This is a true story about the potato. A little history that points out two things, immigration has never been popular with the established population and sex always sells.
Did you know that the potato was a relative newcomer to Ireland when they learned a painful lesson about depending on just one crop? The potato has been cultivated for nearly 4000 years but it did not reach Ireland until the middle of the sixteenth century.
The Irish in taking a fondness for the spud were copying the behavior of mountain dwellers from the land we now know as Peru. This humble tuber was cultivated by people who predated the Incas and the popularity of the potato was caused by the fact that they lived in cold mountainous areas where the great South American staple maze did poorly. This Peruvian climate was similar to that of Ireland.
By the time the Spanish explorers turned conquerors discovered the potato, the tuber had moved down from the mountains and became popular throughout South America with many new even more hearty varieties having been cultivated.
The potato already had a bad reputation with the Spanish conquerors since it was not grown from seed like the food in the Bible and since the spud’s family is know as the deadly nightshade.
It isn't easy keeping a good immigrant down. as much as the Spanish murders and rapist wanted to distrust the dirty and grubby tuber, they came back with stories of the slaves surviving the voyage better than they did with just potatoes rationed to the slaves.
But the Holy Roman Empire began a propaganda program against the potato when it was learned that the root offered an excellent source of starch. It was seen as competition to bread, then known as the "Staff of Life" and also the "Body of Christ." The potato literally became known as an 'unChristian' food.
So while the many new sources of nutrition from the New World improved life in Europe, the three sisters (corn, squash and beans) contributed to Europe's population doubling rapidly and the other member of the deadly nightshade family the tomato was an overnight sensation in Italy but like the potato had to prove itself over all of the false rumors elsewhere.
It wasn't very long before one false rumor began canceling out another;
But then sex came to the rescue, when a sudden belief started gaining ground that the potato tuber contained aphrodisiac qualities.
The potato took on qualities that could compete with the Staff of Life;
Later its medicinal properties were added to the list of its virtues and then the Spanish started taking a liking to the taste, and in fact, became the first people in Europe to actually consider potato a delicacy.
But it was hard work and perseverance that made this immigrant acceptable.
The process took almost a century. By the mid seventeenth century most European countries had accepted the tuber as a part of their diet and it even earned royal decree. King William pf Germany made it especially popular by distributing potatoes in his country and issuing instructions on how best they could be cultivated. He had recognized the fact that in times of famine or war, these hardy little tubers could feed his entire population. Very soon, potato became a staple crop in many countries of Eastern Europe. In France, the acceptance of potato took a little while longer, and it was only by the eighteenth century that a pharmacist, Antoine Parmentier , who returned from the German prison after the Seven Years War and clamed he survived only on potatoes, started to popularize it. Today we know that in fact, the leaves of the potato are poisonous because it belongs to the nightshade family. But the fact that it contains almost all the nutrients needed for sustenance, and can feed almost 10 people on an acre of cultivation, out bore all other considerations.
Of course it was the French that put the potato on the map. There is an argument to this day whether it was a Belgium upstart of a French chef that first dropped sliced potatoes into hot oil but when potatoes were upgraded from nourriture de cochon to pomme de terre the future of the potato carbohydrate was joined with fat and loved by all. Once the Pomme frite had a reputation for getting people "in the mood," it spread like wild fire.
The aphrodisiac qualities came back again and again. The British had their own prejudices to deal with and the story of how the potato made it to British soil is pretty fascinating. Talk about miscommunication;
In 1596 the English accidentally got their first introduction to the potato, when Sir Francis Drake set sail for England after having conquered the Caribbean regions, wresting them away from the Spanish. He took some potatoes for the trip. He is said to have stopped over at Virginia to pick up some homesick British soldiers, one of whom took a sample of this plant to a botanist friend, John Gerard. This botanist introduced the potato to the world, as a product of Virginia in 1597. The fact was that it wasn’t until the seventeenth century that potatoes arrived on American soil!! When it did, it was due to the Irishmen who had settled in New Hampshire.
The fact was that in Europe, only the Irish were willing to brave all the rumors surrounding this little veggie, and still eat it. Many believed it was poisonous because it belonged to the same botanical family as belladonna, that it caused leprosy because it had given a rash once, that it was not mentioned in the bible hence was unholy, and all sorts of other ridiculous stories. It was only the Irish who favored it, the tuber grew well in their climate and also provided the nutrition the growing population in Ireland needed. It was also considered an aphrodisiac, but that didn’t bother them!! In fact, it was so identified with the Irish that in 1733, the English seedsman Stephen Switzer summed up popular opinion of the potato as "that which was heretofore reckon'd a food fit only for Irishmen and clowns."
And with the British it was also the stories of aphrodisiac qualities that made the potato acceptable. Not just the Irish but Scottish and Welsh doctors claimed that potatoes were good for the love life. During the Victorian Era London botanist brought into the story and published findings that used the size of the Irish family as proof that the potato was a strong aphrodisiac. These stories made the potato popular in London.
The potato still suffers to this day;
Even today, the potato gets a bad press, in the form of "couch potatoes" and "potato heads". That former Vice-President Dan Quayle could not spell so modest and ubiquitous a word was redoubled evidence of stupidity. It is no accident that Robert Atkins, purveyor of the eponymous diet, should launch his broadside attack against the spud, the humble workhorse of nutrition, the vegetable fall-guy.
Yet the potato is a social force that has shaped history in profound and lasting ways. Easy to plant and harvestable with the bare hands, the potato provided cheap nutrition; but when the crop failed, as it did most dramatically in Ireland in 1845, it could bring famine, mass emigration and huge social dislocation.
Proving that some things are just too filled with promise for the establishment to accept.
Potatoes, the largest single source of vitamin C in the 20th century, affected working hours and the length of fingernails, changed patterns of housework, cuisine and agriculture. The spud was even, briefly, a fashion statement, when Marie Antoinette wore purple potato blossoms in her hair.
The potato is the most democratic and liberating of vegetables, for by providing cheap and nutritious food, it freed many men and women from the permanent anxiety over where the next meal might come from. Oats and corn could be fickle, but the versatile, all-weather potato offered independence.
The rural labourer with his potato patch was in some measure defended against both hunger and exploitation: which is why many landowners bitterly opposed potato cultivation. "Had the potato not existed," writes Larry Zuckerman, the greatest historian of the potato, then "19th-century England would have been hungrier and harder-pressed."
The Irish played a very important role in the distribution of the potato to the United States. While many know the story of the Potato Famine that began in 1845, driving so many to America and killing so many more, the Irish brought the potato to the United States much sooner that that.
It was in the early 1700's that the potato had settled in New England. The Irish were just one courier in the potatoes long strange trip from Peru across the Atlantic up through all of Europe from Spain and back across the Atlantic. When the first Idaho potato was planted the Burbank as it was known before becoming the Russet was an offshoot of the 'Irish Potato.'
My ancestors that came here three generations ago were treated here the way the potato was treated in Europe. My Great Grandfather was called a Donkey. Not because he and the other Irish were dumb. The Irish are stereotyped in many ways but we were never considered stupid. The term Donkey came from the fact that the Irish became know as workers that could do the work of three men. That scared the shit out of the soft Americans and they were seen as people who would only steal jobs from "good Americans."
It is appropriate that the Irish be identified with the potato but when you consider the changing times, very little has changed and the people who are discriminated against today come from somewhere far closer to the birth place of the potato.
Should you be celebrating St. Patrick’s Day today with corned beef and cabbage, consider that boiled potato on the side. It too was once a tortured immigrant.
Happy St. Patrick's Day