Potato History

Potatoes became a staple in the diet of many as they were discovered around the world. They are still an important part of the diet of many today. ("International year of," 2008)

In the 1620s the potato was introduced to the colony of Virginia courtesy of the British governor of the Bahamas. The potato didn’t truly spread until it received a seal of approval from Thomas Jefferson after serving them to guests at the White House (Chapman, n.d.). The potato continued it’s spread across the world and eventually became a staple part of meals (and snacks) the world over.

When Europeans went to the new world they learned how to grow subsistent crops like the potatoes. Potatoes saved many lives in parts of Ireland, Scotland, and especially Russia, because of their harsh environment potatoes are one of the few crops that can grow. And as a result hundreds of thousands of people didn’t starve, which helped lead to European expansion.

What many people only know about Christopher Columbus’s expedition is that he found the Americas. While this is true, he did find a completely new frontier that was unknown to the Old World, his findings re-shaped global consumption patterns from the seventeenth century. He found a New World filled with resources that the old world hasn’t seen before. When he found the new world he brought with him European plants and animal species that were foreign to the citizens of the New World. The Columbian Exchange introduced many foods that are still essential to consumption in today’s world along with the seventeenth to nineteenth centuries. The potato is a prime example of how the Columbian Exchange changed global consumption patterns because it was nutritious and had an abundant amount of calories in it and caused a mass population increase in areas where the potato was available. The use of slaves also increased exponentially when sugar cane was introduced. This was a very cheap, productive way to produce a large amount of sugar and it was used by many Old World countries. The findings of these new world products created a rise in global consumption and production because products were introduced to the both the New World and the Old World and there instantly became a large spike in the availability of products. Along with this, the old world decided to go out and get themselves involved in the New World because they saw an opportunity

Before 1500, potatoes were not become outside of South America. By the 1840s, Ireland was so subject to the potato that the proximate reason for the Incomparable Starvation was a potato malady. Potatoes in the long run turned into an imperative staple of the eating regimen in quite a bit of Europe. Numerous European rulers, including Frederick the Incomparable of Prussia and Catherine the Incomparable of Russia, supported the development of the potato. Maize and cassava, acquainted with the Portuguese from South America in the sixteenth century, have supplanted sorghum and millet as Africa's most essential sustenance crops. sixteenth century Spanish colonizers acquainted new staple yields with Asia from the Americas, including maize and sweet potatoes, and along these lines added to populace development in Asia. Tomatoes, which came to Europe from the New World by means of Spain, were at first prized in Italy basically for their decorative esteem . From the nineteenth century tomato sauces wound up run of the mill of Neapolitan food and, eventually, Italian cooking when all is said in done. Espresso from Africa and the Center East and sugarcane from the Spanish West Independents turned into the fundamental fare product harvests of broad Latin American manors. Acquainted with India by the Portuguese, bean stew and potatoes from South America have turned into a basic piece of Indian

He enormously increased the number of kinds of foods and quantities of food by both plant and animal sources. New food crops have enabled people to live in places where they previously had only slim means of feeding themselves. Each new cargo brought new changes to the European diet, helping to improve eating and strengthening national identities with cultural foods. Some of the exotic new crops had humble beginnings; before the tomato made its way into European diets, it was a weed in the Aztec maize fields. The potatoes which hung on to Spanish ships wasn't welcomed at first either; Europeans found it unappetizing. But packing more calories per acre than any European grain, the potato eventually became the dominant food of northern Europe's working class.

They became as important as wheat and rice. After they were settled down, people could not imagine their lives without those accustomed crops. Because of no necessity in cultivated soil, potato and corn grew well almost everywhere. Those crops saved lives of huge numbers of European poor people. Pigs and cattle were feed, which led to the increase of meat on the markets. The population of Europe and Asia grew tremendously since potato and maize were first introduced to the people. “Between 1650 and 1750, the population of Europe, including Asiatic Russia, increased from 103 million to 144; the population of Asia, excluding Russia, increased from 327 million to 475 million” (Stearns et al.

