History of growing potatoes. The True Story of the Potato. Useful properties of potatoes

Who Invented French Fries? It seems that potatoes have always been on our table. Its cheapness and ease of preparation make chefs of "haute cuisine" treat the miracle vegetable condescendingly and leave the preparation of potato dishes at the mercy of fast food and housewives. However, just a few centuries ago, Europe did not even have an idea about the potato - it arrived from the New World along with other vegetables that are now familiar to us - tomatoes, corn and sweet peppers.

There is evidence that potatoes were grown in Peru and Bolivia as early as 2,000 years ago. It was a hopeless plant growing at high altitudes. The Oxford Culinary Dictionary characterizes the wild potato as "a plant with small, ugly, knobby tubers, profuse blooms, and a bitter taste." There are many varieties of wild potatoes, and some of them grow at an altitude of 4000 meters without freezing. Wild potatoes are still dug up and eaten by South Americans, preferring to spend time cooking the bitter tubers rather than planting cultivars.

Europeans first encountered potatoes in 1537 in what is now Colombia. Spanish troops under the command of the brave hidalgo Gonzalo Jimenez de Quesada entered the deserted Indian village. The natives prudently fled, leaving even food supplies behind. While looting, the Spaniards found corn already known to them and a few knotty tubers, which they called "truffles". They described these "truffles" as "delicious, loved by the Indians, and fit even for the Spaniards."

The potato was brought to Spain and Italy in the 1550s. But in the warm Mediterranean climate, potatoes grew poorly and did not become a favorite dish in those parts. As history has shown, the true admirers and eaters of potatoes lived to the north.

The emergence of potatoes in Great Britain and Ireland is associated with Sir Walter Raleigh and the pirate Francis Drake. But no matter who brought potatoes to foggy Albion, they began to plant them on the islands already in the 1590s. Interestingly, the Protestants of Northern Ireland and Scotland refused to grow an unknown vegetable, since it was not mentioned in the Bible. Irish Catholics overcame this obstacle by sprinkling the tubers with holy water. In the 1800s, potatoes became the staple food of the Irish. When a fungus spread in the fields, destroying the entire crop of 1840, the famous potato famine broke out in Ireland.

Europeans at first thought that the potato was poisonous - after all, it belongs to the nightshade family along with belladonna and tomatoes, which were also suspected of being inedible. In 1784, Count Rumfoord added potatoes instead of barley to his famous workhouse soup described by Karl Marx in Capital. The count does this because potatoes are cheaper and more satisfying, but just in case, he hides from the workers - they could refuse stew with potatoes, fearing poisoning.

The potato was slow to gain acceptance despite its reputation as an aphrodisiac—Shakespeare mentions it, along with vanilla, as an aphrodisiac in The Merry Wives of Windsor. Relatively easily, potatoes took root only in Germany and the Netherlands, where the population appreciated its productivity and unpretentiousness.

Potatoes were brought to Russia by Peter I, who was a passionate innovator and a Westernizer. But, as in Europe, the potato took root with a creak and in an extreme Russian way - with batogs and penal servitude. They began to plant him voluntarily only under Catherine II.

In France, the potato became popular thanks to the French army officer Antoine-Auguste Parmentier, who was taken prisoner during the Seven Years' War (1756-1763). His meager prison diet in the fortress of Hamburg consisted of one potato. He liked the potato stew, and after his release, the war hero presented the tubers to King Louis XVI and his crowned wife, the frivolous Marie Antoinette. The queen began wearing a potato flower on her corsage and even stopped eating cakes for mashed potatoes. The fashion for potatoes swept through France. The fact that for the French the passion for potatoes did not become fleeting is evidenced by the fact that during the French Revolution, about 25 years later, the royal gardens of the Tuileries were turned into potato fields.

And in 1840, french fries first appeared in Paris. Unfortunately, we do not know the name of the genius chef who was the first to cut potatoes into long and thin pieces and fry them in boiling oil. The dish became immediately popular - peddlers successfully sold it on the streets of Paris as a quick snack.

French fries crossed the English Channel and were sold alongside fried fish in England. This snack is still in demand among the British. But the French invention won true popular love in the USA. Today cafe chains fast food McDonalds, Burger King, Wendy and others like them have instilled a love for french fries around the world. Over time, it was forgotten that french fries come from France - in many countries they began to call it "American potatoes".

Today, potatoes are successfully grown by many gardeners. It makes delicious and nutritious meals. The history of the vegetable is truly amazing. Let's remember where the homeland of the potato is located, and how the culture appeared in European countries and Russia.

Where is the birthplace of potatoes

Every educated citizen should know that the homeland of the potato is South America. Its history began more than ten thousand years ago in the territory adjacent to Lake Titicaca. The Indians tried to grow wild potatoes and spent a lot of time and effort on this.

The plant became an agricultural crop only after five thousand years. Thus, the homeland of potatoes is Chile, Bolivia and Peru.

