potato

1. A South American plant (Solanum tuberosum) widely cultivated for its starchy edible tubers.
2. A tuber of this plant.
3. A sweet potato. See Regional Note at possum.

[Spanish patata, alteration (probably influenced by Quechua papa, white potato) of Taino batata, sweet potato.]

(click to enlarge)
Potato (Solanum tuberosum). (credit: Grant Heilman Photography)

Herbaceous annual (Solanum tuberosum) in the nightshade family. One of the world's main food crops, the potato differs from other food crops in that the edible portion is a tuber. Highly digestible, potatoes are prepared for eating in many ways and are a major source of starch as well as amino acids, protein, vitamin C, and B vitamins. The stem grows 20 – 40 in. (50 – 100 cm) tall, sprouting spirally arranged compound leaves. Underground, stems extend as stolons, the ends of which enlarge into 1 – 20 tubers of variable shape and size. The tubers have spirally arranged buds (eyes) that may remain dormant after the tuber is fully grown for up to 10 weeks or more; they grow into plants identical to the parent plant. A native of the Andes, the potato (also known as the common potato, white potato, or Irish potato) was carried by Spaniards into Europe during the 16th century. A century later, it had become the major food crop in Ireland; disastrous damage to the crop by a fungal blight caused the Irish potato famine in the mid-1800s. See also sweet potato.

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The ancient Incas were cultivating this humble tuber thousands of years ago. The potato was not readily accepted in Europe, however, because it was known to be a member of the nightshade family (as are the tomato and eggplant) and therefore thought to be poisonous. In the 16th century, Sir Walter Raleigh was instrumental in debunking the poisonous potato superstition when he planted them on property he owned in Ireland. The Irish knew a good thing when they saw it and a hundred years later were growing and consuming the potato in great quantities. Today, hundreds of varieties of this popular vegetable are grown around the world. In America, the potato can be divided into four basic categories: russet, long white, round white and round red. Russet potatoes (also called old potatoes, baking potatoes and, sometimes, Idaho potatoes-after the state leading in production) have an elliptical shape with a rough, brown skin and numerous eyes. The russet's white flesh is somewhat dry and mealy after cooking. This potato's low moisture and high starch content make it excellent for baking, mashing and frying. Varieties include Russet Burbank, Russet Arcadia, Russet Norkotah and Butte. Long white potatoes have a similar shape as the russet but they have thin, pale gray-brown skins with almost imperceptible eyes. They're sometimes called white rose or California long whites, after the state in which they were developed. Long whites can be baked, boiled or fried. The thumb-size baby long whites are called fingerling potatoes. The medium-size round white and round red potatoes are also commonly referred to as boiling potatoes. They're almost identical except that the round white has a freckled brown skin and the round red a reddish-brown coat. They both have a waxy flesh that contains less starch and more moisture than the russet and long white. This makes them better suited for boiling (they're both commonly used to make mashed potatoes) than for baking. They're also good for roasting and frying. The round white is grown mainly in the Northeast where it's sometimes referred to by one of its variety names, Katahdin. The round red is cultivated mainly in the Northwest. Yukon gold potatoes have a skin and flesh that ranges from buttery yellow to golden. These boiling potatoes have a moist, almost succulent texture and make excellent mashed potatoes. There are a variety of relatively new potatoes in the marketplace, most of which aren't new at all but rather heritage vegetables that date back centuries. Among the more distinctive examples are the All Blue potatoes, which range in color from bluish purple to purple-black. These small potatoes have a dense texture and are good for boiling. Other purple potatoes have skin colors that range from lavender to dark blue and flesh that can be from white to beige with purple streaking. Among the red-fleshed potatoes are the huckleberry (red skin and flesh) and the blossom (pinkish-red skin and flesh). New potatoes are simply young potatoes (any variety). They haven't had time to convert their sugar fully into starch and consequently have a crisp, waxy texture and thin, undeveloped wispy skins. New potatoes are small enough to cook whole and are excellent boiled or pan-roasted. Because they retain their shape after being cooked and cut, new potatoes are particularly suited for use in potato salad. The season for new potatoes is spring to early summer. Potatoes of one variety or another are available year-round. Choose potatoes that are suitable for the desired method of cooking. All potatoes should be firm, well-shaped (for their type) and blemish-free. New potatoes may be missing some of their feathery skin but other types should not have any bald spots. Avoid potatoes that are wrinkled, sprouted or cracked. A green tinge-indicative of prolonged light exposure-is caused by the alkaloid solanine, which can be toxic if eaten in quantity. This bitter green portion can be cut or scraped off and the potato used in the normal fashion. Store potatoes in a cool, dark, well-ventilated place for up to 2 weeks. New potatoes should be used within 3 days of purchase. Refrigerating potatoes causes them to become quite sweet and to turn dark when cooked. Warm temperatures encourage sprouting and shriveling. Potatoes are probably the most versatile vegetable in the world and can be cooked in any way imaginable. They're available in a wide selection of commercial products including potato chips, instant mashed potatoes (dehydrated cooked potatoes), canned new potatoes and a plethora of frozen products including hash browns, french fries and stuffed baked potatoes. Potatoes are not at all hard on the waistline (a 6-ounce potato contains only about 120 calories) and pack a nutritional punch. They're low in sodium, high in potassium and an important source of complex carbohydrates and vitamins C and B-6, as well as a storehouse of minerals. Neither sweet potatoes nor yams are botanically related to the potato. See also allumettes; chips; delmonico potatoes; duchess potatoes; foresti`ere; french fries; gaufrettes pommes de terre; german potato salad; hash browns; home-fried potatoes; irish potato; o'brien potatoes; parmentier; pommes anna; pommes dauphine; pomme de terre; pommes frites; pommes lyonnaise; pommes noisette; pommes soufflées; potato flour; potato salad; ro¨sti; straw potatoes.

Carried in one's pocket, potatoes were widely thought to cure or prevent rheumatism, especially if they had been stolen; as they dry and harden, they supposedly are drawing from the sufferer's body the uric acid (or, according to other informants, the iron) which causes the pain. The idea was common in the 1950s (Radford, Radford, and Hole, 1961: 272), and is probably still to be found. A common cure for warts was to rub them with a slice of potato, and bury it; as it shrivelled, so would the warts.

The so-called Irish potato, a native of the Andes, was introduced into England in the sixteenth century. A ship is known to have carried potatoes from England to Bermuda in 1613, and in 1621 the governor of Bermuda sent to Governor Francis Wyatt of Virginia two large chests filled with plants and fruits then un-known to the colony, among them potatoes, which were planted and grown in the settlements along the James River. In 1622 a Virginia bark brought about twenty thousand pounds of potatoes from Bermuda to Virginia. Their cultivation did not spread widely, however, until a party of Scotch-Irish immigrants brought potatoes with them to Rockingham County, New Hampshire, in 1719. Because of this introduction and because potatoes had become a major crop in Ireland by the end of the seventeenth century, "Irish" became a permanent part of the potato's name.

The Swedish botanist Peter Kalm found potatoes being grown at Albany in 1749. Thomas Jefferson wrote of cultivating potatoes, "both the long [sweet?] and the round [Irish?]." Decades later, the Navaho Indians of the Southwest were found to be planting a small, wild variety common in some parts of Mexico. The Irish potato came to be a daily item on the American dinner table—especially in the northern states as an accompaniment for meats—and a major food crop in many states during the nineteenth century. Aroostook, the large, northernmost county of Maine, began extensive potato growing, and in 1935 that county's potatoes produced half of the agricultural income of Maine. Aroostook homemakers are said to have been the first, or among the first, to make starch for their white garments by soaking potato pulp in water and then drying it. Starch sheds began to appear along the streams, and eventually Aroostook produced 90 percent of the nation's potato starch. The use of this starch declined greatly in the twentieth century, and industrial alcohol appeared as a new means of saving the culls and the surplus.

Sweet potatoes (botanically, wholly unrelated to the Irish tuber) were being cultivated by the Amerindians before the arrival of Christopher Columbus, who, with the other members of his party, ate these potatoes and esteemed them highly. Because they were best grown in the South, and because they gave an enormous yield (200 to 400 bushels per acre), they became a favorite vegetable in that region, although they remained unknown to the table in large areas of the North. To the southern poor, sweet potatoes inevitably accompanied opossum meat, although they were also served with fresh pork and other meats; the sweet potato has of ten been the main item in the diet of some poor families, especially in winter. The cultivation of sweet potatoes spread to California and gradually crept up the Atlantic coast as far as New Jersey.

By 1999 annual U.S. production of Irish potatoes had reached 478 million hundredweight; production of sweet potatoes in the same year totaled nearly 12 million hundredweight.

Bibliography

Salaman, Redcliffe N. The History and Social Influence of the Potato. Revised ed. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1985. The original edition was published in 1949.

Zuckerman, Larry. The Potato: How the Humble Spud Changed the Western World. Boston: Faber and Faber, 1998.

