The Story of the Potato

New Zealand Tablet, 31 March 1910, Page 499

The Story of the Potato

■ ■ —— \ ■'■ '.■ '■ + V*lw .telling the .-story.of the ordinary vegetables which take their place upon our tables so regularly-that we never question whence they came nor when and how they were dered dUCe< P otato 18 obviously the - first to b/consiaerea. -It is the one vegetable seen everywhere; ■ the universal accompaniment to meat, and often r its. substitute flm,c S + We l kn P wn 18 the potato that it may seem superflous to pause to consider what it is. Yet if the general knowledge on that point were to -be examined it mfght pi ™+ ahe l vague; unwary persons might even pronounce StL S be ? root - While in ordinary speech it is* “ mentioned among root crops, in reality it is not a root any more than asparagus is. The one is a stem thfi 1 W loaves which is just forcing itself through the ground, the other is a stem- growing underground The potato is not recognised as a stem-on account of “ts thickened- or tuberous form, but it is a stem, neverthless • S d * a Potato plant be pulled up the true roots can easily be distinguished from the underground stems, "with' the tips swelling into young potatoes. . ’ e Tips These tubers are the storehouse of the potato, its lunch-box, in which it puts up a supply of food to furnish nourishment for strong young shoots of the next year. But the Ü bee fleS storehouse of the Potato as he does that of Scientists tell us that man is not very largely the gamer by the appropriation of the potato. - While it furnishes a generally acceptable food, and one which can be prepared in a great variety of forms,, it does not supply a large amount of nutrition. While: differing 1 slightly in detail, all analyses agree that the potato is mostly starch and water—about / 5 per cent, water, with from 15 to 18 per cent, of starch. The potato, therefore, does not stand at the head of the list of vegetables in value, though it does in popularity. ’ * • * n , 1886 th ® tercentenary of the potato was celebrated in England with interesting exercises. Credit - is generally given to Sir t Francis Drake for introducing it into England in 1586, and to Sir Walter Raleigh for planting it in his castle grounds near Cork, and thus raising the first Irish potatoes. « , potato was one of the gifts of the New World to the Old. The Spaniards found it under cultivation in f,eru, and it has been discovered at various localities in the Andes. The Spaniard introduced it into Spain, -from whence it was taken to Italy, and then to . Belgium some years before it was known in England. -,, v ! . The story of its introduction into France is too -interesting to be omitted. In 1769 there was a terrible famine in that country. The grain crop was ruined, - and the poor were reduced to the verge of starvation. -The sight of. men disputing with the beasts for the : scanty harvest -of the fields, and even eating grass, moved a benevolent chemist named Dr. Parmentier to search - for some means of help. He recalled that during his imprisonment in Prussia as a military captive the Government had. issued rations of a vegetable generally supposed to be only, fit to be fed to cattle. The doctor had found the food to be not unpalatable, and had made entry in .his notebook regarding the possibility of its use for human food in time of scarcity. Such a time had come, and the chemist prepared a pamphlet on f Certain Vegetables 'that in Time of Necessity can be Substituted for Ordinary Food.’ . The treatise obtained favor with the Minister of Agriculture, and there was granted by order of Louis i XVI. a tract of waste land near Paris to the ‘ tubercle man ’ for the cultivation of his new plant. Nothing but scornful amusement greeted him at first, but the doctor understood human nature. .. When, on August 24, the - King’s fete day arrived, * the tubercle man ’ wended his way to Versailles with a basket of the tubers in one hand and a bouquet of flowers in the other. He presented the flowers to the King,, who pronounced them superb,. and. placed one in his buttonhole, giving the rest to the Queen, who twined, them in her hair. The tubers were boiled for the Royal table, and Louis XVI. ate his first potato. . j The potato blossom became at once the vogue, and courtiers, vied with •: each other in their efforts to obtain some of the rare flowers; £9 was the price paid by one of them for a cluster. Dr. Parmentier saw, however, that he was not reaching the end he had in view, that of introducing the new vegetable to the poor. >He therefore had a guard set around the potato patch,; and various reports circulated to arouse curiosity. Certain of the guard had secret orders to -stray away from their posts during the _ night, and the doctor’s stratagem was rewarded by the' disappearance of quantities of his new vegetable. By degrees the prejudice against it was overcome, and Dr. Parmentier attained his benevolent purpose of supplying the poor with a food that could - be obtained cheaply-- and ; abundantly. :