Potatoes were prime to the Americas and even Europe (when they were shipped back) as they were resistant to cold and could grow in very thin soil. In Europe, it supported the sailors, and even the lower class, only adding to its value. It had also saved Ireland from extinction as it was their only choice to avoid starvation (and began a huge Irish stereotype, among

In the summer of 1845 a potato disease struck Ireland. A fungus Photophthora Infestans turned the potato harvest into decaying blackish masses of rottenness, unfit for human or animal consumption. Potato diseases had

The Columbian Exchange had a negative and positive impact on both the Europeans and the American Indians. With the exchange of foods, animals, plants, culture, and many other things these people were able to develop new ways of life on both sides of the world. The people throughout Europe were able to benefit from wheat, grain and rye. They had animals such as horses that were able to help them work, travel, and of course their meat was used for food.

Farming was the way of life for the Indians. Indians had farmed almost all of their food products, with the exception of meats. The farming of corn, wheat, and barley were most intriguing to the Europeans. The Europeans took these new crops back to the Old World where they introduced them to the Kings. Once, the value of these crops was discovered Kings from all over the Old World funded more and more trips back to the New World. According to A. Brinkley (pg. 15), such foods as squash, pumpkins, beans, sweet potatoes, tomatoes, peppers, and potatoes all found their way into European diets. With all their intriguing gadgets, the white men brought deadly diseases to the Native Americans.

The potato also reminds him of his mother’s stories, and the different in cultures between America and Peru. “Are potatoes harvested at night in the moonlight? He was surprised how little he knew about something that came from his own country. As he thought about it, he believed harvest wasn’t even the correct term. Gathering? Digging? What do you call this harvest from under the earth?” (Pg 313, Ortega) The father is trying to remember how potatoes are harvested, and it surprised him that how little he actually knew about them. It shows that the lost of his old culture when he lives in Peru and he is a bite guilty and astonish that he doesn’t know this simply and base facts about his culture. “Boiled, baked, fried, or stewed: the ways of cooking potatoes were a long story in themselves. He remembered what his mother had told him as a child: at harvest time, the largest potatoes would be roasted for everybody, and, in the fire, they would open up just like flowers. The potatoes were probably the one of the lost varieties, the kind that turned into flowers in the flames.” (Pg 313, Ortega)The culture of Peru is reflected through the symbol potato. The father think about the time when he was a child and his mother told him stories about his culture and how different ways the potatoes were cooked in the past. So when the father cooks the potato it reminds him of the culture of peru and all the different ways that people there cooks

From the Andes to Europe, the tomato was first cultivated by the Aztecs and Incas at around 700 AD. It was not brought into Europe until 1492 when Christopher Columbus sailed across the Atlantic Ocean, then causing the Columbian Exchange. The tomato is the most important food that was brought into Europe from the Columbian Exchange because it is so widely used everywhere today. The first tomato came from present day Peru and wild tomatoes can still be found in the Andes. “The tomato is a native of the lower Andes, cultivated by the Aztecs in Mexico" (Origins of Tomatoes, 1).

The word “cacao” and the first data concerning these valuable beans were derived by Europeans who came to the new World from the Maya of the Yucatan Peninsula who made chocolate drinks to their nobility and presented them in beautiful vessels to their rulers. These people were probably the first in human history to turn cacao beans into chocolate. However, the word “cacao” is believed to be much older and originate from “kakwa”, the word of the Olmecs, the earliest of civilizations that existed in the Americas (Coe et al., 457). The old inhabitants of South America realizing the delicious qualities of the cacao fruit tree domesticated it and later spread it from the northwestern part of the Amazon basin along the trade routes. The key event was the invention of converting cacao tree seeds into chocolate that is believed to have taken place around 1800 BC. Maya also benefited from getting cacao as a

The potato seems to us today to be such a staple food that it is hard to believe that it has only been accepted as edible by most of the Western world for the past 200 years. Our story begins thousands of years ago, in South America—Peru,