The potato is a tuber—a short, thick, underground stem with stored starches and sugars—of the potato plant. It was given its botanical name, Solanum tuberosum, in 1596 by the Swiss botanist Gaspard Bauhin, and belongs to the Solanaceae family, the nightshades, which includes eggplant, peppers, and the tomato. (The sweet potato is not a potato; it belongs to the morning glory family.) Growing wild as early as 13,000 years ago on the Chilean coast of South America, potatoes were first cultivated by farmers in the Andes Mountains nearly seven thousand years ago.

Nutritionally, the potato supplies complex carbohydrates—essential for energy—and a very low amount (about 10 percent) of protein. One serving (a 5.3-ounce medium potato) provides: 45 percent of Recommended Daily Intake (RDI) for vitamin C (most of it in the millimeters-thick layer immediately under the skin), 21 percent of potassium, 3 grams of fiber, essentially no fat, and only 100 calories. It is rich in the minerals iron and magnesium and supplies all the vital nutrients except calcium and vitamins A and D.

Potatoes are the vegetable eaten most frequently in the United States, and the one ordered most when Americans eat out. In 2001, the average American ate 41 pounds of potatoes. In 1996, the annual per capita consumption increased with age among those over eighteen: between eighteen and thirty-four, 74.3 pounds; thirty-five to forty-four, 80.6; forty-five to fifty-four, 87.4; fifty-five to sixty-four, 88.9; and, for those sixty-five and older, 109 pounds. Interestingly, consumption again peaked among those between thirteen and seventeen (83.2 pounds) and six to twelve (85.5 pounds), who presumably consume most of their potatoes as french fries, chips, and novelty forms.

The United States ranks fourth in world potato production, with an estimated 1.26 million acres planted in 2001. Russia is the largest producer. With a world harvest of 291 million tons grown in more than 100 countries, potatoes are second only to rice as a world food crop.

South American Origins

The potato was domesticated high in the Andes Mountains in South America by 3000 B.C.E., but it was not until the Incan civilization (ca. 100–1530 C.E.) that the tuber's true agricultural potential was realized. The climatic challenges of growing crops in the heights of the Andes are formidable. Radical swings in temperature, from highs of 62°F (17°C) to lows below freezing (most nights of the year), occur even within a twenty-four-hour period, and constantly disrupt the potato plant's physiological processes. Yet, potatoes are ideally suited to these conditions; the plant grows in even the poorest soils, and the hardiest species can survive at an altitude of 15,000 feet.

The Inca devised agricultural innovations that maximized the potato crop. The introduction of terracing enabled steep slopes to be planted. A system of canals efficiently distributed water from higher in the mountains to each terrace level. In the absence of plows and oxen, a wooden foot plow called a taclla was invented that is still used in the Andes today. A representation of this tool is found in a Spanish woodcut from the late sixteenth or early seventeenth century (but the tool is presumed to predate that). The Inca wisely prized agricultural diversity, growing 3,000 varieties of potatoes in various sizes, textures, and colors. Their goal was to develop a different kind of potato for every type of soil, sun, and moisture condition. Thus, the rulers could secure a high yield of potatoes—enough to feed thousands of members of the expanding empire—from disproportionately small plots of land.

The Inca also serendipitously discovered how to freeze-dry potatoes. At night, the cold of the Andes froze the tubers. (Raw potatoes are 80 percent water.) During the day, however, they thawed in the warmth of the sun. As they defrosted, laborers stamped on them to press out all the moisture. After several days of alternating freezing and defrosting, the potatoes were dehydrated and transformed into a lightweight, transportable substance known as chuno. Stored in sealed, permanently frozen underground storehouses, the freeze-dried potatoes kept for five or six years. When needed for sustenance during the lean months, the chuno could be reconstituted by soaking in water, then being cooked or ground into meal, with no loss of nutritional value. Chuno was so precious to the Inca that it was used as currency and collected as tribute. It was also believed that potatoes have healing properties. Raw slices were placed on broken bones, aching heads, and rubbed on bodies to cure skin diseases, and slices were carried to prevent rheumatism

From South America to Europe

When the Spanish arrived in South America around 1537, they were not impressed by the potato. The strange tubers, misshapen and bitter, were about the size of peanuts, and bore little resemblance to potatoes we know today. The Spanish mistook them for a kind of truffle, calling them tartuffo. The Inca routinely consumed the choice, large tubers, and planted only the rejects, thereby propagating progressively inferior tubers.

Gradually, the Spanish realized that potatoes were perfect food for sailors on ships returning from Peru. The tubers traveled well, were cheap, nutritious, required little preparation, and prevented scurvy. Returning to Spain by way of sub-Saharan Africa, the Spanish introduced potatoes there in 1538. Leftovers from shipboard food found their way to Spain in the 1550s but, in most areas, they did not grow well and were not popular. Still, as early as 1570, potatoes could be purchased in markets in Seville, and, by 1573, they were being fed to hospital patients in other parts of Spain.

Through the first half of the seventeenth century, potatoes were eaten primarily by the poor and soldiers in Spain. In 1653, however, the historian Bernabé Cobo made a laudatory reference to the culinary properties of chuno, describing how Spanish women were able to grind the substance into more white flour than could be obtained from wheat, and from which they made sponge cakes and pastries with almonds and sugar.

Not until 1760 did Spanish plant breeders start to improve the potato. Eventually, it was found that potatoes grew well in the mountainous Pyrenees and along the Atlantic coast, where they were popular among Basque fishermen during their voyages to the Grand Banks of Newfoundland.

The Potato Diaspora

From Spain, potatoes spread to all parts of Europe. Spanish ships carried the vegetable to Italy around 1560, making that country the first after Spain to eat potatoes on an appreciable scale. Potatoes also traveled along the "Spanish road" that connected Spain's imperial provinces in northern Italy with the Low Countries.

By 1600, the potato had entered Austria, Belgium, Holland, France, Switzerland, England, Germany, and, most likely, Portugal and Ireland. Some historians claim that it was Basque fishermen who first brought potatoes to Ireland, when they came ashore to dry their catches on their return voyages from Newfoundland. Others maintain it was Sir Walter Raleigh who planted the first potatoes on his estate in Ireland. The potato was introduced in India, possibly as early as 1615, and had reached the most remote parts of China by 1643. Beginning about 1730, the Scottish Highlands adopted potatoes as completely as Ireland had.

Fear of Potatoes

It is not unusual for new foods to be met with skepticism and fear, especially those arriving from a strange, faraway continent where they are consumed by "uncivilized" non-Christian peoples. The potato, however, had a tougher battle for acceptance than many other foodstuffs introduced from the Americas. Aside from its odd, unaesthetic appearance and initially bitter taste, the tuber was feared for a variety of reasons. Since it was not mentioned in the Bible, it was often associated with the devil. As a consequence, in the north of Ireland and in Scotland, Protestants flatly refused to plant them. In Catholic Ireland, to be on the safe side, peasants sprinkled their seed potatoes with holy water and planted them on Good Friday.

Another source of prejudice against the potato was its membership in the nightshade family, which includes a number of poisonous members: deadly nightshade (belladonna, which is poisonous), mandrake (known as a soporific and fertility drug), tobacco, and henbane (poison). Some of these substances have traditionally been associated in various cultures with magic and witchcraft. In many folk beliefs there is a grain of truth. Solanine, contained in the tubers and common to all plants in the nightshade family, is indeed a poison. Unlike modern potatoes, which contain only a nonharmful trace amount, tubers of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries had much higher levels, not enough to cause death, but sometimes a rash appeared. That led to its association with the deadliest disease of the time, leprosy. So great was the fear that, when Frederick the Great of Prussia ordered his people to plant potatoes in 1744, they pulled them up. Frederick was forced to post soldiers to guard the crops. Ten years later, in 1754, the king of Sweden also ordered his subjects to grow potatoes. Yet, when famine struck Kolberg in 1774, wagonloads of potatoes sent by Frederick were rejected.

All over Europe, it was believed that the potato plant would bring disease. In the seventeenth century, the parliaments of Franche Compté and adjacent Burgundy actually prohibited its cultivation. In the early nineteenth century, Ludwig Feuerbach and other German radicals believed that "potato blood" was weakening the people and delaying the anticipated revolution. In Sicily, potatoes were used like voodoo dolls: the name of an enemy was attached to a tuber and buried in the belief that this would ensure his or her death. Even as late as 1928 in America, Celestine Eustis, the author of Cooking in Old Creole Days, advised readers to throw out the water in which potatoes had been boiled because it was poisonous.

At the same time potatoes were feared and reviled, and being grown only in the gardens of botanists, there was also a developing literature in sixteenth-century European herbal books asserting that potatoes had some therapeutic effects. Among the diverse claims were enhanced sexual desire, fertility, and longevity, and cures for diarrhea, tuberculosis, and impotence.

