The history of the emergence of potatoes in Russia. Where did potatoes come from? How did potatoes appear in Europe?

History of potatoes

Potatoes originate from South America, where you can still find this plant in the wild. It was in South America that they began to grow potatoes as cultivated plant. The Indians ate it; in addition, potatoes were considered a living being, and the local population worshiped them. The spread of potatoes around the world began with the Spanish conquest of new territories. In their reports, the Spaniards described the local population, as well as the plants that were eaten. Among them was potato, which at that time had not yet received its usual name; then it was called truffle.

The historian Pedro Cieza de Leon made a significant contribution to the spread of potatoes throughout European countries. In 1551, he brought this vegetable to Spain, and in 1553 he wrote an essay in which he described the history of the discovery of potatoes, its taste and nutritional properties, the rules of preparation and storage.

From Spain, potatoes spread to Italy, Germany, France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Great Britain and other European countries. Potatoes began to be valued as ornamental plant, they practically did not eat it, considering it poisonous. Later, the nutritional and taste properties of potatoes were confirmed, and they became widely known as a food product.

❧ The most expensive potato in the world is the LaBonnotte variety, which is grown on the island of Noirmoutier. Its yield is only 100 tons per year. The tuber is extremely delicate, so it is harvested only by hand.

In Russia potatoes arrived thanks to Peter I. At the end of the 17th century. he sent a bag of potato tubers from Holland and ordered them to be distributed throughout the provinces so that it could be grown there. Potatoes became widespread only under Catherine II.

The peasants did not know how to properly grow and eat potatoes. Due to many poisonings, he was considered poisonous plant. As a result, peasants refused to plant this crop, and this became the cause of several “potato riots.” By royal decree in 1840-1842. Mass planting of potatoes was carried out throughout the country. Its cultivation was under strict control. As a result, to end of the 19th century V. Potato plantings began to occupy large areas. It was called “second bread” as it became one of the staple foods.

❧ There is a museum dedicated to potatoes in Belgium. There you can find many exhibits depicting this plant - these include postage stamps and paintings by famous artists, for example “The Potato Eaters” by Van Gogh.

Useful properties of potatoes

Potatoes contain a large amount of potassium, which helps eliminate salt and excess water. Due to this, potatoes are often used in dietary nutrition. But it is worth considering that potatoes contain a high amount of carbohydrates, so people who are prone to obesity should not get carried away with them. Potato - indispensable assistant in the fight against gastritis, gastric ulcers and duodenum, it has an alkalizing effect, which is undeniably important for people suffering increased acidity. In addition to starch, potatoes contain ascorbic acid, various vitamins and proteins.

The Andes - the birthplace of potatoes
It is said that the outline of South America resembles the back of a huge animal, with its head located in the north and a gradually tapering tail in the south. If so, then this animal suffers from obvious scoliosis because its spine is shifted to the west. The Andes mountain system stretches along the coast Pacific Ocean for many thousands of kilometers. On the western spurs, the combination of high snow-capped peaks and cold ocean currents creates unusual conditions for the circulation of air masses and water precipitation. Rainy areas are combined with desert areas. The rivers are short and rapids. Rocky soils almost do not allow moisture to pass through.
The Western Andes seem absolutely hopeless from the point of view of agricultural development. But, oddly enough, it was they who became one of the first regions of our planet where agriculture originated. About 10 thousand years ago, the Indians who lived there learned to grow pumpkin plants. Then they mastered the cultivation of cotton, peanuts and potatoes. Generation after generation, local residents dug winding canals to stop the rapid flow of rivers, and built stone terraces along the mountain slopes, to which they brought water from afar. fertile soil. If they had draft animals that could carry heavy loads and produce manure at the same time, it would make their life much easier. But the Indians of the Western Andes had neither cattle, nor horses, nor even wheeled carts.

Potato flowers on my summer cottage

Charles Darwin, who visited the west coast of South America in 1833, discovered a wild potato variety there. “The tubers were mostly small, although I found one oval-shaped, two inches in diameter,” wrote the naturalist, “they resembled English potatoes in every respect and even had the same smell, but when cooked they shriveled greatly and became watery and tasteless, completely devoid of bitter taste." Bitter taste? It seems that cultivated potatoes from the time of Charles Darwin differed from wild ones in about the same way as from ours. Modern geneticists are confident that cultivated potatoes originated not from one, but from two crossed varieties of wild ones.
Today in the markets of Peru, Chile, Bolivia and Ecuador you can find potato tubers of the most different types having different tastes. This is the result of centuries of selection in various closed mountain regions. However, like us, residents of these countries prefer to eat starchy, well-cooked potatoes. Starch is the main thing nutrient, for which this plant is valued. Potatoes also contain a range of beneficial vitamins, with the exception of A and D. They have less protein and calories than grain crops. But potatoes are not as demanding as corn or wheat. It grows equally well in barren, dry and waterlogged soils. In some cases, tubers produce shoots and even a harvest of new tubers without soil and without sunlight. This is probably why the Andean Indians loved him.