In ancient times, the Peruvians idolized the plant and even made sacrifices to it. The reason for this reverence has not yet been established.

Today, over 1,000 varieties of potatoes can be found on the market in Peru. Among them are green tubers the size of Walnut, raspberry specimens. Their dishes are prepared right on the market.

Potato Adventures in Europe

For the first time, Europeans tried the potato, which was native to South America, in the 16th century. In 1551, the geographer Pedro Cieza da Leon brought it to Spain, and later described the nutritional properties and taste qualities. Each state product met differently:

The Spaniards loved him appearance bushes and planted in flowerbeds like flowers. The inhabitants of the country also appreciated the taste of overseas food, and doctors used it as a wound healing agent.
Italians and Swiss enjoyed preparing various dishes. The very word "potato" is not associated with the South American homeland. The name comes from "tartufolli", which means "truffle" in Italian.
Initially, in Germany, people refused to plant a vegetable. The fact is that the population of the country was poisoned by eating not tubers, but berries, which are poisonous. In 1651, King Frederick William the First of Prussia ordered the ears and noses to be cut off for those who opposed the establishment of culture. Already in the second half of the 17th century, it was grown on huge fields in Prussia.
Potatoes arrived in Ireland in the 1590s. There, the vegetable took root well even in adverse climatic regions. Soon a third of the area suitable for agriculture was planted with potatoes.
In England, peasants were encouraged with money for growing potatoes, which is considered to be the birthplace of South America.

For a long time, Europeans undeservedly called the potato the "devil's berry" and destroyed it due to mass poisoning. Over time, the product became a frequent guest on the table and received universal recognition.

Gallant France

The French believed that potato tubers are the food of the lowest stratum of the general. The vegetable was not cultivated in this country until the second half of the 18th century. Queen Marie Antoinette wove the flowers of the plant into her hair, and Louis the 16th appeared at the ball, pinning them to his dress uniform.

Soon in every nobility began to grow potatoes in flower beds.

A special role in the development of potato production was played by the royal pharmacist Parmentier, who planted a plot of arable land with vegetables and put a company of soldiers to guard the plantings. The healer announced that anyone who steals valuable culture will die.

When the soldiers went to the barracks at night, the peasants dug up the earth and stole the tubers. Parmentier wrote a work on the benefits of the plant and went down in history as a "benefactor of mankind."

History of potatoes in Russia

Potatoes in our country appeared thanks to Tsar Peter the Great. The emperor brought new products, clothes, household items from Europe. This is how potatoes appeared in Rus' at the beginning of the 18th century, which peasants began to grow on the orders of the tsar.

People did not value tubers the way they did in his homeland. The peasants considered them tasteless, treated with caution.

During the wars, this vegetable saved people from starvation and already in the middle of the 18th century became the “second bread”. The product received mass distribution thanks to Catherine II. In 1765, the government recognized its usefulness and obliged the peasants to grow "earth apples".

In 1860, a famine began in the country, forcing people to eat potatoes, which, to their surprise, turned out to be quite tasty and nutritious.

Over time, the earthen apple began to be cultivated throughout the country. Even the poor could afford it, because the culture is able to adapt to climatic conditions.

Today benefit and chemical composition The product has been sufficiently studied by experts. Farmers have learned how to competently care for the crop, protect it from diseases and pests.

Conclusion

Potatoes are now a staple food and are an essential ingredient in many recipes. There is no need to idolize the potato, as the Peruvians did - the inhabitants of the homeland of the potato. You should respect this root crop, know where it came from, and how it is useful.

Health

Many famous dishes have names associated with certain places, but not all of these names correspond to reality.

Or some dishes and products are so connected today with some country that it is difficult to imagine that they were invented in a completely different part of the world. For example, we can all say that ketchup invented in the USA French fries in France, but this is not entirely true.

Learn about the most unexpected details the origin of the dishes we know, which may surprise you a lot.

French fries

In English speaking countries French fries called french fries or French fried potatoes, however this dish was not invented at all in France. According to some sources, fries began to be cooked at the end of the 17th century in what is now Belgium.

The locals caught small fish and fried them in oil, but in winter, when the river froze and it was dangerous to fish, they potatoes cut into long sticks, resembling fish, and fried them. However, other sources claim that potatoes had not yet been brought to that territory at that time, but the Belgians still do not want to come to terms with the fact that french fries are not their invention.

It was called French by American soldiers during World War I when American troops came to Belgium. While French was official language Belgian army. In France and Germany, french fries are called "pommes".

It is curious that one of the national dishes of Canada is a dish of french fries called Putin, however, with an accent on the last syllable. To President Vladimir Putin this dish has nothing to do with.

curry powder

Yellow curry powder, which we know today - a mixture of spices ( turmeric, coriander, pepper, salt and so on), which has nothing to do with the original spice which she imitates. In India, this mixture is called masala, and it comes in a variety of variations.