The Potato in Time of War

Europeans quickly discovered that the potato afforded them a military advantage; it was ideally suited to combat starvation caused by war. During the Dutch Wars (1567–1609), for example, Spanish soldiers crossed the Alps on foot from Italy, marching north through Franche Compté, Alsace, and the Rhinelands. Villagers along the route quickly discovered that tubers carried by the soldiers could be planted, hidden underground, and dug as needed, unlike grain. Nearly every military venture after about 1560, including World War II, resulted in more acreage being planted in potatoes.

When French, Austrian, and Russian armies invaded Prussia during the Seven Years War (1756–1763), peasants escaped starvation by eating potatoes. As a result, the Austrian, Russian, and French governments all persuaded their own peasants to grow potatoes. In 1778, the War of the Bavarian Succession was called "the potato war" because most of the action consisted of destroying the enemy's food supplies.

In Russia, crop failure in 1838–1839 convinced people in central and northern parts of the country to raise potatoes. In the course of the nineteenth century, potatoes displaced bread as the principal food for poorer classes from Belgium to Russia. They were cheaper than bread, required less preparation, and were just as nutritious.

Potatoes in England

Potatoes appeared in the British Isles in the 1590s. The historical record is unclear about which of two famous explorers introduced them, Sir Francis Drake or Sir Walter Raleigh. Regardless, the first English potatoes did not, contrary to popular myth, originate in Virginia. This mistaken notion gained credence because the first tubers destined for England passed through Virginia after having been taken aboard in South America.

The tubers were not immediately embraced in Great Britain, remaining a garden crop grown by botanists until 1780. The English, traditionally not fond of vegetables, based most of their meals on meat, and the potato carried a social stigma as the food of savages and peasants. The earliest potato crops in England were produced to feed sailors. By 1700, a stew called lobscouse, consisting of potatoes, meat, onions, and strong seasonings, was recorded in Lancashire. When hardtack was added as an accompaniment, lobscouse became the standard dish of choice for shipboard crews. Yet, the tuber was so despised during the reign of George III (reigned 1760–1820) that it took years of botanical experiments before the English conceded that potatoes might be acceptable as cattle feed.

In the 1700s, northwest England began to produce an abundance of potatoes, as many as 13.5 tons per acre. Cultivation occurred, too, in Cornwall and outside London, where industry was beginning. In many ways, the potato fueled the Industrial Revolution; it was good, cheap food for another lowly multitude—workers. This trend was also generated by the simultaneous decline in bread production. In 1832, the Bread Acts were rewritten so potato flour could be used without losing the right to call the product "bread." By 1836, two million people who used to subsist on wheat flour—one-seventh of the population—were living chiefly on potatoes. By 1850, Londoners were consuming 3,000 tons of potatoes a week. Baked potatoes played a special role in London working-class life—they were sold by street vendors both to eat and to use as hand warmers.

The perennial British working-class favorite, fish and chips, reached the streets as two separate dishes, with fish coming at least thirty years before chips. Neither was fried in deep fat until the 1860s. By 1888, there were between 10,000 and 12,000 fish-and-chips shops in the United Kingdom serving the duo wrapped in newspaper and sprinkled liberally with vinegar.

Meanwhile, the elite consumed potatoes in very different forms—disguised as other foods. Unadulterated, naked potatoes were not considered appropriate food for the upper classes, and Queen Victoria's chef carved the tubers into shapes like olives and pears, or buried them entirely in purées and soups. By 1914, however, people in England said they would rather pass up greens, butter, and nearly all their precious meat before they would give up potatoes—quite a change of heart. It was the English who coined the word "spud" for potato, a slang expression that originally referred to a potato-digging spade.

The Great Irish Potato Famine

Ireland was the first country in Europe to accept the potato as a field crop, in the seventeenth century, and to embrace it as a staple in the eighteenth. To the poverty-stricken peasantry, this tuber was a safeguard against unemployment, overpopulation, crop failure, and starvation. Landless laborers rented tiny plots that they sowed with potatoes. One acre could feed a family of six, averaging ten pounds of potatoes per person a day. Potatoes did not replace meat immediately, but other staples like oats, beans, barley, herring, and bread gradually disappeared from the table. Over time, the diet shifted to one of boiled potatoes supplemented by milk, which supplied calcium and vitamins A and D, making the meal nutritionally complete.

As early as 1740, the potato saved Ireland from famine. Between 1780 and 1841, when the potato achieved its dominance, the population doubled in Ireland. According to historic sources, it cannot be said with certainty that the potato was responsible, but surely it played a role. By 1845, about 40 percent of the Irish population was dependent on the tubers raised on 65,000 farms of not more than one acre each. Potatoes were also used to feed pigs.

In 1845, blight struck potato fields throughout Europe, but those most devastatingly affected by the fungus Phytophthora infestans were in Ireland. The assumption is that the blight was carried back by ship from North America on a diseased tuber. Livid purple patches appeared, covering whole potato plants—roots, tubers, and foliage—after which they turned brown and rotted. Whole fields went under in a matter of hours, destroying 40 percent of the crop. Yet, few deaths occurred because many people slaughtered their pigs, which normally ate a third of the crop. In 1846, the blight redoubled, killing 90 percent of the potatoes and preventing a new crop from being sown. The fungus was not as virulent in 1847, but reappeared in full force in 1848–1849. About five to six months later, famine set in, and diseases including typhus, dysentery, relapsing fever, respiratory infections, and cholera were not far behind. Ultimately, two million people died, one-quarter of the entire population. One million immigrated to the United States.

How the Potato Twice Changed World History

The historian William H. McNeill (1999) believes that potatoes twice made a critical difference in world history: first, in South America, where the vegetable provided the principal energy source for the Inca and their Spanish successors. There would have been no great Incan civilization, McNeill contends, without chuno. Not only was it collected as taxes from the peasant-farmers, it was also disbursed from storehouses to pay labor gangs for building roads, waging war, and erecting great monuments. Once the Spaniards arrived and conquered the Inca, chuno is what fed thousands of conscript miners, forced by the conquistadors to work the silver mines in Bolivia. This tremendous influx of silver contributed to worldwide monetary inflation, and enabled Spain to build a powerful naval fleet.

The second way in which the potato changed world history was in northern Europe. The extraordinary strength of the industrial, political, and military changes between 1750 and 1950 could not have taken place without an enormously expanded food supply from potatoes, which served to feed a rapidly growing population, McNeill argues. Germany could not have become the leading industrial and military power of Europe after 1848, and Russia could not have assumed so threatening a stance on Germany's eastern border after 1891. Both events helped set the stage for two world wars.

The Potato Becomes Haute Cuisine

The French were no more enamored of the potato at first than any other Europeans. Legrand d'Aussy, in his 1782 Histoire de la vie privée des Français (History of the private life of the French) wrote that the pasty, indigestible tuber should be eliminated from aristocratic households and left to the poor. Also in 1783, a Parisian gourmet expressed outrage that the potato had achieved a certain cachet in the capital. The nineteenth-century French gastronome and author of the esteemed La physiologie du goût (The physiology of taste, first published in 1825), Brillat-Savarin agreed that the tasteless potato was good only as a defense against famine.

As in other European countries, the peasantry took to potatoes much more quickly because it could be used in their diet like turnips. Around 1620 (during the reign of Louis XII), the Abbey of Remiremont accepted payments in potatoes. As early as 1673, the tubers were being cultivated on a large scale in Lorraine. By the first half of the eighteenth century, the potato was well established in France, even if it was only among the peasants. By the middle of the century, potatoes began to be grown in the Pyrenees and Dauphiné, both very mountainous areas. By 1780, potatoes were the chief food of the Pyrenean highlands. By 1840, the potato was well established in French cuisine, making its way in through the soup pot, where it added bulk and absorbed flavors.

The person most credited with winning acceptance for the potato in France was eighteenth-century army pharmacist Antoine Parmentier. As a prisoner in Germany during the Seven Years War (1756–1763), he was forced to eat potatoes almost exclusively and became convinced of their virtues. He set about analyzing their chemistry. Then he won a competition sponsored by the Academy of Besançon to identify foods that could stem mass hunger after the famine of 1770. To counter the fear of anything in the nightshade family (more intense in France than in England), in 1771 the Faculté de Paris published a paper stating emphatically that the potato was innocuous. After yet another famine, Parmentier himself wrote in 1789 that, although the tuber was a nightshade, it was not soporific. To further convince the populace of the potato's appeal, he had the tubers planted on the worst possible land on the outskirts of Paris. During the day, the field was guarded by soldiers who left at night. The peasants, intrigued by such an important crop, went into the field and stole potatoes to plant in their own gardens, which is exactly what Parmentier wanted to happen.

Realizing that acceptance of the potato needed to begin at the top, Parmentier is said to have convinced Louis XVI to encourage planting and eating the tuber by throwing all-potato banquets. Even Marie Antoinette was said to wear potato flowers in her hair at court. Although these colorful stories may be apocryphal, between 1770 and 1840 potatoes became widely cultivated in northern parts of the country. When famine struck in 1788 because the grain crop failed, potatoes were available.

