Fun Facts About Potato PART I
Hometown of Potato——South America
In the mid-16th century, when Spanish invaders set foot on the South American continent in search of gold, they encountered a civilization with a population of approximately 10 million and stretching for 2,000 miles along the Andes Mountains—the Inca Empire.
Picture from: archaeologymag.com
The Spanish discovered that this civilization, with a large population, relied mainly on a crop they had never seen before, called "papas" (potatoes). According to records, "papas, a little like truffles in appearance, but when cooked, become soft inside, like a roasted chestnut, it has no core or shell because it grows underground.
How Potatoes "Colonize" Europe
After the Spanish brought potatoes back to Europe, they gradually spread to countries such as Italy, England, Belgium, Germany, and France. Initially, however, people were skeptical of this novel plant, using it solely for animal feed.
Picture from: potatobusiness.com
Since Europe was plagued by famine at the time, people gradually began to appreciate the advantages of potatoes: they were easy to grow, hardy, and produced far more than wheat. For example, while producing 1 kilogram of wheat requires 3.85 square meters of land, producing 1 kilogram of potatoes only requires 0.88 square meters! Before potatoes became widespread, some farmers and potato enthusiasts had already been quietly cultivating them in their gardens.
Some studies believed that the key driving force behind the potato's popularity was the influence of the Enlightenment in the 17th and 18th centuries. Governments recognized the importance of a healthy population to national economic and military strength.
Although scientists at the time disagreed on the nutritional value of potatoes, they all agreed that "those who ate potatoes were stronger and more energetic than those who ate anything else."
Ultimately, driven by government policies encouraging potato cultivation, by the late 18th century, potatoes had become a staple food for most of Europe.