The British started making curry when they tried recreate the taste of traditional Indian dishes. True Indian curry is usually made just before consumption, and its composition depends on what kind of dish is being prepared.

A cocktail cherry is not a cherry at all

cocktail cherry often call maraschino cherry, this name sounds like something in Italian ( marasca in Italian - cherry), but actually this berry did not come from Italy at all, but from Croatia. "Maraschino" is the name of a liqueur made from cherries. By the way, Maraschino cherry is not a cherry at all, but a special kind of cherry, which comes precisely from the coast of modern Croatia.

Liquor "Maraschino" are made from fresh cherries, which begin to ferment in their own juice, that is, this is nothing but our cherry.

Cocktail cherries that you can buy today are made using a completely different method and do not contain alcohol. First, they are kept in liquid calcium solution and then dipped in a sweet, artificially colored syrup.

Ketchup

It seems that ketchup- the invention of the Americans, because they are used to adding it to almost all dishes, especially potatoes, meat, eggs. However, ketchup comes from special chinese sauce which is made from fish.

Five hundred years ago, Chinese sailors were fishing somewhere along the coast of the Mekong River (Vietnam) and tried in one of the local villages sauce made from fermented anchovies. This sauce was quite popular in Vietnam at the time. The Chinese called it "ketchup". Translated from the ancient South Min language "ke" translates as "fish", A "tchup" - "sauce".

In the 17th century, British merchants came to China and discovered unusual ketchup sauce. They really liked this sauce, and they brought the recipe home. The fish disappeared from the ketchup recipe, leaving only the name of the original sauce. Today ketchup the world's most famous tomato sauce.

Sauerkraut

Sour or sauerkraut- a dish that is very popular with us, which they mainly begin to cook and eat late autumn are prepared for the winter. Some may think that this dish is primordially Russian. Cabbage is an excellent snack for vodka, it is often eaten with potatoes. However, few people know that sauerkraut is an invention of the Chinese.

The dish was invented at the beginning of our era, it was eaten during the construction of the Great Wall of China. The only thing that distinguishes Chinese sauerkraut from ours is that it was fermented in rice wine. The Germans learned how to make this dish without alcohol, just falling asleep cabbage with salt and pouring water. This is the same recipe that we have.

By the way, the British call sauerkraut by the German word - Sauerkraut, so many of them are sure that the dish is originally German.

Sauerkraut is rich in vitamins, it is easy to store and does not spoil for a long time, moreover, cabbage - one of the cheapest vegetables in the whole world.

Doctor's sausage

This very popular variety of boiled sausage was developed before World War II in the 1930s. It began to be made in 1936 on Moscow processing plant named after A. I. Mikoyan. Sausage was a low-fat dietary product and was produced in accordance with GOST from beef, pork, chicken eggs, milk and spices.

Because this sausage was incredibly popular, many fakes have appeared stuffed with starch, soy products, meat industry waste and so on. At the end of the Soviet era, it was claimed that even toilet paper was added to this sausage.

Interestingly, in Europe this type of sausage is known as Bologna. The variety supposedly came from the Italian city Bologna, it is somewhat reminiscent of pork sausage Mortadella, whose analogue we have is boiled sausage "Amateur" With pieces of fat.

German Pie or German Pie?

German chocolate pie- a delicious dessert that is quite popular in the USA, but its name does not mean at all that it came from Germany. Its name in English is German chocolate cake, but the word "German" is the last name of the person Sam German.

He did not invent the pie itself, but in 1852 he invented the chocolate bar, which was designed for baking.

For the first time the Herman pie recipe was presented late 1950s. It was printed in a Dallas newspaper and became an instant hit. However, few people realized that german pie In fact Herman pie.

Meringue cake "Baked Alaska" with ice cream

dessert called "Baked Alaska" was actually invented not in Alaska at all, but in New York, probably in the year when Alaska was sold by Russia to the United States in 1867.

Chef Charles Ranhofer who invented the dish called it "Baked Alaska" in honor of a very successful deal for the Americans. At that time, this dish was considered elite and very refined, since it was very difficult to prepare ice cream in the second half of the 19th century, it was not such a familiar dessert as it is today.

Tempura

This is a popular Japanese dish. from fried vegetables, fish and seafood, has Portuguese roots. Even the name itself, adopted in Japan, was borrowed from the Portuguese.

The proof that the dish was invented in Portugal is old Moorish cookbooks from the 13th century in which tempura recipes are written. Word "tempura" comes from Portuguese "tempora"- time. This word was used to denote fasting.

Sometimes Catholics were allowed to eat fish and seafood during Lent, eventually they learned to fry it in oil, probably because fried foods are generally considered tastier.

Portuguese navigators, including merchants and missionaries, spread tempura around the world, and in the 16th century, the dish reached Japan. In England, fried fish became so popular that it became National dish – Fish and chips.