In 1793, during the "Reign of Terror," the French people celebrated potatoes as their republican salvation. Even the royal Tuileries gardens were symbolically converted into a potato field. Realizing the political strength potatoes could provide, the Republic published ten thousand copies of a pamphlet on cultivation. A year later, a cookbook, La cuisinière républicaine, presented twenty recipes. The annual potato crop burgeoned from 59,640,000 bushels in 1815 to 332,280,000 by 1840. By 1843, France produced almost half a million bushels of potatoes, possibly the largest crop on the continent and in all of Europe.

Potatoes gradually acquired a place in haute cuisine. Collinet, the chef for King Louis Phillippe (reigned 1830–1848), accidentally created the famous pommes soufflées (puffed potatoes) when he plunged fried potatoes into extremely hot oil to reheat them when the king was late for dinner. Much to the chef's surprise, the potatoes puffed. Pommes frites (what we call french fries) appeared on city streets in the north of France around 1870. The Larousse Gastronomique, the encyclopedia of French cuisine, first published in 1938, contains dozens of classic French recipes for potatoes.

The Potato in America

While potatoes migrated from South America to Europe, they failed to travel out of South America to North America or even to Central America and Mexico. In fact, Mexico did not have potatoes before the eighteenth century. It took about two hundred years—after the tubers made their way to Europe—before they were introduced into North America. This may have happened as early as 1613 in Bermuda, and on the mainland in 1621. The first North American colonial potato growing dates from 1719, when Irish immigrants, escaping starvation from the famine, introduced the potato to New Hampshire.

Americans did not subject the potato to class distinctions, so its popularity grew rapidly. In 1806 the American Gardener's Calendar included only one variety of potato; by 1848, almost one hundred kinds were exhibited at the Massachusetts Horticultural Society fair. By 1860, American output of potatoes was calculated at 100 million bushels, 90 percent produced by the northern states, with New York the single largest producer, followed by Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Maine.

A major step forward in potato cultivation was made in 1872 when the botanist Luther Burbank discovered that the Early Rose potato produced a seed ball, and was able to breed plants with larger tubers whose yield sometimes doubled or tripled that of its parent. The resulting progeny became known as the Burbank potato, which a few decades later mutated into the Idaho (or Russet).

For nineteenth-century farming life, the potato was a real boon for the same reason it became popular elsewhere as a cheap, nutritious, convenient way to feed farmhands and families. The potato, however, was not kept down on the farm; in 1876, some American hotels offered five different potato dishes for breakfast. During the Alaskan Klondike gold rush (1897–1898), potatoes were at times almost worth their weight in gold, so valued for their vitamin C that desperate miners traded gold for them.

In October 1995, the potato became the first vegetable to be grown in space. NASA and the University of Wisconsin created the technology with the goal of feeding astronauts on long space voyages, and, eventually, feeding future space colonies.

Cultivating Potatoes

Potatoes are most often grown in cooler climates in moist, acidic soil (pH slightly less than 6). They must be able to gather sufficient water from the soil to form the starchy tubers that range anywhere from three to twenty in number on any one plant, depending on variety, weather, and conditions. In the United States, most potatoes are produced in Idaho, followed by Washington, Oregon, Maine, North Dakota, California, Minnesota, and Wisconsin. Six varieties account for 80 percent of the crop yield.

Although potatoes are perennials, they are treated as annuals since the edible part of the plant that contains the buds is dug up each year. Farmers grow particular tubers as seed potatoes (not intended to be eaten) for propagating new crops. These potatoes are cut into what are called "sets," small pieces, with at least one eye or leaf bud on the surface, with some of the flesh of the potato still attached to supply the initial energy for the plant. The sets are planted with the eyes facing upward; new plants sprout from the eyes.

The potato plant produces leaves and flowers that can be white, purple, lilac, or violet, depending on variety. If fertilization of the flower is successful, a small green fruit ball is produced containing fifty to two hundred seeds, known as true seed. These can be planted for the next year's crop rather than using seed potatoes. The leaves supply abundant food for the plant's growth, and the generated surplus moves down into the underground tuber for storage. Potatoes can be left in the ground for four to six weeks. They are harvested when all of the leaves and tops of the plants have withered. A potato that is harvested young, usually in the spring or early summer, and sent directly to market instead of being stored, is known as a new potato.

Before potatoes can be sold or shipped, they must be sorted for size and quality. This process is called "grading" and special implements are used. These can be as simple as a wooden slat with a bag on the end for acceptable potatoes, or a more complicated conveyor-belt system that moves potatoes toward the bag at the end as inspection is performed.

Potatoes produce the steroidal alkaloid solanine, which seems to protect the tubers and foliage from some predators and insects. Still, potatoes are vulnerable to such pests as the Colorado potato beetle, red slugs, and blister beetles, and are still attacked by blight. Since 1990, fungicide-resistant strains of blight have struck fields in various parts of North America.

Culinary Preparation of Potatoes

Potatoes figure prominently in many of the world's cuisines, particularly in the Americas, in Europe, and in countries colonized by Europeans: pommes de terre soufflées and pommes Anna in France; hot potato salad, noodles, dumplings, pancakes, and bread in Germany; as a base for soups and puddings and stuffing for pierogi in Russia and Poland; colcannon—a mixture of potatoes and kale, turnips, or cabbage—and cobbledy, potatoes mashed with milk, butter, salt, pepper, and onions in Ireland; as an ingredient in the Spanish omelette; in the latkes and knishes of Jewish food; for the sauce skordalia in Greece; in raclette and roesti in Switzerland; for gnocchi in Italy; stuffed potatoes and savory causa, mashed potato cake, in Peru; for lefse, thin potato pancakes in Norway; in fish and chips, mashed potatoes, shepherd's pie, and Cornish pasties in England; potato casserole in Finland (Imellettyperunasoselaatikka), a dish that undergoes a malting process wherein the starch of the potatoes breaks down to form a simple sugar; french fries, potato chips, and stuffed potatoes in the United States.

Potatoes can be used in every course of a meal, even dessert. They can be fried, boiled, steamed, braised, roasted, sliced, diced, chopped, and mashed. A large part of their versatility is their neutral taste, which provides a palatable backdrop for almost all other foods. For dessert, potatoes can be used with or without chocolate in cakes, pies, doughnuts, cookies, and candies. Since potatoes contain no gluten, adding some mashed potato to dough makes it particularly tender.

For cooking, potatoes are classified according to starch content—high, medium, or low—which affects the way they cook and the resulting texture. High-starch potatoes (Russets and Idahos), also known as mealy or floury, are the first choice for baking and frying. The use of the microwave to bake potatoes has considerably shortened what used to be a lengthy process. The large starch granules swell up and separate, making for a light and fluffy texture. Medium-starch potatoes (white all-purpose and yellow-fleshed, including Yukon Golds) have a creamy texture and become soft but do not disintegrate when cooked. Low-starch potatoes (round red and white boiling potatoes), also known as waxy potatoes, are the first choice for boiling, steaming, and roasting. They contain more of the starch known as amylopectin, with granules that stay close and dense even after cooking.

Once purchased, potatoes need to be stored in a dark, but dry, place to ensure they do not turn green or sprout. Generally, store-bought potatoes have been sprayed with a chemical that inhibits sprouting. Even a little warmth and light, however, may provoke the eyes to use the stored energy in the tuber for growing.

The substance that sometimes appears as a greenish cast under the skin and in the eyes of the potato is the alkaloid solanine, the natural pesticide that protects the plant as it grows. All potatoes contain trace amounts (1–5 mg). Its appearance on store-bought potatoes means they have been "light-struck," exposed either to natural or artificial light. According to Federal Food and Drug Administration guidelines, levels higher than 20 mg per 100 g of potato make the vegetable unfit to eat. Consequences of solanine toxicity range from minor upset stomach to serious illness. To avoid this, proper storage and cutting away all traces of green on the potato are necessary.

Relation to Human Biology

Potatoes contain anthoxanthins, pigments that produce the white color and act as antioxidants, believed to have some cancer-preventing activity. Specifically, unfried potatoes are among those vegetables containing the highest levels of the antioxidant glutathione. When compared to bell peppers, carrots, and onions, potatoes have the greatest overall antioxidant activity. Only broccoli is higher.

French fries and potato chips, however, may pose a cancer risk. Separate studies by the national food agencies of Sweden, Britain, and Norway have reported high levels of acrylamide, a carcinogen in rats and probably one in humans, in potato products fried at high temperatures. Until there is more evidence, the World Health Organization and the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization have not been able to determine whether consumers should cut back on their intake of fried potato foods, particularly chips.

Eating unfried potatoes contributes to the minimum goal of five servings of fruits and vegetables a day, recommended by the U.S. Department of Agriculture's (USDA) Food Guide Pyramid and designed to provide optimum good health.

