-quarters of a million acres,” (“Smithsonian”) the fact is Ireland invested so much of their land to potatoes that once the bug came, they could not support everyone living in the country. Once this hit Ireland, everyone panicked, which made people immigrate to America. It is amazing that one plant can effect a country so much, which also had and effect on other countries. Within the ten years after the famine hit, over two million Irish people moved to America.

The potato has come a long way since then. It expanded through out the world; “ Today the potato is the fifth most important crop worldwide, after wheat, corn, rice and sugar cane” (“Smithsonian”1). The world clearly heavily relies on this crop because of the nutrients of the potato;

“The potato changed all that. Every year, many farmers left fallow as much as half of their grain land, to rest the soil and fight weeds (which were plowed under in summer). Now smallholders could grow potatoes on the fallow land, controlling weeds by hoeing. Because potatoes were so productive, the effective result, in terms of calories, was to double Europe’s food supply,” (“Smithsonian”3)

 Not many people in America think about the value of a food. Most people go to the store to get whatever they have a taste for, but in Europe around the 1800s, people had to support their families and feed them. So, the farmers would choose the most effective plants to give their family the most energy. It is incredible that potatoes could make a whole continent double their food supply. Many people do not think about how their food shaped the earth, but the potato had a lot of impact.

The potato, when first found in the Andes Mountains, was extremely toxic, but the native people and animals knew how to take out the toxins but eating it with clay, which is still used today in some places to protect them for the toxins. Then, once Francisco Pizarro brought the crop back to Spain, it expanded all through the European Continent. Once the farmers first got a hold of the seedless plant, they saw all the benefits of growing this crop and committed a lot of their land to only grow the potato. Then, the most memorable part of the potatoes history, the potato famine. Since much of Ireland decided to only grow the potatoes, they were set up for disaster. Once the water mold came from the ship coming from the Americas, it destroy much of Europe’s potato crops. However, Ireland was the only country to invest most of their farmland to potatoes, so the Irish people had no food and needed a way out. They came to America, which has forever changed the history of America and Ireland.

Personally, seeing that the potato has so much history, I think that I will be able to appreciate more than I have before. Seeing that one crop had so much effect on the world is pretty incredible. Also, knowing that hundreds of years ago, potatoes were actually toxic and could not be eaten without clay is a very weird way to think of my favorite food.