This is what dry chunyo looks like

In Peruvian and Bolivian historiography, there is a real battle over which region of the Andes should be declared the oldest place where potato cultivation began. The fact is that the oldest discovery of tubers in human habitation dates back to the northern Peruvian region of Ancon. These tubers are no less than 4.5 thousand years old. Bolivian historians rightly note that the tubers found could have been wild. But on their territory, on the shores of Lake Titicaca, an ancient potato field was found. It was cultivated in the 4th century BC.
One way or another, by the time Europeans arrived in the 16th century, potatoes were well known to many Andean peoples. They made chuño - white or black starchy balls - from potatoes. They made them as follows. The collected tubers were carried to the mountains, where they froze at night, then thawed during the day, then froze again and thawed again. They were crumpled periodically. During the freezing-thawing process, dehydration occurred. Unlike regular potatoes, dry chuño can be stored for many years. At the same time, it does not lose its nutritional qualities. Before consumption, chuño was ground into flour, from which flat cakes were baked, and added to soup, boiled meat and vegetables.

The difficult conquest of Europe
In 1532, a detachment of conquistadors led by Francisco Pizarro conquered the Inca Empire and annexed the Andes region to the Kingdom of Spain. In 1535, the first written mention of South American potatoes appeared. It was the Spaniards who brought potatoes from South America to Europe. But when and under what circumstances did this happen?
Until recently, it was believed that the first potato tubers appeared in Spain around 1570. They could have been brought by sailors returning from Peru or Chile to their homeland. Scientists suspected that only one variety of potato came to Europe, and the one that was grown on the coast of Chile. A 2007 study found that this is not entirely true. The first potato plantings outside the Western Hemisphere began in the Canary Islands, where ships sailing between the New and Old Worlds stopped. Vegetable gardens in which potatoes grew have been mentioned in the Canaries since 1567. Studying modern varieties Canarian tubers showed that their ancestors actually came here directly from South America, and not from one place, but from several at once. Consequently, potatoes were delivered to the Canaries several times, and from there they were brought to Spain as exotic vegetable, well known to the Canarians.
There are many legends about the spread of potatoes. For example, the Spaniards attribute the delivery of the first tubers to a special order of King Philip II. The British are sure that potatoes came to them directly from America thanks to the pirates Francis Drake and Walter Raleigh. The Irish believe that Irish mercenaries brought potatoes to their country from Spain. The Poles say that the first Polish potatoes were presented to King John Sobieski by Emperor Leopold for the defeat of the Turks near Vienna. Finally, Russians believe that potatoes took root in Russia thanks to Peter I. To this it is worth adding stories about various tricks and even violence that wise sovereigns allegedly resorted to in order to force their subjects to grow useful plant. Most of these legends and stories are just anecdotes or misconceptions.
The real history of the spread of potatoes is much more interesting than any legends. No matter what the British imagine, all European potatoes have the same origin from Canarian and Spanish potatoes. From the Iberian Peninsula it came to Spanish possessions in Italy and the Netherlands. TO early XVII centuries in northern Italy, Flanders and Holland it was no longer uncommon. In the rest of Europe, the first potato growers were botanists. They sent each other tubers of this still exotic plant and grew potatoes in gardens among flowers and medicinal herbs. From botanical gardens, potatoes ended up in vegetable gardens.
The promotion of potatoes in Europe cannot be called too successful. There were several reasons for this. Firstly, a variety that had a bitter aftertaste spread in Europe. Remember Charles Darwin's remark about English potatoes? Secondly, the leaves and fruits of potatoes contain corned beef poison, which makes the tops of the plant inedible for livestock. Thirdly, storing potatoes requires a certain skill, otherwise corned beef will also form in the tubers, or they will simply rot. Thanks to this, the most bad rumors were spread about potatoes. It was believed that he caused various diseases. Even in those countries where potatoes found admirers among peasants, they were usually fed to livestock. It was rarely eaten, more often in times of famine or poverty. There were exceptions when potatoes were served to the table of kings or noble nobles, but only in very small portions as a culinary exotic.
A special case is the history of potatoes in Ireland. It got there in the 16th century thanks to fishermen from the Basque country. They took the tubers with them as additional provisions when they sailed to the shores of distant Newfoundland. On the way back they stopped in the west of Ireland, where they traded their catch and the remnants of what they had stored for the journey. Due to the humid climate and rocky soils Western Ireland has never been famous for its harvests cereal crops except oats. The Irish didn't even build mills. When potatoes were added to the rather boring oatmeal, even the bitter taste was forgiven. Ireland was one of the few countries in Europe where eating potatoes was considered the norm. Until the 19th century, only one variety with wrinkled skin, white flesh and low starch content was known here. Usually it was added to “stew” - a brew of everything in the world, which was eaten with bread made from unground grain. In the 18th century, potatoes saved poor Irish people from hunger, but in the 19th century they became the cause of a national disaster.