Symbolism of the Potato

In the United States, the potato has found its way into pop culture. A "couch potato" is a sedentary person; "hot potato" indicates a volatile issue or topic; "small potatoes" refers to something that is not a big deal; a "meat and potatoes" person is someone who eats only the basics. Calling someone a "potato head" is not a compliment because it means someone who is dense. A familiar children's rhyme begins, "One potato, two potato, three potato, four." The children's toy Mr. Potato Head®, introduced by Hasbro in 1952, and Mrs. Potato Head®, in 1953, came packaged with plastic eyes, ears, nose, mouth, feet, and hats to insert into a real potato supplied by the buyer. In 1960, the kit also came with a potato-shaped plastic body. The image has been licensed worldwide for a variety of popular uses including T-shirts, clocks, and Halloween masks.

Since its earliest appearance in Europe, the potato has been associated with the poor and the working class. When the Spanish first stumbled on the potato in Peru, they looked down on it as slave food. The exotic sweet potato was brought from Haiti to Europe as soon as it was discovered by Columbus, but it took the conquistadors more than thirty years to bring potatoes to Spain, and then they came as food for sailors. For a long time, the potato continued to be regarded as food fit only for the poor and as animal fodder, useful only in the event of starvation.

In America, where the potato did not have a class barrier to break down, its association with fat and grease—deep frying—has reinstated some of its lowly image. A headline a few years ago in the New York Times read, "The Rich Get Richer and the Poor Get French Fries." The irony is that, by cooking it in fat, the 99.9 percent fat-free fresh potato is transformed into a high-fat snack.

Commercialization of Potatoes

An early reference to commercial potato growing dates from 1762, when the tubers became a field crop in Salem, Massachusetts. In the following year, Connecticut valley potatoes were listed as an export, but the buyers were West Indian planters, looking for cheap food for slaves. By 1848, about half a dozen varieties of potatoes were being grown commercially, the same number grown in the twenty-first century.

Processing of potatoes began not long after they began to be grown commercially. In the 1870s and 1880s in both France and America, manufacturers began making equipment for deep frying, which made commercial production of fried potatoes and french fries a reality. Mass production depended on the availability of cheap oils that appeared right after the Civil War. In 2002 in the United States, nearly half of the potato harvest ends up being fried.

Unfortunately, processing takes much of the taste out of potatoes, and undermines their quality as growers shift to varieties demanded by processors rather than those that are best fresh. Potato products are made from potatoes that have been reduced to powder in one of two ways. The first is simple cooking, drying, and grinding, which preserves the solids in more or less their original proportions. This is how potato flour is made. Derivatives of potato flour include instant mashed potatoes, frozen potato products, and potato chips.

The second method involves extracting starch from potatoes by a washing process. This is how potato starch is made, which is commercially packaged to be used as a thickener and to make cakes, biscuits, puddings, pies, and sauces for Jewish Passover to fulfill the religious requirement that no flour be used in their preparation.

The first large-scale production of dehydrated potatoes began in 1942, when the potato processor John Richard "Jack" Simplot, already the nation's largest shipper of fresh potatoes, won a government contract to supply dried potatoes to the armed forces during World War II. By 1945, he had supplied about 33 million pounds of dehydrated potatoes to the military. French's Instant Potato was introduced by the R. T. French Company in 1946. Frozen potatoes came later, at first simply precut for french fries. By 1962, frozen, dehydrated, and canned potatoes accounted for 25 percent of U.S. potato consumption. By 1966, per capita consumption had risen to 44.2 pounds a year, up from 6.3 in 1950.

The Potato Chip

In 1853, that quintessentially American product, the potato chip, was invented serendipitously. Annoyed when Commodore Cornelius Vanderbilt (the railroad magnate) sent back his fried potatoes because they were too thick, George Crum, the chef at the Half Moon Hotel in Saratoga Springs, New York, thought he would teach him a lesson. Crum sliced some potatoes paper thin, deep-fried, and salted them. Vanderbilt loved them.

Potato chips began to be commercially manufactured as early as 1915, when Van de Kamp's Saratoga Chips, a storefront operation, opened in Los Angeles. In 1921, Wise Potato Chips were introduced in Berwick, Pennsylvania, by Earl Wise, a local grocer. Finding himself overstocked with old potatoes, Wise peeled and sliced them, and then followed his mother's recipe for making chips and put them in brown paper bags. In the early 1930s, he switched to the more practical cellophane bags. By 1942, Wise had opened a 40,000-square-foot plant.

In 1969, General Mills introduced Chipos, and Procter & Gamble brought out Pringles, both made from cooked, mashed, dehydrated potatoes that were then reconstituted into dough and cut to uniform size (rather than made from sliced potatoes fried in oil). These new "chips" were packaged in break-proof, oxygen-free containers to prolong their shelf life. The Potato Chip Institute sued to prevent the products from being sold as chips, but lost. The Food and Drug Administration ruled that chip products not made from fresh potatoes must be labeled "potato chips made from dried potatoes." By the time the ruling was to have taken effect in 1977, fabricated chips had already lost their appeal.

In 2001 in the United States, nearly $2.7 billion worth of bags were sold, according to Information Resources, a market research firm. A survey by the Department of Agriculture found that the average American snacker eats 33 pounds of chips per year.

Issues in the Twenty-First Century

To combat the threat of pest damage and fungicide-resistant blight, scientists have experimented with breeding blight-resistant germ plasm and biotechnology that involves placing a gene into an already existing variety to improve its resistance to disease, insects, or stress. For example, resistance to the Colorado potato beetle has been placed into the Russet Burbank potato by inserting genetic material from the bacterium Bacillus thuringiensis into the plant. This causes a protein to be manufactured that disrupts the digestive system of the beetle when it feeds on the leaves. The Shepody variety of potato has been improved to make it more resistant to viruses, one of the major causes of declassification of seed in the potato industry. The gene prevents replication of a virus after it has been introduced by aphids. Monsanto's NewLeaf potato is the first genetically engineered potato, designed to protect it from the Colorado potato beetle. It was approved in the United States in 1995, and subsequently in Canada, Mexico, and Japan. The NewLeaf Plus, the next generation from Monsanto, resists both the beetle and the potato leaf roll virus.

Biotechnology is not without controversy. Some critics point out that it gives corporations like Monsanto a profitable monopoly on the seed since it must be replanted each year. Others are concerned that the long-term effects are not known. A major concern is that there is no requirement to label genetically engineered products. There are even larger questions about whether biotechnology offers a reasonable way to feed the world's hungry; most experts maintain that the amount of food is sufficient and it is distribution that is the crucial issue.

Genetic Diversity

Many observers believe that the solutions to the agricultural issues lie in plant breeding and preserving the genetic diversity of potatoes. By planting a larger number of varieties, farmers guard against damage of blight or insects that might destroy one variety but not another. There is some reason to believe that, if Ireland had planted its fields with a diverse crop, the toll from the famine would not have happened.

Today, only half a dozen varieties constitute the vast majority of the nation's crop. In the final decade of the twentieth century, there was a resurgence of interest in potato varietals and their preservation and development. Of particular interest are heirloom potatoes, those developed over centuries for which the seeds have been handed down from one generation to the next.

To protect the genetic diversity of the potato, and to make it available for systematic manipulation, the International Potato Center in Lima, Peru, under the auspices of the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research, has collected about 5,000 samples of native cultivars from nine countries in Latin America, representing about 3,500 genotypes. Every aspect of the potato and its place in the environment and human society is studied. Recent projects have included an effort to develop tropical varieties for Africa, Hong Kong, and the Philippines.

Heirloom Potatoes: the Pursuit of Old-Time Flavor

While the discussion over genetic diversity in crop potatoes has polarized the agricultural community today in much the same manner as the finger-pointing during the 1850s over the causes of the 1840s potato blight, market forces are quietly building new niches for time-tested heirloom varieties. Limited choices in the supermarket and hybrid potatoes without much character or flavor have sent frustrated chefs and small growers in search of the old standbys that once made home cooking so memorable. Interest began with the "fifty-somethings," the not-quite-antique varieties like the Pimpernel (1953) developed in Holland and the French yellow-fleshed fingerling called Roseval (1950). Both are good producers with very distinctive cooking qualities.

Those criteria have become important again, especially since heirloom potatoes are different from heirlooms passed down via seeds. Heirloom plants are generally defined as open-pollinated varieties that have been handed down over several generations, with particular emphasis on varieties dating from before the 1940s. Because potatoes are increased by planting pieces of tubers, they are genetic clones of their parents. That is why heirloom potatoes actually taste like the past. Potato classics like pink-skinned Early Rose (1867), developed by Albert Bresee of Vermont, and creamy 1840s Peach Blow from New Jersey sell out as quickly as growers can supply them. What better potato was ever invented for mashed potatoes, gnocchi, or dumplings than the aptly named Snowflake (1874)? Steam it, and it turns to fluffy snow.

