Unlikely God Figures?
By tony leather, 29th May 2012 | Follow this author
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Daily washing with potato juice helped combat facial blemishes as well as protecting against sunburn, whilst aches and pains were eased by treating the affected areas with water the potatoes had been boiled in
Unlikely God Figures?
The last thing you want to do is poison yourself with Deadly Nightshade, yet you happily eat from a plant of that genus, whose leaves are just as dangerous and think nothing of it. It does give us the world’s most popular vegetables, after all.
A favourite snack food are potato chips, the fat and salt within them being just what your body craves, but for some ancient cultures, eating the humble potato was the equivalent of taking ‘the body of Christ’ at Mass today.
Peruvian Indians grew potatoes two thousand years before the ’civilized’ world ‘discovered them, and the Nazca culture of the Incas revered the vegetable as a god. Not just a holy, but also a staple foodstuff, and a medical wonder.
Raw slices of potato were wrapped around broken bones to promote healing and potatoes were carried in pockets to prevent rheumatism or toothache. Daily washing with potato juice helped combat facial blemishes as well as protecting against sunburn, whilst aches and pains were eased by treating the affected areas with water the potatoes had been boiled in.
It was the Spanish conquistadors of the mid sixteenth century who first came across this wonder plant in Peru. They didn’t find much gold there but a gold mine of a different kind, because they soon realised that eating potatoes cured them of scurvy, though they weren’t aware of the high vitamin C content in those days.
No one knows exactly when potatoes made it to Europe soil but 1573 Spanish records show that potatoes were used as provisions even though slow to catch on because of its association with the nightshade family. At about the same time, it is thought that Sir Francis Drake brought them back from the West Indies, giving them to Sir Walter Raleigh, who introduced them to Ireland and, later on, Virginia.
Potato cultivation soon spread throughout Europe. In the 1620’s Frederick the Great of Prussia ordered his people to plant and eat them as a deterrent to famine, threatening to cut off the nose and ears of those who refused. Not surprisingly, this was effective and by the time of the Seven Years War (1756-1763), potatoes were a basic part of the Prussian diet.
Frenchman Antoine Augustin Parmentier found the potato during imprisonment as a POW in Prussia and wanted to introduce it to France. By clever manipulation of King Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette, the potato became a delicacy enjoyed by the nobility – even Benjamin Franklin was present at the great potato feast of Parmentier in 1767, and Marie Antoinette was known to wear potato blossoms as hair decorations – so the French people soon wanted the vegetable for themselves.
Potatoes caused a farming revolution and a population increase in Europe in the 17th and 18th centuries, more and more farmers being drawn from subsistence into profit-driven farming. This was an integral stimulus to the Industrial Revolution, which changed the face of western society forever.
America first saw the introduction of the crop in 1719 in Londonderry, New Hampshire. Today the state of Idaho is the Potato capitol of the USA, but Washington State is still known as "Potato Country U.S.A.", producing the highest per acre yields of potatoes in the world and 18% of all US needs. Washington crops are shipped all over America.
Not all of the potato’s history is good, however. Having been so useful in the rest of Europe it, was responsible for one of the most horrifying famines of the last 200 years. Introduced into Ireland in the mid-1700's, the potato proved to be an ideal crop for its environment, and by the 1800s, Irish peasants were eating a daily average of 10 potatoes per person.
These supplied about 80% of the calories in their diet, supplemented with milk, meat and eggs provided by animals fed on potato fodder. This dependence on one food crop was dangerous, but no other crop had ever proved to be as reliable until
the 1840s, when disaster struck. Three successive years of late blight and heavy rains rotted the potato crops in the ground.
Without potatoes, people and animals starved, and, milk, meat and eggs were soon as unavailable as potatoes. More than one million of Ireland's 8 million inhabitants died of starvation; almost 2 million emigrated., half of these to the USA. The population of Ireland was reduced by almost one-fourth (and has never regained its former numbers to this day).
French Fries were unknown in the USA before Thomas Jefferson served them in the White House during his presidency of 1801-1809, and it was in America that the potato chip came into being. Railroad tycoon Cornelius Vanderbilt, in 1853, complained in Saratoga Springs, New York, that his potatoes were cut too thick and sent them back to the kitchen.
Chef George Crum was so annoyed at this that he fried wafer thin slices of the vegetable in hot oil, salted them and served them up, certain that the millionaire would be incensed. Amazingly, Vanderbilt absolutely loved his “Saratoga Crunch Chips” and a whole new industry was born.
Early photography also owes a lot to the humble potato because French chemist Louis Lumiere used microscopic grains of potato starch – fixed onto glass plates of 9 by 12 inches – to create and market the first autochromes, which were widely used by photographers before colour film was invented.
During the Klondike gold rush of 1897-98 in Alaska, potatoes were so highly prized by miners that they would cheerfully swap gold for them pound for pound, and this amazing plant was once also used as the official currency on the island of Tristan de Cunha in the south Atlantic because food was the most valuable resource there.