Potato revolution

Antoine Auguste Parmentier presents potato flowers to the King and Queen

The 18th - 19th centuries became the era of the Great Potato Revolution. During this period, there was rapid population growth throughout the world. In 1798, the English thinker Thomas Malthus discovered that it was growing faster than the economy and agriculture were developing. It would seem that the world was facing imminent famine. But at least in Europe this did not happen. Potatoes brought salvation from starvation.
The Dutch and Flemings were the first to appreciate the economic advantages of potatoes. They had long ago abandoned the cultivation of labor-intensive grain crops, preferring to develop more profitable stalled livestock farming, which in turn required large quantities of feed. At first, the Dutch fed their cows and pigs turnips, but then they relied on potatoes. And we didn't lose! Potatoes grew well even in poor soils and were much more nutritious. The experience of the Dutch and Flemings came in handy in other countries when wheat crop failures became more frequent. To preserve feed grains for food, cattle were fed potatoes.
In the second half of the 18th century, the cultivation of this crop steadily expanded. In the middle of the 18th century, they appeared on the territory of Belarus. In Russia, Catherine II was concerned about the development of potato growing. But even at the beginning of the 19th century, in the central Russian regions, potatoes were perceived as a curiosity, which was sometimes ordered from abroad.
The introduction of potatoes into the regular diet of Europeans was due to wars and fashion. In 1756, European countries were engulfed in the Seven Years' War. Its participant was the French doctor Antoine Auguste Parmentier. He was captured in Prussia, where for several years he was forced to eat and even medicate with potatoes. After the end of the war, A. O. Parmentier became a real champion of this plant. He wrote articles about potatoes, served potato dishes at dinner parties, and even gave ladies potato flowers.
The doctor's efforts were noticed by famous figures in France at the time, including Minister Anne Turgot and Queen Marie Antoinette. She happily introduced boiled potatoes to the royal table menu and wore potato flowers on her dress. The queen's innovations were taken up by her subjects and other monarchs. Frederick of Prussia is credited with playing a joke on Voltaire. He allegedly treated him to potatoes and then asked how many of these fruits grew on the trees in his state, but great educator I was not enlightened about what kind of fruit this is and what it grows on.
Real success came to potatoes during the Napoleonic wars of the late 18th and early 19th centuries. Military actions were accompanied by the destruction of grain harvests. Meanwhile, a lot of food was required for the soldiers and their horses. Potatoes have become a salvation for broad masses population. Marie-Henri Bayle, also known as the French writer Stendhal, told how during the famine of the Franco-Russian War of 1812 he fell to his knees when he saw nutritious tubers in front of him.
Bread, cheese, salty fish, potatoes and cabbage became the staple foods of European workers during the Industrial Revolution. But, if during hungry winters the price of bread rose so that it became unattainable for the poor, then potatoes always remained affordable. Many workers kept vegetable gardens in the suburbs, where they always planted potatoes. However, excessive enthusiasm potato dishes turned into a tragedy for one people.

Great Famine in Ireland
As mentioned above, the Irish began to widely eat potatoes long before the advertising campaign of A. O. Parmentier. In the 18th century, with population growth and a reduction in the area of ​​peasant plots, the Irish increasingly had to sow fields not with oats, but with more productive potatoes. The British authorities only encouraged this practice. “By means of laws, regulations, counter-regulations and executions, the government has introduced potatoes into Ireland, and therefore its population is much larger than that of Sicily; in other words, here it was possible to accommodate several million peasants, downtrodden and stupefied, crushed by labor and poverty, eking out a miserable life in the swamps for forty or fifty years,” Stendhal emotionally described the situation.
Ireland's growing population was poor but not hungry until late blight, a disease of nightshade and some related plants caused by microscopic, fungus-like organisms called oomycetes, was accidentally introduced into Europe. The homeland of late blight is not the Andean region, where potatoes were cultivated for many millennia, but Mexico, where potatoes were introduced by the Spaniards. The Mexicans were not avid potato eaters or fans of nightshade crops in general, so tuber diseases did not particularly worry them.
In 1843, the disease was recorded in the eastern United States, where it could have arrived along with seed material from Mexico. In 1845, seed potatoes from the United States were imported into Belgium, and from Belgium the disease spread to other European countries. Neither scientists, nor even more so peasants and officials, yet understood what late blight was, where it came from, and how to fight it. They simply saw the crops rotting right in the fields. What made the situation worse was that everyone European varieties had a single origin, and oomycetes found a favorable environment here.
When Ireland suffered its first major potato crop failure in 1845, the British authorities imported seed from Belgium and distributed wheat and corn to the peasants left without food. The Irish sold the wheat to English traders and threw away the unfamiliar corn. But the next year the potato crop failure occurred again, and on an even larger scale. Famine broke out among the potato-addicted population. It lasted for several years and was accompanied by epidemic diseases - eternal companions of malnutrition. The 1841 census recorded 8,175,124 inhabitants in Ireland - about the same as in our time. In 1851 they counted 6,552,385 people. Thus, the population decreased by 1.5 million people. It is believed that about 22 thousand died from hunger, and just over 400 thousand from disease. The rest emigrated.
In modern Ireland, potatoes continue to play a big role in nutrition, but still the Irish are inferior to Belarusians in the production and consumption of potatoes.