The growing affection for heirloom potatoes is not just a grass-roots trend in the United States and Canada. Arche Noah, a private seed organization in Austria, has been building up an heirloom potato collection for many years, and the recently organized Association Kokopelli in France is establishing chapters in most of the leading countries in the European Union. Kokopelli is comparable to a horticultural Slow Food movement, and doubtless one food network will soon be influencing the other. Purple-skinned treasures like Violette du Lac Bret, a rich-flavored blue potato from Canton Vaud, Switzerland, and its cousin Vitelotte noir (1815) of France are finding their way onto the leading restaurant tables in those countries, just as La Ratte d'Ardéche (1872) has now become the salad potato most favored by Paris chefs.

In the British Isles, waxy yellow Duke of York, developed in Scotland in 1891, still reigns as the classic salad potato of choice. Lilac-skinned Arran Victory, developed in 1918 by Donald Mackelvie of Lamlash, Isle of Arran, Scotland; and Archibald Findlay's Catriona (1920), splashed with patches of blue on the skin, are considered by connoisseurs to be among the finest-tasting potatoes ever developed. Their flavors are complex, with hints of walnuts or hazelnuts, or, as some enthusiasts claim, Scotland's answer to truffles.

William Woys Weaver

Bibliography

Bernand, Carmen. The Incas: People of the Sun, translated from the French by Paul G. Bahn. New York: Abrams, 1994.

Clarkson, Leslie A., and E. Margaret Crawford. Feast and Famine: Food and Nutrition in Ireland, 1500–1920. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001.

Correll, Donovan Stewart. The Potato and Its Wild Relatives; Renner, Tex.: Texas Research Foundation, 1962. Section on Tuberarium of the Genus Solanum.

Crosby, Alfred W. The Columbian Exchange: Biological and Cultural Consequences of 1492. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood, 1972.

Davies, Nigel. The Incas. Niwot, Colo.: University Press of Colorado, 1995.

Dean, Bill B. Managing the Potato Production System. New York: Food Products, 1994.

Dodge, Bertha S. Potatoes and People. Boston: Little, Brown, 1970.

Finamore, Roy. One Potato, Two Potato. New York: Houghton Mifflin, 2001.

Hawkes, John Gregory. The Potato: Evolution, Biodiversity, and Genetic Resources. Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution, 1990.

Kissane, Noel. The Irish Famine: A Documentary History. Dublin: National Library of Ireland, 1995.

Lisinska, Grazyna. Potato Science and Technology. London and New York: Elsevier, 1989.

McNeill, William H. "How the Potato Changed the World's History." Social Research 66, no. 1 (Spring 1999): 67–83.

Meltzer, Milton. The Amazing Potato: A Story in Which the Incas, Conquistadors, Marie Antoinette, Thomas Jefferson, Wars, Famines, Immigrants, and French Fries All Play a Part. New York: HarperCollins, 1992.

Salaman, Redcliffe N. The History and Social Influence of the Potato. Rev. ed., edited by J. G. Hawkes. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985.

Sokolov, Raymond. "The Peripatetic Potato." Natural History 99, no. 3 (1990): 86–91.

Terry, Theodore Brainard. The ABC of Potato Culture. 2d ed., rev. Medina, Ohio: A. I. Root, 1911.

Viola, Herman J., and Carolyn Margolis, eds. Seeds of Change: A Quincentennial Commemoration. Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution, 1991.

Weatherford, Jack M. Indian Givers: How the Indians of the Americas Transformed the World. New York: Fawcett Columbine, 1988.

Zuckerman, Larry. The Potato: How the Humble Spud Rescued the Western World. Boston and London: Faber & Faber, 1998.

—Linda Murray Berzok

solanum tuberosum.

• p. bush — solanum esuriale.
• p. dermatitis — scabby dermatitis on the lower limbs in cattle on a diet heavily supplemented with potatoes over a period of some weeks.
• p. poisoning — see carbohydrate engorgement.
• p. weed — heliotropum europaeum.

As a subterranean vegetable, the potato represents a symbol of the unconscious. Socially, it is a symbol of laziness ("the couch potato") or of a person considered to be a "lump" ("potato head").@symbol entry:

For other uses, see Potato (disambiguation).

Potato
Scientific classification
Kingdom:	Plantae
(unranked):	Angiosperms
(unranked):	Eudicots
(unranked):	Asterids
Order:	Solanales
Family:	Solanaceae
Genus:	Solanum
Species:	S. tuberosum
Binomial name
Solanum tuberosum L.

The potato is a starchy, tuberous crop from the perennial Solanum tuberosum of the Solanaceae family (also known as the nightshades). The word potato may refer to the plant itself as well. In the region of the Andes, there are some other closely related cultivated potato species. Potatoes are the world's fourth largest food crop, following rice, wheat, and maize.^[1] Long-term storage of potatoes requires specialised care in cold warehouses^[2] and such warehouses are among the oldest and largest storage facilities for perishable goods in the world.

Wild potato species occur from the United States to Uruguay and Peru.^[3] Genetic testing of the wide variety of cultivars and wild species suggest that the potato has a single origin in the area of southern Peru,^[4] from a species in the Solanum brevicaule complex. Although Peru is essentially the birthplace of the potato, today over 99% of all cultivated potatoes worldwide are descendants of a subspecies indigenous to south-central Chile.^[5] Based on historical records, local agriculturalists, and DNA analyses, the most widely cultivated variety worldwide, Solanum tuberosum ssp. tuberosum, is believed to be indigenous to the Chiloé Archipelago where it was cultivated as long as 10,000 years ago.^[6][7]

Introduced to Europe in 1536, the potato was subsequently conveyed by European mariners to territories and ports throughout the world. Thousands of varieties persist in the Andes, where over 100 cultivars might be found in a single valley, and a dozen or more might be maintained by a single agricultural household.^[8] Once established in Europe, the potato soon became an important food staple and field crop. But lack of genetic diversity, due to the fact that very few varieties were initially introduced, left the crop vulnerable to disease. In 1845, a plant disease known as late blight, caused by the fungus-like oomycete Phytophthora infestans, spread rapidly through the poorer communities of western Ireland, resulting in the crop failures that led to the Great Irish Famine.

The annual diet of an average global citizen in the first decade of the twenty-first century would include about 33 kg (or 73 lb) of potato. However, the local importance of potato is extremely variable and rapidly changing. It remains an essential crop in Europe (especially eastern and central Europe), where per capita production is still the highest in the world, but the most rapid expansion over the past few decades has occurred in southern and eastern Asia. China is now the world's largest potato-producing country, and nearly a third of the world's potatoes are harvested in China and India.^[9] More generally, the geographic shift of potato production has been away from wealthier countries toward lower-income areas of the world, although the degree of this trend is ambiguous.^[10]

Contents 1 Etymology 2 Description 3 Genetics 4 History 4.1 Spread 4.1.1 Peru 4.2 Europe 4.2.1 19th century Europe 4.2.2 Ireland 4.3 Asia 4.4 US and Canada 5 Role in world food supply 6 Nutrition 6.1 Toxicity 7 Cultivation 7.1 Storage 7.2 Varieties 7.3 Pests 7.4 Organic potatoes 8 Culinary uses 8.1 Regional dishes 8.1.1 Latin America 8.1.2 Europe 8.1.3 North America 8.1.4 Indian Subcontinent 8.1.5 East Asia 9 Other uses 10 In art 11 See also 12 Notes 13 References 14 Further reading 15 External links

Etymology

The English word potato comes from Spanish patata (the name used in Spain). The Spanish Royal Academy says the Spanish word is a compound of the Taino batata (sweet potato) and the Quechua papa (potato).^[11] The name potato originally referred to a type of sweet potato rather than the other way around, despite the fact that there is actually no close relationship between the two plants. The English confused the two plants one for the other. In many of the chronicles detailing agriculture and plants, no distinction is made between the two.^[12] The 16th-century English herbalist John Gerard used the terms "bastard potatoes" and "Virginia potatoes" for this species, and referred to sweet potatoes as "common potatoes".^[13] Potatoes are occasionally referred to as "Irish potatoes" or "white potatoes" in the United States, to distinguish them from sweet potatoes.^[13]

Description

Flowers of a potato plant

Flowers of a potato plant

Potato plants are herbaceous perennials that grow about 60 cm (24 in) high, depending on variety, the culms dying back after flowering. They bear white, pink, red, blue, or purple flowers with yellow stamens. The tubers of varieties with white flowers generally have white skins, while those of varieties with colored flowers tend to have pinkish skins.^[14] Potatoes are cross-pollinated mostly by insects, including bumblebees, which carry pollen from other potato plants, but a substantial amount of self-fertilizing occurs as well. Tubers form in response to decreasing day length, although this tendency has been minimized in commercial varieties.^[15]

Potato plants

After potato plants flower, some varieties will produce small green fruits that resemble green cherry tomatoes, each containing up to 300 true seeds. Potato fruit contains large amounts of the toxic alkaloid solanine and is therefore unsuitable for consumption. All new potato varieties are grown from seeds, also called "true seed" or "botanical seed" to distinguish it from seed tubers. By finely chopping the fruit and soaking it in water, the seeds will separate from the flesh by sinking to the bottom after about a day (the remnants of the fruit will float). Any potato variety can also be propagated vegetatively by planting tubers, pieces of tubers, cut to include at least one or two eyes, or also by cuttings, a practice used in greenhouses for the production of healthy seed tubers. Some commercial potato varieties do not produce seeds at all (they bear imperfect flowers) and are propagated only from tuber pieces. Confusingly, these tubers or tuber pieces are called "seed potatoes".

