The Potato

1
The Potato
2

• The potato originates from Peru.
• The earliest domesticated potato is believed to
  date back to around 8000BC.
• Potatoes were definitely being cultivated in the
  Peruvian highlands by 3000 BC, spreading to
  coastal regions by about 2000BC

3

• The Latin botanical name for the potato is
  Solanum tuberosum.
• The Quechua word for this vegetable is papa.
• The English word potato comes from the Spanish
  term patata. This emanates, in turn, from the
  Spanish pronunciation of a name used by Caribbean
  Indians for the plant we now know as the sweet
  potato.

4

• Potatoes are very versatile.
• They can grow at altitude and in poor soil.
• They require little preparation less than wheat
  or maize.
• They are a good source of nutrition. They provide
  carbohydrate and vitamins A, D and C.
• There are many different varieties of potato.

5
(No Transcript)
6
(No Transcript)
7

• Potatoes are the staple food of the Incas.
• Incas also cultivate other plants with edible
  roots, such as the yucca and the oca.
• Incas use a type of spade called a taclla for
  planting potatoes.
• Felipe Guaman Poma, Nueva Corónica y Buen
  Gobierno (1615)

8
(No Transcript)
9
Chuño
10
(No Transcript)
11
Ritual Connotations

• The Incas give some potatoes charming names, like
  one who cries for her Inca and aborted guinea
  pig
• Acosta claims that Incas worshipped potatoes that
  had a strange shape, called llallhuas
• Chilean legend relates that potatoes were created
  from the body of an Indian chief who tried to spy
  on the Gods and was buried underground as
  punishment.

12
Spanish discovery

• First mention of potato by a Spaniard is in
  1530s.
• Spanish feed potatoes to African slaves and to
  Indians labouring in the silver mines at Potosí
  in Bolivia.
• Potatoes not transmitted to Europe until the
  1570s.

13
Reception in Europe

• Pedro Cieza de León The potato, when boiled, is
  as tender as a cooked chesnut. (1538)
• Father Bernabé Cobo The ordinary bread they
  the Incas eat is maize, quinua or chuño, or
  dry, fresh papas potatoes.
• José de Acosta Describes potatoes as the bread
  of that land. (1590)

14

• Potato considered nutritious.
• Castellanos The potato is a food very
  acceptable to the Indians, and a dainty dish even
  for the Spaniards. (1536)
• Berbabé Cobo With chuño the Spanish women
  make a flour more white and fine than that from
  wheat, from which they make starch, sponge cakes
  and all delicacies which they usually make from
  almonds and sugar and with the cooked green
  potatoes that make the most delicious fritters.
  (1653)
• López de Gomara Men live to the age of a
  hundred and more years not having maize they use
  the potato as food

15

• Potatoes believed to have medicinal properties.
  Seen as a beneficial to certain complaints and as
  an aphrodisiac.
• William Salmon The leaves of the potato are
  manifestly hot and dry in the beginning of the
  2nd degree, as manifestly appear by the taste.
  But the roots are temperate in respect to heat or
  cold, dryness and moisture they astringe, are
  moderately diuretic, stomatick, chylisick,
  analeptic and spermatogenetic. They nourish the
  whole body, restore in consumptions and provoke
  lust. (1710)
• Potatoes good for fluxes of the belly,
  ulceration of the lungs and impotency in men
  and barrenness in women.

16
Opposition

• Potato evokes suspicion.
• First tuber that Europeans have seen.
• Related to poisonous plants like deadly
  nightshade and henbane.
• Believed to cause leprosy because lumpy shape
  resembles nodules on lepers hands. Doctrine of
  signatures.

17

• Enlightenment reformers promote the potato as a
  substitute for wheat in times of famine.
• Antoine Parmentier champions potato consumption
  in France.
• Frederick the Great encourages potato consumption
  in Prussia.
• British adopt the potato during the Napoleonic
  Wars.

18
(No Transcript)
19
Ireland

• Irish embrace the potato.
• Climatic conditions suit it. Warm and wet.
• Potato grows in small plots and poor soil.
• Requires little equipment to cultivate or
  prepare.
• Edward Wakefield estimates in 1811 that the
  average Irishmen consumes 5.5 pound of potatoes
  every day.

20
The Potato Debate

• 1780s-1830s English commentators debate whether
  the potato is a blessing or a curse to the Irish.
• William Cobbett says it perpetuates poverty.
• Thomas Malthus says it causes over-population.
• Arthur Young thinks it is nutritious and enables
  Irish to survive in adverse conditions.
• Compare with the Tortilla Discourse in Mexico.

21
Famine

• Potato blight strikes Ireland in 1845.
• Continues into 1846, killing 90 of the crop.
• 1 million Irish die from starvation, or related
  diseases.
• 1.3 million Irish emigrate as a result of the
  famine.

22
(No Transcript)
23
(No Transcript)