How Belarusians began to eat potatoes

King and Grand Duke August III. During his reign, Belarusians began to grow potatoes

In Belarus and Lithuania, potatoes began to be grown in the mid-18th century, but until the first half of the 20th century they did not play a special role in nutrition. They used it to make a Lenten stew, add it to bread, less often bake it, and eat it as an independent dish. Much more often used potato starch, which, however, was considered low-grade, like potato vodka. From the mass remaining after squeezing out the starchy liquid, cheap cereals were prepared to be used in soup. Belarusians preferred flour dishes to potatoes. This even applied to poor peasants. It is characteristic that in the biographical poem of Yakub Kolas “ New land"potatoes are mentioned only twice. One time Uncle Anton makes dumplings from it. The second time her mother feeds her pigs. But the word “bread” appears 39 times in the poem.
However, in the 19th century, potato planting in Belarus constantly expanded. The main fans of this plant were landowners. By virtue of political reasons Russian imperial authorities limited their economic opportunities, so they had to rely on a highly productive economy. Potatoes were grown as a fodder and industrial crop. It was fed not only to pigs, but also to cows, sheep, chickens and turkeys. Starch, sweet molasses, yeast were made from potatoes, and low-grade alcohol was distilled. IN household Grated potatoes were used to wash fabrics.
The potato revolution in Belarus began during the First World War and then the Soviet-Polish War, which lasted from 1914 to 1921. Then potatoes began to be widely eaten due to a shortage of grain. It is curious that during the peaceful 1920s, potato consumption did not decrease, but even increased. Moreover, both in Soviet and Western Belarus. The reason for this was several lean years for grain crops. The collectivization that followed led to the reduction of personal peasant plots to the size of small vegetable gardens, in which it became unprofitable to grow rye or wheat. But potatoes planted on several acres could feed a family even in the most difficult years of famine.
In the post-war period, there was an expansion of potato fields in both household and collective farms. In fact, the trend to increase potato planting was set by the all-Union leadership, but it was clearly followed only in our republic. Potato growing was transformed from a subsidiary industry into a knowledge-intensive one. In the BSSR, their own potato varieties were created and their processing was established. In my opinion, it was not so much the foresight of the Belarusian leadership that was to blame, but the desire for good reporting. After all, Belarusian agriculture could not compete in grain yields with Ukraine and Kazakhstan due to natural and climatic reasons, but it was accountable for high yield potatoes. In the 20th century, Belarusians learned not only to eat potatoes, but also mythologized this process. Potatoes have become integral part our folklore and even fiction. Only a Belarusian Soviet writer could have come up with the idea of ​​composing a patriotic work called “Potatoes.”
Today, small Belarus ranks ninth in the world in potato production, and first in terms of per capita production. Of course, we don’t eat all the potatoes. We sell some of it to other countries, we process some of it, and some of it goes to feed livestock and pigs. The passion of Belarusians for potatoes makes our neighbors smile, and makes us irritated. Belarus buys thousands of tons of vegetables and fruits abroad, but continues to plant potatoes. However, when I look at the wide potato fields of our homeland, I am calm. As long as potatoes grow, we are not afraid of hunger and disasters. The main thing is that some new analogue of late blight does not happen, as it once happened in Ireland.