Andes - home of the potato
It is said that the outline of South America resembles the back of a huge animal, whose head is located in the north, and gradually tapering tail - in the south. If so, then this animal suffers from obvious scoliosis, because its spine is displaced to the west. The Andes mountain system stretches along the Pacific coast for many thousands of kilometers. On the western spurs, the combination of high snow-covered peaks and cold ocean currents creates unusual conditions for the circulation of air masses and water precipitation. Rainy areas are combined with desert ones. The rivers are short and rapids. Stony soils almost do not pass moisture.
The Western Andes seem absolutely unpromising in terms of agricultural development. But, oddly enough, it was they who became one of the first regions of our planet where agriculture was born. About 10 thousand years ago, the Indians who lived in it learned to grow pumpkin plants. Then they mastered the cultivation of cotton, peanuts and potatoes. Generation after generation, the locals dug winding canals to stop the rapid flow of rivers, and built stone terraces along the mountain slopes, to which they brought from afar fertile soil. If they had draft animals capable of carrying heavy loads, and at the same time producing manure, it would make life much easier for them. But the Indians of the Western Andes had neither cattle, nor horses, nor even wheeled carts.

Potato flowers in my summer cottage

Charles Darwin, who visited the west coast of South America in 1833, discovered a wild variety of potato there. “The tubers were for the most part crayons, although I found one oval, two inches in diameter,” wrote the naturalist, “they were in all respects like English potatoes and even had the same smell, but when boiled they were very wrinkled and became watery and tasteless, completely devoid of bitter taste. Bitter taste? It seems that the cultural potato of the time of Charles Darwin differed from the wild one in about the same way as from ours. Modern geneticists are sure that cultivated potatoes originated not from one, but from two crossed wild varieties.
Today, in the markets of Peru, Chile, Bolivia and Ecuador, you can find potato tubers of the different kind with different taste. This is the result of centuries of selection in various closed mountain areas. However, like us, the inhabitants of these countries prefer to eat starchy, well-boiled potatoes. Starch is key nutrient for which this plant is valued. The potato also has a set beneficial vitamins, except for A and D. It has less protein and calories than grains. But potatoes are not as whimsical as corn or wheat. It grows equally well on barren dry and waterlogged soils. In some cases tubers sprout and even produce new tubers without soil and without sunlight. Probably, for this, the Andean Indians fell in love with him.

This is what dry chuno looks like

In Peruvian and Bolivian historiography, there is a real battle over which region of the Andes to declare the oldest place where the cultivation of potatoes began. The point is that the most old find tubers in human habitation refers to the northern Peruvian region of Ancon. These tubers are no less than 4.5 thousand years old. Bolivian historians rightly note that the tubers found could be wild. But on their territory, on the shores of Lake Titicaca, an ancient potato field was found. It was cultivated in the IV century BC.
One way or another, by the arrival of Europeans in the 16th century, potatoes were well known to many Andean peoples. They made chuno potatoes - white or black starchy balls. They were made in the following way. The collected tubers were carried to the mountains, where they froze at night, then thawed during the day, then froze again and thawed again. Periodically they were crushed. In the process of freezing-thawing, dehydration occurred. Unlike ordinary potatoes, dry chuño can be stored for many years. However, it does not lose its nutritional qualities. Before use, chuno was ground into flour, from which cakes were baked, added to soup, boiled meat and vegetables.

