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Hey all,I am not sure if this is posted in the right section but I could not find a better place for it since I think this period represents my topic the best.Have any of you guys ever been fascinated with something a lot of us maybe take for granted, such as the potato? I eat these things very frequently and it was a huge part of my diet growing up and probably for many of you as well but it has made quite a long journey before westerners started eating them.I believe they originally came from the Peruvian Andes and in my travels their potatoes as well as the choices available to me in Colombia were fantastic and they are used in many tasty dishes. They have potatoes big and small of many different varieties and I would recommend them over the much revered Idaho potatoes any day of the week if only they were readily available.I looked into it a bit and it seems that they were brought back to Spain from the conquistadors and they used them as rations aboard their ships because it was a lot better than hard tack (probably anything is better than hard tack) and it could keep fairly well whereas many of the other foodstuffs were too difficult to keep onboard for long periods of time without going bad.Probably many people think of Ireland when they think of the potato, for better or for worse, but I am under the impression that beachcombers in Ireland came across flotsam from wrecked Spanish ships after 1588 and they found kegs packed with potatoes and that's where they came across them and subsequently started to grow their own.Nowadays the potato is a standby for many people around the world and is enjoyed in many different ways but I still prefer mine baked!What do you guys think about this? Have you ever looked into the history of the potato?
I have briefly looked into it as part of a class where we delved into the Irish Potato Famines of the 1840's.I also agree that Idaho potatoes are not the best. We get a golden potato over here in Germany that has much more starch than Idaho spuds and both tastes better and is used to make Klo?e, which is a kind of potato dumpling that is a Bavarian specialty and goes awesome with many German dishes such as Sauerbraten or Venison.Incidentally, my wife did not believe me at first when I told her that potatoes were not native to Europe and had only been introduced after the colonization of America.Side note: This ? is not a b, it is called a sharp s and it's sound is kind of an abbreviated hiss. It only exists in German and it took me quite awhile to get the sound of it down.
Fried with mayonnaise, a delight !
Must be a delight for heart surgeons too since eating this will keep them employed.
From Chile to worldwide, the potato is considered as the world's fourth-largest food crop. It remains an essential crop in Europe (especially eastern and central Europe). First brought by Spanish ships back to Peru, it seems that Basque fishermen from Spain used potatoes as ships stores for their voyages across Atlantic in the 15th century, and introduced the tuber to western Ireland, where they landed to dry their cod, and in England by Francis Drake with his Spanish booty.Spain had an empire across Europe and brought potatoes for their armies. Peasants adopted the crop, which was less often pillaged by marauding armies than above-ground stores of grain.French physician Antoine Parmentier studied the potato intensely and in Examen chymique des pommes de terres (Paris, 1774) showed their enormous nutritional value.During the Little Ice Age, traditional crops did not produce as reliably as before but potatoes still contributed adequately to food supplies during colder years.The expansion of potato in Ireland was due entirely to landless labourers renting tiny plots from landowners, a heavy dependence on a low potato variety led to the disaster known as The Great Famine, and several other factors as well (potato dependency, failure in food supply, Property Act, etc. (see The Ballinglass Incident))
I watched a special on the American cultures before Columbus and they also identified the Andes as the source. It and corn were both the result of primitive genetic engineering, where stocks of plants were cross bred for many generations before they became suitable crops. I think corn started more in Central to North America. Both crops were spread by native traders before Europeans arrived in force.