Outside Europe
"I love fried potatoes, I love mashed potatoes. I generally love potatoes.” Do you think these words were said by an Irishman or a Belarusian? No, they belong to the black American singer Mary J. Blige. Today potatoes are grown in all countries of the world. Even in tropical Asia and Africa, where it has to compete with other tubers like sweet potatoes, yams and taro, it is considered a very common, tasty and affordable food. The Andean people gave the world potatoes, Europeans spread them beyond this region, but the history of potatoes outside of South America and Europe is no less educational and fascinating.
The Spanish brought potatoes to Mexico just a couple of decades after conquering the Inca state. Although much of this North American country resembles Peru with its high mountains and arid valleys, its fate there was completely different from that in Europe. Mexican Indians and Spanish settlers were not interested in this plant. They stayed true to corn and beans. The first description of potatoes grown in Mexico appeared only in 1803, and they began to be grown on an industrial scale only in the middle of the 20th century.
Perhaps the culprit was the local nature, which resisted the introduction of a new agricultural crop. After all, Mexico is the homeland of two main enemies of potatoes, the already mentioned late blight and the Colorado potato beetle. The latter came to the United States from Mexico in the 19th century, destroying a significant part of the crop in Colorado in 1859. At the beginning of the 20th century, beetle eggs, along with seed material, were brought to France, from where it began its offensive across European countries. In Belarus Colorado beetle appeared in 1949, flying over the border with neighboring Poland.
Potatoes from the United States and Canada are of European origin, meaning they were imported by settlers from Europe and not directly from South America. Like us, it was considered to a greater extent as a fodder and industrial crop. Widespread consumption began only in the last quarter of the 19th century, under the influence of European immigrants who brought new eating habits from their native countries. The exception is the so-called Pacific Coast Indian potato. North America. The Indians have been growing it since the end of the 18th century. In Alaska, potatoes were an important commodity that the Tlingit Indians traded with Russian American Company traders for textiles and metal products. According to one version, Indian potatoes come from California, where they arrived in the 18th century thanks to the Spanish Jesuits. According to another, Peruvian fishermen accidentally brought it to Vancouver Island. Potatoes became the first agricultural crop developed by the Indians of the west coast of Canada and Alaska.
In southern China and the Philippine Islands, potatoes became known around the same time as in Europe. It was brought there by Spanish traders from Peru. Filipinos have never been able to appreciate nutritional quality imported tubers, but began to grow them for sale to sailors. Potatoes remained in China exotic plant up to the 20th century. It was served to the table of noble nobles and emperors. However, ordinary people knew little about her. IN late XVIII centuries, the British introduced potatoes to eastern India. From there, in the 19th century, it came to Tibet. In tropical Africa, the potato culture became known thanks to merchants from Europe, but became widespread only in the middle of the 20th century.

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It's hard to find a person who doesn't like potatoes. Even those who don’t eat it to stay slim talk about it as a feat. It is not surprising that the vegetable itself was nicknamed “second bread”: it is equally appropriate for festive table, in the work canteen and in the distance tourist trip. I can’t even believe that three hundred years ago, most of the European population did not even know about the existence of potatoes. The history of the emergence of potatoes in Europe and Russia is worthy of an adventure novel.

In the 16th century, Spain conquered vast lands in South America. The conquistadors and the learned monks who came with them left most interesting information about the life and way of life of the indigenous people of Peru and New Granada, which included the territory of present-day Colombia, Ecuador, Panama and Venezuela.

The basis of the diet of South American Indians was maize, beans and strange tubers called “papa”. Gonzalo Jimenez de Quesada, the conqueror and first governor of New Granada, described the "papa" as a cross between truffles and turnips.

Wild potatoes grew throughout almost all of Peru and New Granada. But its tubers were too small and tasted bitter. More than a thousand years before the arrival of the conquistadors, the Incas learned to cultivate this crop and developed several varieties. The Indians valued potatoes so much that they even worshiped them as a deity. And the unit of time was the interval required for boiling potatoes (about one hour).

The Peruvian Indians worshiped potatoes; they measured time by how long it took to cook.

Potatoes were eaten boiled “in their uniforms.” In the Andean foothills the climate is harsher than on the coast. Due to frequent frosts, storing “papa” (potatoes) was difficult. Therefore, the Indians learned to prepare “chuño” – dried potatoes – for future use. For this purpose, the tubers were specially frozen to remove the bitterness from them. After thawing, the “papa” was trampled underfoot to separate the pulp from the skin. The peeled tubers were either immediately dried in the sun or first soaked in running water and then laid out to dry.

Chunyo could be stored for several years and was convenient to take with you on a long journey. This advantage was appreciated by the Spaniards, who set off from the territory of New Granada in search of the legendary Eldorado. Cheap, filling and well-preserved, chuño was the staple food of slaves in the Peruvian silver mines.

In South American countries, many dishes are still prepared based on chuño: from main dishes to desserts.

Adventures of Potatoes in Europe

Already in the first half of the 16th century, along with gold and silver from overseas colonies, potato tubers came to Spain. Here they were called the same as in their homeland: “dad”.

The Spaniards appreciated not only the taste, but also the beauty of the overseas guest, and therefore potatoes often grew in flower beds, where they pleased the eye with their flowers. Doctors widely used its diuretic and wound-healing properties. In addition, it turned out to be a very effective cure for scurvy, which in those days was a real scourge of sailors. There is even a known case when Emperor Charles V presented potatoes as a gift to the sick Pope.

At first, the Spaniards fell in love with potatoes for their beautiful flowering, but they liked the taste later

Potatoes became very popular in Flanders, which was then a colony of Spain. At the end of the 16th century, the cook of the Bishop of Liege included several recipes for its preparation in his culinary treatise.