Difficult conquest of Europe
In 1532, a detachment of conquistadors led by Francisco Pizarro conquered the Inca empire and annexed the Andes region to Spanish kingdom. In 1535, the first written mention of the South American potato appeared. It was the Spaniards who brought potatoes from South America to Europe. But when and under what circumstances did this happen?
Until recently, it was believed that the first potato tubers appeared in Spain around 1570. They could be brought by sailors returning from Peru or Chile to their homeland. Scientists suspected that only one variety of potato came to Europe, and the one that was grown on the coast of Chile. A 2007 study showed that this is not entirely true. The first plantings of potatoes outside the Western Hemisphere began to be made in the Canary Islands, where ships stopped between the New and Old Worlds. Potato gardens have been mentioned in the Canary Islands since 1567. The study of modern varieties of Canarian tubers showed that their ancestors really came here directly from South America, and not from one place, but from several at once. Consequently, potatoes were delivered to the Canary Islands several times, and from there they were brought to Spain as an exotic vegetable, well known to the Canarians.
There are many legends about the spread of potatoes. For example, the Spaniards attribute the delivery of the first tubers to the special order of King Philip II. The British are sure that the potato came to them directly from America thanks to the pirates Francis Drake and Walter Raleigh. The Irish believe that Irish mercenaries brought potatoes to their country from Spain. The Poles say that the first Polish potato was presented to King Jan Sobieski by Emperor Leopold for the defeat of the Turks near Vienna. Finally, the Russians believe that potatoes took root in Russia thanks to Peter I. Add to this the stories of various tricks and even violence that wise sovereigns allegedly resorted to in order to force their subjects to grow useful plant. Most of these legends and stories are just anecdotes or misconceptions.
The real story of the spread of potatoes is much more interesting than any legends. Lest the British imagine, all European potatoes have the same origin from the Canarian and Spanish potatoes. From the Iberian Peninsula, he came to the Spanish possessions in Italy and the Netherlands. By the beginning of the 17th century, in northern Italy, in Flanders and Holland, it was no longer a rarity. In the rest of Europe, the first potato growers were botanists. They sent each other the tubers of this still exotic plant and grew potatoes in gardens among flowers and medicinal herbs. From the botanical gardens, potatoes got to the gardens.
The promotion of potatoes in Europe cannot be called too successful. There were several reasons for this. Firstly, a variety that had a bitter taste was spreading in Europe. Remember Charles Darwin's remark about the English potato? Secondly, the leaves and fruits of potatoes contain the poison corned beef, which makes the tops of the plant inedible for livestock. Thirdly, storing potatoes requires some skill, otherwise corned beef is also formed in the tubers, or they simply rot. Thanks to this, the most bad rumors spread about the potato. It was believed that it causes various diseases. Even in those countries where potatoes found admirers among the peasants, they were usually fed to cattle. It was rarely eaten, more often in famine years or from poverty. There were exceptions when potatoes were served at the table of kings or nobles, but only in very small portions as a culinary exotic.
A separate case is the history of the potato in Ireland. He got there in the 16th century thanks to fishermen from the Basque country. They took tubers with them as additional provisions when they sailed to the shores of distant Newfoundland. On the way back, they stopped in the west of Ireland, where they traded in the catch and the remains of what they stocked up for the journey. Due to the humid climate and rocky soils, Western Ireland has never been famous for its crops of cereal crops, except for oats. The Irish didn't even build mills. When potatoes were added to the rather boring oatmeal, even the bitter taste was forgiven. Ireland was one of the few countries in Europe where eating potatoes was considered the norm. Until the 19th century, only one variety with a wrinkled skin, white flesh and low starch content was known here. Usually it was added to the "stew" - a concoction of everything in the world, which was eaten with bread from unground grain. In the 18th century, potatoes saved poor Irish people from starvation, but in the 19th century they caused a national disaster.

potato revolution

Antoine Auguste Parmentier presenting potato flowers to the King and Queen

XVIII - XIX centuries became the era of the Great Potato Revolution. During this period, there was rapid population growth throughout the world. In 1798, the English thinker Thomas Malthus discovered that it was growing faster than the economy and agriculture were developing. It would seem that the world was threatened with inevitable famine. But, at least in Europe, this did not happen. Salvation from starvation brought potatoes.
The Dutch and Flemings were the first to appreciate the economic value of the potato. They had long ago given up on labor-intensive crops, preferring to develop the more profitable stable farming, which in turn required large amounts of fodder. At first, the Dutch fed their cows and pigs with turnips, but then they relied on potatoes. And they didn't lose! Potatoes grew well even in poor soils and were much more nutritious. The experience of the Dutch and Flemings came in handy in other countries, when wheat crop failures became more frequent. To save feed grain for food, cattle were fed potatoes.
In the second half of the 18th century, the crops of this crop steadily expanded. In the middle of the 18th century they also appeared on the territory of Belarus. In Russia, Catherine II was concerned about the development of potato growing. But even at the beginning of the 19th century, in the central Russian regions, potatoes were perceived as a curiosity, which was sometimes ordered from abroad.
The introduction of potatoes into the permanent diet of Europeans was due to wars and fashion. In 1756, the countries of Europe were engulfed in the Seven Years' War. Its participant was the French physician Antoine Auguste Parmentier. He fell into Prussian captivity, where for several years he was forced to eat and even be treated with potatoes. After the end of the war, A. O. Parmentier became a real champion of this plant. He wrote articles about potatoes, served potato dishes at dinner parties, and even presented ladies with potato flowers.
The efforts of the doctor were noticed by well-known figures of France at that time, among whom were the minister Anne Turgot and Queen Marie Antoinette. She gladly introduced boiled potatoes to the menu of the royal table and wore potato flowers on her dress. The queen's innovations were taken up by her subjects and other monarchs. Frederick of Prussia is credited with pranking Voltaire. He allegedly treated him to potatoes, and then asked how many such fruits grow on trees in his state, but the great educator was not enlightened what kind of fruit it was and what it grew on.
Real success came to potatoes during the Napoleonic wars of the late 18th - early 19th centuries. Military operations were accompanied by the destruction of grain crops. Meanwhile, a lot of food was required for the soldiers and their horses. Potatoes have become a salvation for the broad masses of the population. Marie-Henri Bayle, also known as the French writer Stendhal, told how, during the famine of the Franco-Russian War of 1812, he fell to his knees when he saw nutritious tubers in front of him.
Bread, cheese, salted fish, potatoes and cabbage became the main food of European workers during the era of the industrial revolution. But, if in hungry winters the price of bread rose so that it became inaccessible to the poor, then potatoes always remained affordable. Many workers kept vegetable gardens in the suburbs, where potatoes were planted. However, an excessive passion for potato dishes turned into a tragedy for one people.