Genetics

The major species grown worldwide is Solanum tuberosum (a tetraploid with 48 chromosomes), and modern varieties of this species are the most widely cultivated. There are also four diploid species (with 24 chromosomes): Solanum stenotomum, Solanum phureja, Solanum goniocalyx and Solanum ajanhuiri. There are two triploid species (with 36 chromosomes): Solanum chaucha and Solanum juzepczukii. There is one pentaploid cultivated species (with 60 chromosomes): Solanum curtilobum.

There are two major subspecies of Solanum tuberosum: andigena, or Andean; and tuberosum, or Chilean.^[16] The Andean potato is adapted to the short-day conditions prevalent in the mountainous equatorial and tropical regions where it originated. The Chilean potato is adapted to the long-day conditions prevalent in the higher latitude region of southern Chile, especially on Chiloé Archipelago where it is thought to have originated.^[17] Genetic testing done in 2005 shows that both species derive from a single origin in the area of southern Peru.^[18]

There are about five-thousand potato varieties worldwide. Three thousand of them are found in the Andes alone, mainly in Peru, Bolivia, Ecuador, Chile and Colombia. They belong to eight or nine species, depending on the taxonomic school. Apart from the five-thousand cultivated varieties, there are about 200 wild species and subspecies, many of which can be cross-bred with cultivated varieties, which has been done repeatedly to transfer resistances to certain pests and diseases from the gene pool of wild species to the gene pool of cultivated potato species. Genetically modified varieties have met public resistance in the United States and in the European Union.^[19][20]

Most modern potatoes grown in North America arrived through European settlement and not independently from the South American sources. However, at least one wild potato species, Solanum fendleri, is found as far north as Texas and used in breeding for resistance to a nematode species that attacks cultivated potatoes. A secondary center of genetic variability of the potato is Mexico, where important wild species are found that have been used extensively in modern breeding, such as the hexaploid Solanum demissum, as a source of resistance to the devastating late blight disease. Another relative native to this region, Solanum bulbocastanum, has been used to genetically engineer the potato to resist potato blight.^[21]

The International Potato Center, based in Lima, Peru, holds an ISO-accredited collection of potato germplasm.^[22]

History

Potatoes yield abundantly with little effort, and adapt readily to diverse climates so long as the climate is cool and moist enough for the plants to gather sufficient water from the soil to form the starchy tubers. Potatoes do not keep very well in storage and are vulnerable to molds that feed on the stored tubers, quickly turning them rotten. By contrast grain can be stored for several years without much risk of rotting.^[23]

Spread

Peru

The potato originated in the region of southern Peru.^[24] However, based on historical records, local agriculturalists, and DNA analyses, the most widely cultivated variety worldwide, Solanum tuberosum ssp. tuberosum, is believed to be a variation indigenous to the Chiloé Archipelago where it was cultivated as long as 10,000 years ago.^[6][7]

Potatoes were first domesticated in Peru between 3000 BC and 2000 BC. In the altiplano, potatoes provided the principal energy source for the Inca Empire, its predecessors and its Spanish successor. In Peru above 10,000 feet altitude, tubers exposed to the cold night air turned into chuño; when kept in permanently-frozen underground storehouses, chuño can be stored for years with no loss of nutritional value. The Spanish fed chuño to the silver miners who produced vast wealth in the 16th century for the Spanish government.^[25]

Europe

Sailors returning from Peru to Spain with silver presumably brought maize and potatoes for their own food on the trip. Historians speculate that leftover tubers (and maize) was carried ashore and planted. Basque fishermen from Spain used potatoes as ships stores for their voyages across Atlantic in the 15th century, and introduced the tuber to western Ireland, where they landed to dry their cod. In 1553, in the book Cronica del Peru (ru:Хроника Перу) Pedro Cieza de Leon mention, that saw it in Quito, Popayan and Pasto. In 1580, English adventurer Francis Drake introduced potatoes into England along with his other Spanish booty when he returned from his famous circumnavigation of the globe. In 1588 botanist Carolus Clusius made a painting of what he called "Papas Peruanorum" from a specimen in Belgium; in 1601 he reported that potatoes were in common use in northern Italy for animal fodder and for human consumption.^[26]

The Spanish had an empire across Europe, and brought potatoes for their armies. Peasants along the way adopted the crop, which was less often pillaged by marauding armies than above-ground stores of grain. Across most of northern Europe, where open fields prevailed, potatoes were strictly confined to small garden plots because field agriculture was strictly governed by custom that prescribed seasonal rhythms for plowing, sowing, harvesting and grazing animals on fallow and stubble. This meant that potatoes were barred from large-scale cultivation because the rules allowed only grain to be planted in the open fields.^[27] In France and Germany government officials and noble landowners promoted the rapid conversion of fallow land into potato fields after 1750. The potato thus became an important staple crop in northern Europe. Famines in the early 1770s contributed to its acceptance, as did government policies in several European countries and climate change during the Little Ice Age, when traditional crops in this region did not produce as reliably as before.^[28][29] At times when and where most other crops would fail, potatoes could still typically be relied upon to contribute adequately to food supplies during the colder years.^[30]

The potato was not popular in France before 1800. It took time to be popularly adopted, but had widely replaced the turnip and rutabaga by the nineteenth century.^[31] Today, the potato forms an important part of the traditional cuisines of most of Europe. Belarus has the highest consumption of potato per capita, with each Belorussian consuming 338 kg in 2005—about two pounds per person per day.^[32][33]

19th century Europe

French physician Antoine Parmentier studied the potato intensely and in Examen chymique des pommes de terres (Paris, 1774) showed their enormous nutritional value. King Louis XVI and his court eagerly promoted the new crop, with Queen Marie Antoinette even wearing a headdress of potato flowers at a fancy dress ball. The annual potato crop of France soared to 21 million hectoliters in 1815 and 117 millions in 1840, allowing a concomitant growth in population while avoiding the Malthusian trap. Although potatoes had become widely familiar in Russia by 1800, they were confined to garden plots until the grain failure in 1838–1839 persuaded peasants and landlords in central and northern Russia to devote their fallow fields to raising potatoes. Potatoes yielded from two to four times more calories per acre than grain did, and eventually came to dominate the food supply in eastern Europe. Boiled or baked potatoes were cheaper than rye bread, just as nutritious, and did not require a gristmill for grinding. On the other hand cash-oriented landlords realized that grain was much easier to ship, store and sell, so both grain and potatoes coexisted.^[34]

Throughout Europe the most important new food in the 19th century was the potato, which had three major advantages over other foods: its lower rate of spoilage, its bulk (which easily satisfied hunger), and its cheapness. The crop slowly spread across Europe, such that, for example, by 1845 it occupied one-third of Irish arable land. Potatoes comprised about 10% of the caloric intake of Europeans. Other foods imported from the New World included cod, sugar, rice, flour, and rum. These also provided an additional 10% of daily calories and proved a crucial factor in biodiversity of crops, thus preventing famines.^[35]

In Britain the potato promoted economic development by underpinning the Industrial Revolution in the 19th century. As a cheap source of calories and nutrients that was easy for urban workers to cultivate on small backyard plots. Potatoes became popular in the north of England, where coal was readily available, so a potato-driven population boom provided ample workers for the new factories. Marxist Friedrich Engels even declared that the potato was the equal of iron for its "historically revolutionary role.^[26] The Dutch potato-starch industry grew rapidly in the 19th century, especially under the leadership of entrepreneur Willem Albert Scholten (1819–92).^[36]

Ireland

In Ireland the expansion of potato cultivation was due entirely to the landless laborers, renting tiny plots from landowners who were interested only in raising cattle or in producing grain for market. A single acre of potatoes and the milk of a single cow was enough to feed a whole Irish family a monotonous but nutritionally adequate diet for a healthy, vigorous (and desperately poor) rural population. Often even poor families grew enough extra potatoes to feed a pig which could be sold for cash.^[37]

A lack of genetic diversity from the low number of varieties left the crop vulnerable to disease. In 1845, a plant disease known as late blight, caused by the fungus-like oomycete Phytophthora infestans, spread rapidly through the poorer communities of western Ireland, resulting in the crop failures that led to the Great Irish Famine.^[38]

The Lumper potato, widely cultivated in western and southern Ireland before and during the great famine, was tasteless, wet, and poorly resistant to the potato blight, but yielded large crops and usually provided adequate calories for peasants and laborers. Heavy dependence on this potato led to disaster when the potato blight turned a newly harvested potato into a putrid mush in minutes. The Irish Famine in the western and southern parts of the British-controlled island of Ireland, 1845–49, was a catastrophic failure in the food supply that led to approximately a million deaths from famine and (especially) diseases that attacked weakened bodies, and to massive emigration to Britain, the U.S. and Canada.^[39]

Asia

The potato diffused widely after 1600, becoming a major food resource in Europe and East Asia. Following its introduction into China toward the end of the Ming dynasty, the potato immediately became a delicacy of the imperial family. After the middle period of the Qianlong reign (1735–96), population increases and a subsequent need to increase grain yields coupled with greater peasant geographic mobility, led to the rapid spread of potato cultivation throughout China, and it was acclimated to local natural conditions.