Italy and Switzerland also quickly appreciated the benefits of potatoes. By the way, we owe this name to the Italians: they called the truffle-like root vegetable “tartuffoli”.

But further across Europe, potatoes spread literally by fire and sword. In the German principalities, peasants did not trust the authorities and refused to plant a new vegetable. The trouble is that potato berries are poisonous, and at first people who did not know that the root vegetable should be eaten were simply poisoned.

The “popularizer” of potatoes, Friedrich Wilhelm I of Prussia, got down to business. In 1651, the king issued a decree according to which those who refused to plant potatoes had to have their noses and ears cut off. Since the august botanist’s words never diverged from deeds, already in the second half of the 17th century, significant areas in Prussia were planted with potatoes.

Gallant France

In France, it has long been believed that root vegetables were the food of the lower classes. The nobility preferred green vegetables. Potatoes were not grown in this country until the second half of the 18th century: the peasants did not want any innovations, and the gentlemen were not interested in the overseas root crop.

The history of potatoes in France is associated with the name of the pharmacist Antoine-Auguste Parmentier. It rarely happens that one person combines selfless love for people, a sharp mind, remarkable practical intelligence and an adventurous streak.

Parmentier began his career as a military doctor. During the Seven Years' War, he was captured by the Germans, where he tried potatoes. Being an educated man, Monsieur Parmentier immediately realized that potatoes could save the peasants from hunger, which was inevitable in the event of a wheat crop failure. All that remained was to convince those whom the master was going to save of this.

Parmentier began to solve the problem step by step. Since the pharmacist had access to the palace, he persuaded King Louis XVI to go to the ball by pinning a bouquet of potato flowers to his ceremonial uniform. Queen Marie Antoinette, who was a trendsetter, wove the same flowers into her hairstyle.

Less than a year had passed since every self-respecting noble family acquired own flowerbed potatoes, where the queen’s favorite flowers grew. But a flowerbed is not a garden bed. In order to transplant potatoes into French beds, Parmentier used an even more original technique. He hosted a dinner to which he invited the most famous scientists of his time (many of them considered potatoes, at least, inedible).
The royal pharmacist treated his guests to a wonderful lunch, and then announced that the dishes were prepared from that same dubious root vegetable.

But you can’t invite all French peasants to dinner. In 1787, Parmentier asked the king for a plot of arable land in the vicinity of Paris and a company of soldiers to guard the potato plantings. At the same time, the master announced that anyone who kidnaps valuable plant, awaiting execution.

All day long the soldiers guarded the potato field, and at night they went to the barracks. Need I say that all the potatoes were dug up and stolen in the shortest possible time?

Parmentier went down in history as the author of a book about the benefits of potatoes. In France, two monuments were erected to Master Parmentier: in Montdidier (in the scientist’s homeland) and near Paris, on the site of the first potato field. On the pedestal of the monument in Montdidier is carved: “To the Benefactor of Humanity.”

Monument to Parmentier in Montdidier

Pirate's booty

In the 16th century, England was just challenging the decrepit but still powerful Spain for the crown of “Mistress of the Seas.” The famous corsair of Queen Elizabeth I, Sir Francis Drake, became famous not only for his voyage around the world, but also for his raids on Spanish silver mines in the New World. In 1585, returning from one such raid, he took on board the British, who were unsuccessfully trying to establish a colony in what is now North Carolina. They brought with them the papa or poteitos tubers.

Francis Drake - a pirate, thanks to whom they learned about potatoes in England

The territory of the British Isles is small, and fertile land there is not much here, and therefore there was hunger frequent guest in the homes of farmers and townspeople. The situation was even worse in Ireland, which the English masters mercilessly plundered.

Potatoes became a real salvation for ordinary people in England and Ireland. In Ireland it is still one of the main crops. Local residents even have a proverb: “Love and potatoes are two things you don’t joke with.”

History of potatoes in Russia

Emperor Peter I, having visited Holland, brought a bag of potatoes from there. The Tsar was firmly convinced that this root crop had a great future in Russia. The overseas vegetable was planted in the Aptekarsky garden, but things didn’t go any further: the tsar had no time for botanical studies, and the peasants in Russia were not much different from foreign ones in their mentality and character.

After the death of Peter I, the rulers of the state had no time to popularize potatoes. Although it is known that already under Elizabeth, potatoes were a frequent guest on both the royal table and the tables of nobles. Vorontsov, Hannibal, and Bruce grew potatoes on their estates.

The common people, however, were not inflamed with love for potatoes. As in Germany, there were rumors about the poisonous nature of the vegetable. In addition, in German “Kraft Teufel” means “damn power.” In an Orthodox country, a root vegetable with this name caused hostility.

A special contribution to the selection and distribution of potatoes was made by the famous botanist and breeder A.T. Bolotov. On his experimental plot, he received record yields even in modern times. A.T. Bolotov wrote several works on the properties of potatoes, and he published the first of his articles in 1770, much earlier than Parmentier.

