by Nancy Seddens

Created on: April 03, 2010   Last Updated: July 09, 2010

Potatoes are as fascinating as they are delicious. As familiar as potatoes are to us, it seems impossible that they haven’t always been a part of the human diet but for most of the world’s inhabitants the potato was unknown until a few hundred years ago.

The potato was cultivated as long ago as 8,000BC and although Peru is considered the birthplace of the potato; over 99% of cultivated potatoes are descendant of subspecies native to southern Chile. So who do we have to thank for our spuds, the Peruvians or the Chileans? It was in Peru that the potato was first domesticated sometime between 4000 and 3000 years ago, so I think the Peruvians should get the tip of the hat. Here is how the fourth largest food crop in the world spread to the rest of us.

The potato was introduced to Europe in 1536 by the Spaniards In 1580, English adventurer Francis Drake introduced potatoes into England along with his other Spanish booty when he returned from his notable circumnavigation of the globe. Francis Drake made a gift of the potato plant to Queen Elizabeth the first but unfortunately didn’t include cooking instructions. When the gardeners brought them into the kitchen the cooks discarded the tubers and cooked the leaves and stems resulting in everyone getting sick.

The result of the first royal meal serving potatoes was that it was banned from the royal table thereafter and Francis Drake probably wasn’t a welcome visitor for a while either. Why did everyone get sick from eating the plants and stems? The potato is a member of the nightshade family also known as Solanaceae and contains solanine, a poison that affects the nervous system resulting in weakness and confusion and, if enough is ingested, death.

The potato plants as well as other members of its family, tobacco, tomato, eggplant and deadly nightshade use their poisonous stems and leaves as protection from predators.Once people realized that potatoes were edible as long as you ate the correct part of the plant the potato went on to become one of the most popular food stables with only rice, wheat and maize being more popular. There were a few stumbling blocks along the way though.

Peasants originally favored the potato because armies pillaging for food seldom too the time to dig potatoes preferring to take above-ground crops. Even potatoes which had been harvested were stored underground and not as easily found as grain bins. Potatoes contained two to four times the calories per

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