Great Famine in Ireland
As mentioned above, the Irish began to widely eat potatoes long before the advertising campaign of A. O. Parmentier. In the 18th century, with population growth and a reduction in the area of \u200b\u200bpeasant plots, the Irish increasingly had to sow fields not with oats, but with more productive potatoes. The British authorities only encouraged this practice. “By laws, regulations, counter-regulations and executions, the government has introduced potatoes into Ireland, and therefore its population greatly exceeds that of Sicily; in other words, it was possible to place several million peasants here, downtrodden and stupefied, crushed by labor and want, dragging out a miserable life in the swamps for forty or fifty years, ”Stendhal emotionally described the situation.
Ireland's growing population was poor but not starving, until late blight, a disease of nightshade and some related plants caused by microscopic, fungal-like organisms called oomycetes, was accidentally brought to Europe. The birthplace of phytophthora is not the Andean region, where potatoes have been cultivated for many millennia, but Mexico, where the Spaniards brought potatoes. The Mexicans were not avid potato eaters and generally fans of nightshade crops, so they were not particularly worried about tuber disease.
In 1843, the disease was reported in the eastern United States, where it could have come along with seed from Mexico. In 1845, seed potatoes from the United States were brought to Belgium, and from Belgium the disease spread to other European countries. Neither scientists, nor even peasants and officials, have yet understood what phytophthora is, where it came from, and how to deal with it. They just saw that the crop was rotting right in the fields. The situation was worsened by the fact that all European varieties had a single origin, and oomycetes found a favorable environment here.
When the first major potato crop failure occurred in Ireland in 1845, the British authorities imported seed from Belgium, and wheat and corn were distributed to peasants left without food. The Irish sold the wheat to English merchants and threw away the unfamiliar corn. But the next year, the potato crop failure was repeated again, and on an even larger scale. Famine flared up among the population addicted to potatoes. It lasted for several years and was accompanied by epidemic diseases - the eternal companions of malnutrition. The 1841 census recorded 8,175,124 inhabitants in Ireland - about the same as in our time. In 1851, they counted 6,552,385 people. Thus, the population decreased by 1.5 million people. It is believed that about 22 thousand died of hunger, a little more than 400 thousand from diseases. The rest emigrated.
In modern Ireland, potatoes continue to play a big role in nutrition, but still the Irish are inferior to Belarusians in the production and consumption of potatoes.

How Belarusians began to eat potatoes

King and Grand Duke August III. During his reign, Belarusians began to grow potatoes

In Belarus and Lithuania, potatoes began to be grown in the middle of the 18th century, but until the first half of the 20th century, they did not play a special role in nutrition. They cooked lean stew from it, added it to bread, rarely baked it and ate it as an independent dish. Potato starch was used much more often, which, however, was considered low-grade, like potato vodka. From the mass left after squeezing out the starchy liquid, they prepared cheap cereals that went into the soup. Belarusians preferred flour dishes to potatoes. This applied even to poor peasants. It is characteristic that in Yakub Kolas' biographical poem "New Land" potatoes are mentioned only twice. Once uncle Anton cooks dumplings from it. The second time the mother feeds her pigs. But the word "bread" occurs 39 times in the poem.
Nevertheless, in the 19th century, potato plantations in Belarus were constantly expanding. The main fans of this plant were the landowners. By virtue of political reasons the Russian imperial authorities limited their economic opportunities, so they had to rely on a highly productive economy. Potatoes were grown as fodder and industrial crops. They fed not only pigs, but also cows, sheep, chickens and turkeys. Starch, sweet molasses, yeast were made from potatoes, low-grade alcohol was driven. In the household, grated potatoes were used to wash fabrics.
The potato revolution in Belarus began during the First World War and then the Soviet-Polish war, which lasted from 1914 to 1921. Then potatoes began to be widely eaten due to a shortage of grain. It is curious that in the peaceful 1920s, potato consumption did not decrease, but even increased. Moreover, both in Soviet and in Western Belarus. The reason for this was several lean years for grain crops. The subsequent collectivization led to the reduction of individual peasant allotments to the size of small gardens, on which it became unprofitable to grow rye or wheat. But potatoes planted on several acres could feed the family even in the most difficult hungry years.
In the post-war period, there was an expansion of potato fields both in homestead and collective farms. In fact, the trend towards an increase in potato plantings was set by the all-Union leadership, but it was clearly followed only in our republic. From a subsistence industry, potato growing was turned into a science-intensive one. In the BSSR, their own varieties of potatoes were created, and their processing was established. In my opinion, it was not so much the foresight of the Belarusian leadership that was to blame, but the desire for good reporting. After all, Belarusian agriculture could not compete in grain yields with Ukraine and Kazakhstan due to natural and climatic reasons, but it accounted for the high potato yield. In the 20th century, Belarusians learned not only to eat potatoes, but also mythologized this process. The potato has become integral part our folklore and even fiction. Only a Belarusian Soviet writer could come up with the idea to compose a patriotic work called Potatoes.
Today, little Belarus ranks ninth in the world in terms of potato production, and first in per capita terms. Of course, we don't eat all the potatoes. Some we sell to other countries, some we process, some goes to feed livestock and pigs. Belarusians' addiction to potatoes makes our neighbors smile, and we ourselves get irritated. Belarus buys thousands of tons of vegetables and fruits from abroad, but continues to plant potatoes. However, when I look at the wide potato fields of our homeland, I am calm. While potatoes are growing, we are not afraid of hunger and cataclysms. The main thing is that some new analogue of late blight does not happen, as it once happened in Ireland.