Even NASA got in on the act in 1995, when they made the potato the first vegetable to be grown in space, as part of a programme aimed at feeding future astronauts on long space voyages. As humble as this cousin of the deadly nightshade might appear it has a truly fascinating history and undisputed place as the world’s most popular vegetable. Potatoes might today seem unlikely gods but where would we be without them?
Potato 2
Peruvian Indians grew potatoes two thousand years before the ’civilized’ world ‘discovered them, and the Nazca culture of the Incas revered the vegetable as a god. Not just a holy, but also a staple foodstuff, and a medical wonder.
Raw slices of potato were wrapped around broken bones to promote healing and potatoes were carried in pockets to prevent rheumatism or toothache. Daily washing with potato juice helped combat facial blemishes as well as protecting against sunburn, whilst aches and pains were eased by treating the affected areas with water the potatoes had been boiled in.
Potato 3
It was the Spanish conquistadors of the mid sixteenth century who first came across this wonder plant in Peru. They didn’t find much gold there but a gold mine of a different kind, because they soon realised that eating potatoes cured them of scurvy, though they weren’t aware of the high vitamin C content in those days.
No one knows exactly when potatoes made it to Europe soil but 1573 Spanish records show that potatoes were used as provisions even though slow to catch on because of its association with the nightshade family. At about the same time, it is thought that Sir Francis Drake brought them back from the West Indies, giving them to Sir Walter Raleigh, who introduced them to Ireland and, later on, Virginia.
Potato 4
Potato cultivation soon spread throughout Europe. In the 1620’s Frederick the Great of Prussia ordered his people to plant and eat them as a deterrent to famine, threatening to cut off the nose and ears of those who refused. Not surprisingly, this was effective and by the time of the Seven Years War (1756-1763), potatoes were a basic part of the Prussian diet.
Frenchman Antoine Augustin Parmentier found the potato during imprisonment as a POW in Prussia and wanted to introduce it to France. By clever manipulation of King Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette, the potato became a delicacy enjoyed by the nobility – even Benjamin Franklin was present at the great potato feast of Parmentier in 1767, and Marie Antoinette was known to wear potato blossoms as hair decorations – so the French people soon wanted the vegetable for themselves.
Potatoes caused a farming revolution and a population increase in Europe in the 17th and 18th centuries, more and more farmers being drawn from subsistence into profit-driven farming. This was an integral stimulus to the Industrial Revolution, which changed the face of western society forever.
Potato 5
America first saw the introduction of the crop in 1719 in Londonderry, New Hampshire. Today the state of Idaho is the Potato capitol of the USA, but Washington State is still known as "Potato Country U.S.A.", producing the highest per acre yields of potatoes in the world and 18% of all US needs. Washington crops are shipped all over America.
Not all of the potato’s history is good, however. Having been so useful in the rest of Europe it, was responsible for one of the most horrifying famines of the last 200 years. Introduced into Ireland in the mid-1700's, the potato proved to be an ideal crop for its environment, and by the 1800s, Irish peasants were eating a daily average of 10 potatoes per person.
These supplied about 80% of the calories in their diet, supplemented with milk, meat and eggs provided by animals fed on potato fodder. This dependence on one food crop was dangerous, but no other crop had ever proved to be as reliable until
the 1840s, when disaster struck. Three successive years of late blight and heavy rains rotted the potato crops in the ground.
Without potatoes, people and animals starved, and, milk, meat and eggs were soon as unavailable as potatoes. More than one million of Ireland's 8 million inhabitants died of starvation; almost 2 million emigrated., half of these to the USA. The population of Ireland was reduced by almost one-fourth (and has never regained its former numbers to this day).
French Fries were unknown in the USA before Thomas Jefferson served them in the White House during his presidency of 1801-1809, and it was in America that the potato chip came into being. Railroad tycoon Cornelius Vanderbilt, in 1853, complained in Saratoga Springs, New York, that his potatoes were cut too thick and sent them back to the kitchen.
Chef George Crum was so annoyed at this that he fried wafer thin slices of the vegetable in hot oil, salted them and served them up, certain that the millionaire would be incensed. Amazingly, Vanderbilt absolutely loved his “Saratoga Crunch Chips” and a whole new industry was born.
Early photography also owes a lot to the humble potato because French chemist Louis Lumiere used microscopic grains of potato starch – fixed onto glass plates of 9 by 12 inches – to create and market the first autochromes, which were widely used by photographers before colour film was invented.
During the Klondike gold rush of 1897-98 in Alaska, potatoes were so highly prized by miners that they would cheerfully swap gold for them pound for pound, and this amazing plant was once also used as the official currency on the island of Tristan de Cunha in the south Atlantic because food was the most valuable resource there.
Even NASA got in on the act in 1995, when they made the potato the first vegetable to be grown in space, as part of a programme aimed at feeding future astronauts on long space voyages. As humble as this cousin of the deadly nightshade might appear it has a truly fascinating history and undisputed place as the world’s most popular vegetable. Potatoes might today seem unlikely gods but where would we be without them?
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