In 1839, during the reign of Nicholas I, there was a severe shortage of food in the country, followed by famine. The government has taken decisive measures to prevent such incidents from happening in the future. As usual, fortunately the people were driven away with a club. The Emperor ordered that potatoes be planted in all provinces.

In the Moscow province, state peasants were ordered to grow potatoes at the rate of 4 measures (105 l) per person, and they had to work for free. In the Krasnoyarsk province, those who did not want to plant potatoes were sent to hard labor to build the Bobruisk fortress. “Potato riots” broke out in the country, which were brutally suppressed. However, since then potatoes have truly become the “second bread”.

The peasants resisted the new vegetable as best they could, potato riots were commonplace

In the middle of the 19th century, many Russian scientists, in particular E.A. Grachev, were engaged in potato breeding. It is to him that we should be grateful for the variety “Early Rose” (“American”), known to most gardeners.

In the 20s of the twentieth century, Academician N.I. Vavilov became interested in the history of the origin of potatoes. The government of a state that has not yet recovered from the horrors Civil War, found funds to send an expedition to Peru in search of wild potatoes. As a result, completely new species of this plant were found, and Soviet breeders were able to develop very productive and disease-resistant varieties. Thus, the famous breeder A.G. Lorch created the “Lorch” variety, the yield of which, subject to a certain growing technology, is more than a ton per hundred square meters.

More than 99% of today seed potatoes has common genes. All cultivated varieties, one way or another, belong to two related species.

This is S. Tuberosum, which has spread throughout the world and is better known in its homeland, S. Andigenum, cultivated in the upper reaches of the Andes for several thousand years. According to botanists and historians, it is precisely thanks to artificial selection that began 6-8 thousand years ago that modern potatoes bear little resemblance to their wild ancestors in both appearance and taste.

Today, numerous varieties of Solanum tuberosum or Nightshade are grown in most regions of the world. has become the main food and industrial crop for billions of people, sometimes not knowing the origin of potatoes.

However, between 120 and 200 species of wild varieties still grow in the homeland of the culture. These are exclusively endemic to the American continent, and most are not only inedible, but due to the glycoalkaloids contained in the tubers, they are even poisonous.

Book history of potatoes in the 16th century

The discovery of potatoes dates back to the era of the Great geographical discoveries and conquests. The first descriptions of tubers belonged to Europeans, participants in military expeditions of 1536–1538.

One of the associates of the conquistador Gonzalo de Quesada in the Peruvian village of Sorokota saw tubers similar to truffles known in the Old World or, as they were called “tartuffoli”. Probably, this word became the prototype of the modern pronunciation of the German and Russian name. But the English version of “potato” is the result of confusion between the similar-looking tubers of regular and sweet potatoes, which the Incas called “yams.”

The second chronicler of the history of potatoes was the naturalist and botanist researcher Pedro Siesa de Leon, who found fleshy tubers in the upper reaches of the Cauca River that reminded him of chestnuts when boiled. Most likely, both travelers were depicting Andean potatoes.

Face-to-face acquaintance and the fate of a garden flower

Europeans, having heard about extraordinary countries and their riches, were able to see the overseas plant with their own eyes only thirty years later. Moreover, the tubers that arrived in Spain and Italy were not from the mountainous regions of Peru, but from Chile, and belonged to a different type of plant. New vegetable did not appeal to the taste of the European nobility and was placed in greenhouses and gardens as a curiosity.

A serious role in the history of potatoes was played by Karl Clusius, who at the end of the 16th century founded the planting of this plant in Austria and then in Germany. 20 years later, potato bushes decorated the parks and gardens of Frankfurt am Main and other cities, but it was not destined to become a vegetable crop soon.

It was only in Ireland that potatoes, introduced in 1587, quickly took root and began to play a significant role in the economy and life of the country, where the main acreage was always given to cereals. At the slightest crop failure, the population was threatened with terrible famine. Unpretentious, productive potatoes came in handy here. Already in the next century, the country's potato plantations could feed 500 thousand Irish.

And in France and in the 17th century, potatoes had serious enemies, who considered the tubers suitable for food only by the poor or even poisonous. In 1630, a parliamentary decree banned the cultivation of potatoes in the country, and Diderot and other enlightened people were on the side of the legislators. But still, a man appeared in France who dared to stand up to the plant. Pharmacist A.O., who was in Prussian captivity. Parmentier brought the tubers that saved him from starvation to Paris and decided to demonstrate their merits to the French. He arranged a magnificent potato dinner for the elite of the capital's society and the scientific world.

Long-awaited recognition by Europe and distribution in Russia

Only the Seven Years' War, devastation and famine forced a change in attitude towards the culture of the Old World. And this happened only in the middle of the 18th century. Thanks to the pressure and cunning of the Prussian king Frederick the Great, potato fields began to appear in Germany. The British, French and other previously irreconcilable Europeans recognized potatoes.