Outside Europe
“I love fried potatoes, I love mashed potatoes. I love potatoes in general. Do you think these words were said by an Irishman or a Belarusian? No, they belong to the black American singer Mary J. Blige. Today, potatoes are grown all over the world. Even in tropical Asia and Africa, where it has to compete with other tubers like sweet potato, yam and taro, it is considered quite common, tasty and affordable food. The Andeans gave the world potatoes, the Europeans spread them beyond the region, but the history of the potato outside of South America and Europe is no less informative and fascinating.
The Spaniards brought potatoes to Mexico just a couple of decades after they conquered the Inca state. Although a large part of this North American country resembles Peru with its high mountains and arid valleys, its fate there was completely different from that in Europe. Mexican Indians and Spanish settlers were not interested in this plant. They stayed true to corn and beans. The first description of potatoes grown in Mexico appeared only in 1803, and they began to grow them on an industrial scale only in the middle of the 20th century.
Perhaps the fault was the local nature, which resisted the introduction of a new agricultural crop. After all, Mexico is the birthplace of the two main enemies of the potato, the already mentioned phytophthora and the Colorado potato beetle. The latter came to the United States from Mexico in the 19th century, destroying a significant part of the crop in Colorado in 1859. At the beginning of the 20th century, beetle eggs, along with seed, were brought to France, from where he launched an offensive in European countries. In Belarus, the Colorado potato beetle appeared in 1949, having flown over the border with neighboring Poland.
Potatoes from the USA and Canada are of European origin, that is, they were imported by immigrants from Europe, and not directly from South America. Like ours, it was considered more of a fodder and industrial crop. Widespread eating began only in the last quarter of the 19th century under the influence of European immigrants who brought new eating habits from their native countries. An exception is the so-called Indian potato of the Pacific coast of North America. The Indians have been growing it since the end of the 18th century. In Alaska, the potato was an important commodity traded by the Tlingit Indians to the merchants of the Russo-American Company for textiles and metal goods. According to one version, the Indian potato comes from California, where it came in the 18th century thanks to the Spanish Jesuits. According to another, Peruvian fishermen accidentally brought it to Vancouver Island. The potato was the first agricultural crop mastered by the Indians of the western coast of Canada and Alaska.
In southern China and the Philippine Islands, potatoes became known around the same time as in Europe. It was brought there by Spanish traders from Peru. The Filipinos were never able to appreciate the nutritional qualities of imported tubers, but began to grow them for sale to sailors. In China, the potato remained an exotic plant until the 20th century. It was served to the table of noble nobles and emperors. However, the common people knew little about her. IN late XVI In the 2nd century, the British introduced the potato to eastern India. From there, in the 19th century, he came to Tibet. In tropical Africa, the potato culture became known thanks to merchants from Europe, but became widespread only in the middle of the 20th century.

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More than 99% of today's seed potatoes share common genes. All cultivated varieties, one way or another, belong to two related species.

This is S. Tuberosum, which settled around the world and better known in the homeland of S. Andigenum, cultivated in the upper Andes for several millennia. According to botanists and historians, it is thanks to the artificial selection that began 6-8 thousand years ago that modern potatoes bear little resemblance to their wild ancestors both in appearance and taste.

Today, numerous cultivars of Solanum tuberosum or Tuberous Solanum are grown in most regions of the world. became the main food and industrial crop for billions of people, sometimes not knowing the origin of the potato.

Nevertheless, from 120 to 200 species of wild varieties still grow in the homeland of culture. These are exclusively endemic to the American continent, and most of them are not only not edible, but even poisonous due to the glycoalkaloids contained in the tubers.

A book history of the potato in the 16th century

The discovery of the potato belongs to the era of the Great geographical discoveries and conquests. The first descriptions of tubers belonged to Europeans, members of the military expeditions of 1536–1538.

One of the associates of the conquistador Gonzalo de Quesada in the Peruvian village of Sorokota saw tubers that looked like truffles known in the Old World or, as they were called "tartuffoli". Probably, this word became the prototype of the modern pronunciation of the German and Russian names. But the English version of "potato" is the result of a confusion between similar-looking tubers of ordinary and sweet potatoes, which the Incas called "yam".

