The Potato

By Al Lowe
Contributor

The common potato is usually associated with Ireland. In fact, it originated in the new world, in South America.
A lot of the potato’s relatives are highly poisonous - belladonna, the nightshades, to name a couple. The part we eat, which grows under the ground, is not a root, but a tuber -a form of underground stem. And it is closely related to the tomato, the pepper and the eggplant, other useful foods.
The potato was unknown in Europe until the Spaniards arrived. The took them back to Europe, but the first country to use potatoes to any extent was Italy. Sir Walter Raleigh introduced them to Ireland. They caught on there for a very good reason. Farm lots in Ireland were very small, so a crop which could produce a large amount of food in a small space was ideal. The potato soon became a major food for the Irish. It even became known as the Irish potato.
The potato has such a profound effect on the Irish that the population increased from three to eight million in about 200 years. Then tragedy struck. The potato blight crippled the potato crop for about 10 years. More than a million Irish starved to death, and a million and a half or so emigrated. So the course of history was changed, and we can thank the blight for the bubbling character and vigor of the Irish immigrants who settled in such large numbers in Boston, New York and southern Ontario.
The potato had a varied career before it became popular in other areas. In France, Louis XIV tried to make potatoes popular by serving them at the palace. The peasants were not impressed, so he played a trick on them. He had a huge field planted in potatoes, then told his guards to turn a blind eye to stealing. Sure enough, the peasants swiped them all, and within a few years, the potato became a staple part of the diet of the poor.
In England, the story was much the same. The potato was distrusted. There was even a society formed - the “Society to Prevent Unwholesome Diet”. Note that the initials spell ‘spud’ a common slang name for the potato.
It was really during World War 1 that the potato found favour in both England and Germany. It saved millions of lives on both sides.
The ‘seed’ potatoes which you plant are not seeds at all of course, but only part of the tuber itself. You must have an ‘eye’ or two in the part you plant. That is where new growth begins. If you keep piling up earth or straw around your plants, they will produce more and more tubers until the frost kills the tops.
The Common Potato, Solanum tuberosum, is one of the most important food plants of the world, in spite of its dubious poisonous relatives.