It was during these years that the Russian Count Sheremetyev received the first bag of precious tubers and a strict order to start growing them from Peter I. But such an imperial decree did not arouse enthusiasm in Russia.

It would seem that the history of potatoes in this part of the world will not be smooth. Catherine II also promoted a new culture for Russians and even started a plantation in the Aptekarsky garden, but ordinary peasants resisted the plant planted from above in every possible way. Until the 40s of the 19th century, potato riots thundered across the country, the reason for which turned out to be simple. Farmers who grew potatoes left their crops to be stored in the light. As a result, the tubers turned green and became unfit for food. The work of the entire season was going down the drain, and the peasants were growing dissatisfied. The government has undertaken a serious campaign to explain agricultural technology and potato consumption. In Russia, with the development of industry, potatoes quickly became truly “second bread”. The tubers were used not only for own consumption and livestock feed; alcohol, molasses, and starch were produced from them.

Irish Potato Tragedy

And in Ireland, potatoes became not only popular culture, but also a factor influencing fertility. The opportunity to feed families cheaply and nutritiously led to sharp growth population of Ireland. Unfortunately, the resulting dependence in the first half of the 19th century led to disaster. An unexpected late blight epidemic, which destroyed potato crops in many regions of Europe, caused a terrible famine in Ireland, which halved the country's population.

Some people died, and many were forced to go overseas in search of a better life. Along with the settlers, potato tubers also landed on the shores of North America, giving rise to the first cultivated plantations on these lands and the history of potatoes in the USA and Canada. IN Western Europe Late blight was defeated only in 1883, when an effective fungicide was found.

British Colonists and the History of Egyptian Potatoes

At the same time, European countries began to actively expand potato cultivation to their colonies and protectorates. This culture came to Egypt and other countries of northern Africa at the beginning of the 19th century, but became widespread thanks to the British on the eve of the First World War. Egyptian potatoes were used to feed the army, but at that time the local peasants had neither the experience nor sufficient knowledge to obtain serious ones. Only in the last century, with the advent of the possibility of irrigation of plantations and new varieties, potatoes began to produce abundant harvests in Egypt and other countries.

Indeed, modern tubers bear little resemblance to those that were once brought from South America. They are much larger and have rounded shape and excellent taste.

Today, potatoes are taken for granted in the diet of many peoples. People don’t think about or even know that humanity’s real acquaintance with this culture took place less than five hundred years ago. They do not know the origin of the potatoes on the plate. But scientists still show serious interest in wild species, not afraid of many diseases and pests of cultivated varieties. To preserve and study the yet unexplored capabilities of the plant, specialized scientific institutes work all over the world. In the birthplace of culture, in Peru International Center potato, a repository of 13 thousand samples of seeds and tubers was created, which became a golden fund for breeders around the world.

History of potatoes - video

It has been scientifically proven that potatoes have existed on earth for more than 12 thousand years. Although some scientists dispute its 14 thousand-year existence. The first wild potatoes grew in the mountainous regions of South America. It was different from modern potatoes, and they were eaten in a slightly different way.

Potatoes were a very valuable food product for the Native Americans. It was eaten, exchanged for important and valuable things, it was spiritualized and worshiped. The Incas used potatoes for fortune telling and even counting time, taking the cooking time of medium-sized tubers as a unit. This was approximately one hour. But the time has come, and the whole world became acquainted with potatoes. The Europeans were the first here.

The history of the appearance of potatoes in Europe dates back to the times of the Great Spanish conquests of the 16th century AD. e. From numerous expeditions to America, Europeans brought home potato tubers, among other overseas wonders. The old world did not immediately appreciate the overseas vegetable. In all European countries, the spread of potatoes was difficult. Sometimes they didn’t even know what to do with this plant. For example, in France it was originally grown for its beautiful flowers, unaware of the true value of the plant. And in Germany, in order to interest people in growing potatoes, they issued a decree to “cut off the noses and cut off the ears” of those who did not want to grow them. In England, potato growers were promised gold medals.

The reasons for the people’s non-acceptance of potatoes were almost the same in all states - ignorance of its agricultural technology and characteristics. It took two centuries for potatoes to become firmly established as a crop cultivated in large quantities for food consumption. Over the entire history of potato cultivation, many new productive varieties have been developed that have different taste and nutritional qualities and are resistant to certain diseases. Varieties have appeared that repel its pests.

Nowadays potatoes are the most valuable product nutrition for many peoples of the world. It is grown in all countries of the temperate climate zone. Until recently, we were world leaders in this. Now the palm in potato growing has passed to China. IN last years Many new dishes are made from potatoes: French fries, chips, croquettes. We will share recipes for some dishes that can be prepared at home on the pages of the site dedicated to potatoes.