What was the Irish potato famine?
Ironically, the dependable potato was responsible for one of the most horrifying famines of the last 200 years. Introduced into Ireland in the mid-1700s, the potato proved to be an ideal crop for its environment. Ireland gets an average of 60 inches of precipitation each year, in general too much for potatoes. However, the precipitation is mostly in the form of soft misty showers, which keep the air cool and the soil moist.
By the 1800s, Irish peasants were eating a daily average of 10 potatoes per person. Potatoes supplied about 80 percent of the calories in their diet. The peasants used potato fodder to feed their animals, animals which provided milk, meat and eggs to supplement the peasants' diet. This dependence on one food crop was dangerous, but no other crop had ever proved to be as reliable.
In the 1840s, disaster struck. Three successive years of late blight, the microscopic fungus Phytophthora infestans, and heavy rains rotted the potato crops in the ground.
Where did the potato come from?
A high plateau in the Andean Mountains of South America is the birthplace of the 'Irish' white potato that we eat today.
The plateau, known today as the Titicaca Plateau, stretches across part of the countries of Peru and Bolivia.
The Aymara Indians developed more than two hundred varieties of the potato at elevations greater than 10,000 feet. Potatoes formed the basis of the Aymara Indian and Incan diet.
How did the potato get to Europe?
When the Spanish Conquistadors didn't find the gold and silver they were looking for in the late 1400s and early 1500s, they quickly cornered the local potato market.
Potatoes were soon a standard supply item on their ships. The Spanish noticed that the sailors who ate papas (potatoes) did not suffer from scurvy. Scurvy is a disease associated with too little vitamin C in the diet. Potatoes have a lot of vitamin C, easily preventing scurvy.
Without potatoes, both the peasants and animals went hungry. And when the animals died for lack of food, milk, meat and eggs were no longer available. More than one million of Ireland's 8 million inhabitants died of starvation; almost 2 million emigrated. The population of Ireland was reduced by almost one-fourth and has never regained its former numbers to this day.
Who produced the world's largest potato chip?
The Pringle's Company in Jackson, TN in 1990. It measured 23 ft x 14 1/2 ft
An 8-ounce baked or boiled potato has only about 150 calories.
The russet potato
is named for its netted reddish-brown skin and is the most widely used variety in the US. Its white flesh is high in starch (solids), which means it is the perfect potato for baking and mashing, and also good for frying or roasting.
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