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The Potato

The Potato. The potato originates from Peru. The earliest domesticated potato is believed to date back to around 8000BC. Potatoes were definitely being cultivated in the Peruvian highlands by 3000 BC, spreading to coastal regions by about 2000BC.

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The Potato

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  1. The Potato

  2. The potato originates from Peru. The earliest domesticated potato is believed to date back to around 8000BC. Potatoes were definitely being cultivated in the Peruvian highlands by 3000 BC, spreading to coastal regions by about 2000BC

  3. The Latin botanical name for the potato is Solanum tuberosum. The Quechua word for this vegetable is ‘papa’. The English word ‘potato’ comes from the Spanish term ‘patata’. This emanates, in turn, from the Spanish pronunciation of a name used by Caribbean Indians for the plant we now know as the sweet potato.

  4. Potatoes are very versatile. They can grow at altitude and in poor soil. They require little preparation – less than wheat or maize. They are a good source of nutrition. They provide carbohydrate and vitamins A, D and C. There are many different varieties of potato.

  5. Potatoes are the staple food of the Incas. Incas also cultivate other plants with edible roots, such as the yucca and the oca. Incas use a type of spade called a taclla for planting potatoes. Felipe Guaman Poma, Nueva Corónica y Buen Gobierno (1615)

  6. Chuño

  7. Ritual Connotations The Incas give some potatoes charming names, like ‘one who cries for her Inca’ and ‘aborted guinea pig’ Acosta claims that Incas worshipped potatoes that had a strange shape, called ‘llallhuas’ Chilean legend relates that potatoes were created from the body of an Indian chief who tried to spy on the Gods and was buried underground as punishment.

  8. Spanish discovery First mention of potato by a Spaniard is in 1530s. Spanish feed potatoes to African slaves and to Indians labouring in the silver mines at Potosí in Bolivia. Potatoes not transmitted to Europe until the 1570s.

  9. Reception in Europe Pedro Cieza de León: ‘The potato, when boiled, is as tender as a cooked chesnut’. (1538) Father Bernabé Cobo: ‘The ordinary bread they [the Incas] eat is maize, quinua or chuño, or dry, fresh papas [potatoes]’. José de Acosta: Describes potatoes as ‘the bread of that land’. (1590)

  10. Potato considered nutritious. Castellanos: ‘[The potato] is a food very acceptable to the Indians, and a dainty dish even for the Spaniards’. (1536) Berbabé Cobo: ‘[With chuño] the Spanish women make a flour more white and fine than that from wheat, from which they make starch, sponge cakes and all delicacies which they usually make from almonds and sugar; and with the cooked green potatoes that make the most delicious fritters’. (1653) López de Gomara: ‘Men live to the age of a hundred and more years; not having maize they use the potato as food’

  11. Potatoes believed to have medicinal properties. Seen as a beneficial to certain complaints and as an aphrodisiac. William Salmon: ‘The leaves of the potato are manifestly hot and dry in the beginning of the 2nd degree, as manifestly appear by the taste. But the roots are temperate in respect to heat or cold, dryness and moisture; they astringe, are moderately diuretic, stomatick, chylisick, analeptic and spermatogenetic. They nourish the whole body, restore in consumptions and provoke lust’. (1710) Potatoes good for ‘fluxes of the belly’, ‘ulceration of the lungs’ and ‘impotency in men and barrenness in women’.

  12. Opposition Potato evokes suspicion. First tuber that Europeans have seen. Related to poisonous plants like deadly nightshade and henbane. Believed to cause leprosy because lumpy shape resembles nodules on lepers’ hands. Doctrine of signatures.

  13. Enlightenment reformers promote the potato as a substitute for wheat in times of famine. Antoine Parmentier champions potato consumption in France. Frederick the Great encourages potato consumption in Prussia. British adopt the potato during the Napoleonic Wars.

  14. Ireland Irish embrace the potato. Climatic conditions suit it. Warm and wet. Potato grows in small plots and poor soil. Requires little equipment to cultivate or prepare. Edward Wakefield estimates in 1811 that the average Irishmen consumes 5.5 pound of potatoes every day.

  15. The Potato Debate 1780s-1830s – English commentators debate whether the potato is a blessing or a curse to the Irish. William Cobbett says it perpetuates poverty. Thomas Malthus says it causes over-population. Arthur Young thinks it is nutritious and enables Irish to survive in adverse conditions. Compare with the ‘Tortilla Discourse’ in Mexico.

  16. Famine Potato blight strikes Ireland in 1845. Continues into 1846, killing 90% of the crop. 1 million Irish die from starvation, or related diseases. 1.3 million Irish emigrate as a result of the famine.

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