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Baked, Boiled, Mashed, Fried

Potatoes

Potatoes, How to Grow and Show Them, A P... (by Pink, James)
The Potato : A Compilation of Informatio... (by Grubb, Eugene H.)
The Irish Potato (by Rich, Jessie Pinning)
Best's Potato Book (by Best, George, W.)

As said by Samwise Gamgee in The Two Towers, the second movie in The Lord of the Rings trilogy based on J. R. R. Tolkien’s famous epic fantasy: “Potatoes, mash ’em, boil ’em, stick ’em in a stew” after Smeagol complains of him ruining their supper of scrawny rabbit with vegetables. Despite its humble place, the potato remains a most versatile and beloved vegetable that occupies an integral part of the human diet as the world’s fifth most important food crop after wheat, corn, rice, and sugarcane.

The starchy tuber was first cultivated in South America. Explorer and scientist Charles Darwin marveled at its remarkable adaptability and nutritional value. Archeological evidence places cultivation of the potato as early as 8,000 B.C. Pottery decorations from pre-Inca cultures the Peruvian Andes display the tuber’s importance.

Potatoes first came to European notice through the gold-hungry Spanish conquistadors when they landed in Peru in 1532. By 1570, the Spanish had begun to realize the value of the lowly potato and, in 1570, some Spanish farmers began cultivating their own potato crops, mostly as fodder for livestock because potatoes were not deemed fit for human consumption. English explorer and poet Sir Walter Raleigh introduced potatoes to Ireland in 1589.

Like all good agricultural discoveries, the potato spread. By 1600, potatoes were being farmed throughout Western Europe for animal consumption. Only people who faced starvation ate potatoes.

In Prussia, wily Frederick the Great ordered a field of potatoes planted and then stationed guards around the field to protect it. Peasants, thinking that the guards protected something of tremendous value, stole plants from the garden and began cultivating them.

Discrimination against the potato came from the Russian Orthodox Church, which argued that the tubers were not fit to eat because they were not mentioned in the Bible. Of course, neither was chocolate, a luxury of aristocrats. Although Catherine the Great ordered the cultivation of potatoes, it took Czar Nicholas I to enforce it.

Spreading from South America through the Caribbean to North America, people in the newly established United States of America did not look upon potatoes with favor until statesman Thomas Jefferson served them to guests in the White House.

In the late 1700s and early 1800s, the deprivation of war, crop failures, consistent hardiness, and high yields helped potatoes finally beat their bad rap and gain favor as a nutritious food staple that could withstand periodic grain crop failures and prevent widespread famine. The high yield of a small potato crop often became the failsafe between a poor farming family and starvation. The enhanced nutrition of the potato contributed to reduced disease, lower mortality, and high birth rates.

By the latter half of the 1800s, the potato had become a sole food source for millions of indigent Irish. The blight that destroyed their crops caused widespread famine from which the island’s population has yet to recover. However, by that time, the potato had become firmly entrenched in Old World and New World diets and inspired reams of recipes, cultivation guides, and other scholarly papers, such as the following:

Potatoes, How to Grow and Show Them, A Practical Guide to the Cultivation and General Treatment of the Potato by James Pink
The Potato: A Compilation of Information from Every Available Source by Eugene H. Grubb
The Irish Potato by Jessie Pinning Rich
Best’s Potato Book by George W. Best.

By Karen M. Smith