The second chronicler in the history of potatoes was the naturalist and botanist-researcher Pedro Ciesa de Leon, who found fleshy tubers in the upper reaches of the Cauca River, which reminded him of chestnuts when boiled. Most likely, both travelers painted Andean potatoes.

Full-time acquaintance and the fate of a garden flower

Europeans, who had heard about extraordinary countries and their riches, were able to see the overseas plant with their own eyes only thirty years later. Moreover, the tubers that arrived in Spain and Italy were not from the mountainous regions of Peru, but from Chile, and belonged to a different type of plant. The new vegetable was not to the taste of the European nobility and, as a curiosity, was settled in greenhouses and gardens.

A significant role in the history of potatoes was played by Karl Clusius, who at the end of the 16th century founded the planting of this plant in Austria, and then in Germany. After 20 years, potato bushes adorned the parks and gardens of Frankfurt am Main and other cities, but it was not destined to become a garden culture soon.

Only in Ireland, the potato, introduced in 1587, quickly took root and began to play a significant role in the economy and life of the country, where the main sown areas were always given to cereals. At the slightest crop failure, a terrible famine threatened the population. Unpretentious fruitful potatoes were very welcome here. Already in the next century, the potato plantations of the country could feed 500,000 Irish people.

And in France and in the 17th century, the potato had serious enemies, who considered the tubers suitable for food only for the poor or even poisonous. In 1630, by a parliamentary decree, the cultivation of potatoes in the country was prohibited, and Diderot and other enlightened people were on the side of the legislators. But nevertheless, a man appeared in France who dared to stand up to the plant. The pharmacist A.O. Parmentier brought the tubers that saved him from starvation to Paris and decided to demonstrate their virtues to the French. He arranged a magnificent potato dinner for the flower of the metropolitan society and the learned world.

Long-awaited recognition by Europe and distribution in Russia

Only the Seven Years' War, devastation and famine forced a change in attitude towards the culture of the Old World. And this happened only in the middle of the XVIII century. Thanks to the pressure and cunning of the Prussian king Frederick the Great, potato fields began to appear in Germany. The British, the French and other, previously irreconcilable Europeans, recognized the potato.

The first bag of precious tubers and a strict order to start growing it was during these years that the Russian Count Sheremetyev received from Peter I. But such an imperial decree did not arouse enthusiasm in Russia.

It would seem that the history of potatoes in this part of the world will not be smooth. Catherine II also promoted a new culture for Russians and even started a plantation in the Pharmaceutical Garden, but ordinary peasants opposed the plant planted from above in every possible way. Until the 40s of the 19th century, potato riots thundered across the country, the cause of which turned out to be simple. Farmers who grew potatoes, the crop was left to be stored in the light. As a result, the tubers turned green and became unfit for food. The work of the whole season went down the drain, and the peasants grew discontented. The government has taken a serious campaign to explain agricultural practices and potato consumption. In Russia, with the development of industry, the potato quickly became a truly "second bread". The tubers were used not only for their own consumption and livestock feed, they were used to produce alcohol, molasses, and starch.

Irish Potato Tragedy

And in Ireland, the potato has become not only a popular culture, but also a factor influencing the birth rate. The ability to feed families cheaply and satisfyingly led to a sharp increase in the population of Ireland. Unfortunately, the resulting addiction in the first half of the 19th century led to disaster. An unexpected epidemic of phytophthora, which destroyed potato plantations in many regions of Europe, caused a terrible famine in Ireland, which reduced the country's population by half.

Some people died, and many are in search of a better life forced to go overseas. Together with the settlers, potato tubers also came to the shores of North America, giving rise to the first cultivated plantations on these lands and the history of potatoes in the USA and Canada. In Western Europe, late blight was defeated only in 1883, when an effective fungicide was found.

British colonists and the history of the Egyptian potato

At the same time European countries begin to actively spread the cultivation of potatoes in their colonies and protectorates. This culture came to Egypt and other countries of northern Africa at the beginning of the 19th century, but became widespread thanks to the British on the eve of the First World War. Egyptian potatoes went to feed the army, but at that time the local peasants had neither experience nor sufficient knowledge to get serious ones. Only in the last century, with the advent of the possibility of irrigating plantations and new varieties, potatoes began to give abundant harvests in Egypt and other countries.

Indeed, modern tubers bear little resemblance to those that were once brought from South America. They are much larger, have a rounded shape and excellent taste.

Today, potatoes in the diet of many peoples are taken for granted. People do not think or even know that the real acquaintance of mankind with this culture took place less than five hundred years ago. They don't know the origin of the potatoes on the plate. But until now, scientists have shown a serious interest in wild species that are not afraid of many diseases and pests of cultivated varieties. Specialized scientific institutes are working all over the world to preserve and study the yet unexplored possibilities of the plant. In the homeland of culture, in Peru, the International Potato Center has created a repository of 13 thousand samples of seeds and tubers, which has become a golden fund for breeders around the world.