Boomgaard (2003) looks at the adoption of various root and tuber crops in Indonesia throughout the colonial period and examines the chronology and reasons for progressive adoption of foreign crops – sweet potato, Irish potato, bengkuang (yam beans), and cassava.

The potato was introduced in the Philippines during the late 16th century, and to Java and China during the 17th century. It was well-established as a crop in India by the late 18th century and in Africa by the mid-20th century.^[29]

US and Canada

Potatoes were planted in Idaho as early as 1838; by 1900 the state's production exceeded a million bushels. Prior to 1910, the crops were stored in barns or root cellars, but by the 1920s potato cellars came into use. U.S. potato production has increased steadily; two-thirds of the crop comes from Idaho, Washington, Oregon, Colorado, and Maine, and potato growers have strengthened their position in both domestic and foreign markets.

By the 1960s, the Canadian Potato Research Centre in Fredericton, New Brunswick, was one of the top six potato research institutes in the world. Established in 1912 as a dominion experimental station, the station began in the 1930s to concentrate on breeding new varieties of disease-resistant potatoes. In the 1950s–60s the growth of the french fry industry in New Brunswick led to a focus on developing varieties for the industry. By the 1970s the station's potato research was broader than ever before, but the station and its research programs had changed, as emphasis was placed on serving industry rather than potato farmers in general. Scientists at the station even began describing their work using engineering language rather than scientific prose.^[40]

Role in world food supply

Top Potato Producers in 2006
(million metric tons)
People's Republic of China	70
Russia	39
India	24
United States	20
Ukraine	19
Germany	10
Poland	9
Belgium	8
Netherlands	7
France	6
World Total	315
Source: UN Food & Agriculture Organisation (FAO)[2]

Potato output in 2005

The United Nations FAO reports that the world production of potatoes in 2006 was 315 million tonnes.^{[citation needed]} The annual diet of an average global citizen in the first decade of the twenty-first century would include about 33 kg (or 73 lb) of potato. However, the local importance of potato is extremely variable and rapidly changing. It remains an essential crop in Europe (especially eastern and central Europe), where per capita production is still the highest in the world, but the most rapid expansion over the past few decades has occurred in southern and eastern Asia. China is now the world's largest potato producing country, and nearly a third of the world's potatoes are harvested in China and India.^[9] More generally, the geographic shift of potato production has been away from wealthier countries toward lower-income areas of the world, although the degree of this trend is ambiguous.^[10]

In 2008, several international organizations highlighted the potato's role in world food production, in the face of developing economic problems. They cited its potential derived from its status as a cheap and plentiful crop which can be raised in a wide variety of climates and locales.^[41] Due to perishability, only about 5% of the world's potato crop is traded internationally; its minimal presence in world financial markets contributed to its stable pricing during the 2007–2008 world food price crisis.^[42][43] Thus, the United Nations officially declared the year 2008 as the International Year of the Potato,^[44] to raise its profile in developing nations, calling the crop a "hidden treasure".^[45] This followed the International Rice Year in 2004.

Nutrition

Potato, raw, with peel

Nutritional value per 100 g (3.5 oz)
Energy	321 kJ (77 kcal)
Carbohydrates	19 g
Starch	15 g
Dietary fiber	2.2 g
Fat	0.1 g
Protein	2 g
Water	75 g
Thiamine (Vit. B1)	0.08 mg (6%)
Riboflavin (Vit. B2)	0.03 mg (2%)
Niacin (Vit. B3)	1.1 mg (7%)
Vitamin B6	0.25 mg (19%)
Vitamin C	20 mg (33%)
Calcium	12 mg (1%)
Iron	1.8 mg (14%)
Magnesium	23 mg (6%
Phosphorus	57 mg (8%)
Potassium	421 mg (9%)
Sodium	6 mg (0%)
Percentages are relative to US recommendations for adults.

The potato contains vitamins and minerals that have been identified as vital to human nutrition, as well as an assortment of phytochemicals, such as carotenoids and polyphenols. A medium-sized 150 g (5.3 oz) potato with the skin provides 27 mg of vitamin C (45% of the Daily Value (DV)), 620 mg of potassium (18% of DV), 0.2 mg vitamin B6 (10% of DV) and trace amounts of thiamin, riboflavin, folate, niacin, magnesium, phosphorus, iron, and zinc. The fiber content of a potato with skin (2 g) is equivalent to that of many whole grain breads, pastas, and cereals.

Nutritionally, the potato is best known for its carbohydrate content (approximately 26 grams in a medium potato). The predominant form of this carbohydrate is starch. A small but significant portion of this starch is resistant to digestion by enzymes in the stomach and small intestine, and so reaches the large intestine essentially intact. This resistant starch is considered to have similar physiological effects and health benefits as fiber: it provides bulk, offers protection against colon cancer, improves glucose tolerance and insulin sensitivity, lowers plasma cholesterol and triglyceride concentrations, increases satiety, and possibly even reduces fat storage.^[46][47][48] The amount of resistant starch in potatoes depends much on preparation methods. Cooking and then cooling potatoes significantly increased resistant starch. For example, cooked potato starch contains about 7% resistant starch, which increases to about 13% upon cooling.^[49]

The nutrients of the potato seem to be fairly evenly distributed between the flesh and the skin. For a medium potato, with and without the skin, nutritiondata.com gives the following:^[50][51]

Nutrient	Without skin (156 g) (% RDA)	With skin (173 g) (% RDA)
Vitamin C	33	28
Thiamin	11	7
Niacin	11	12
Vitamin B6	23	27
Folate	4	12
Pantothenic Acid	9	7
Iron	3	10
Magnesium	10	12
Potassium	17	26
Copper	17	10
Dietary Fiber	9	15

Almost all the protein content of a potato is contained in a thin layer just under its skin.^[52]

The cooking method used can significantly impact the nutrient availability of the potato.

Potatoes are often broadly classified as high on the glycemic index (GI) and so are often excluded from the diets of individuals trying to follow a low GI diet. In fact, the GI of potatoes can vary considerably depending on type (such as red, russet, white, or Prince Edward), origin (where it was grown), preparation methods (i.e., cooking method, whether it is eaten hot or cold, whether it is mashed or cubed or consumed whole, etc), and with what it is consumed (i.e., the addition of various high fat or high protein toppings).^[53]

Toxicity

Seed tuber with sprouts
Early Rose variety

Potatoes contain toxic compounds known as glycoalkaloids, of which the most prevalent are solanine and chaconine. Solanine is also found in other plants in the family solanaceae, which includes such plants as the deadly nightshade (Atropa belladonna), henbane (Hyoscyamus niger) and tobacco (Nicotiana) as well as the potato, eggplant and tomato. This poison affects the nervous system causing weakness and confusion.

These compounds, which protect the plant from its predators, are generally concentrated in its leaves, stems, sprouts, and fruits.^[54] Exposure to light, physical damage, and age increase glycoalkaloid content within the tuber;^[55] the highest concentrations occur just underneath the skin. Cooking at high temperatures (over 170 °C or 340 °F) partly destroys these. The concentration of glycoalkaloid in wild potatoes suffices to produce toxic effects in humans. Glycoalkaloids may cause headaches, diarrhea, cramps and in severe cases coma and death; however, poisoning from potatoes occurs very rarely. Light exposure causes greening from chlorophyll synthesis, thus giving a visual clue as to areas of the tuber that may have become more toxic; however, this does not provide a definitive guide, as greening and glycoalkaloid accumulation can occur independently of each other. Some varieties of potato contain greater glycoalkaloid concentrations than others; breeders developing new varieties test for this, and sometimes have to discard an otherwise promising cultivar.

The toxic fruits produced by mature potato plants

Breeders try to keep solanine levels below 200 mg/kg (200 ppmw). However, when these commercial varieties turn green, even they can approach concentrations of solanine of 1000 mg/kg (1000 ppmw). In normal potatoes, analysis has shown solanine levels may be as little as 3.5% of the breeders' maximum, with 7–187 mg/kg being found.^[56]

The US National Toxicology Program suggests that the average American consumes at most 12.5 mg/day of solanine from potatoes (the toxic dose is actually several times this, depending on body weight). Dr. Douglas L. Holt, the State Extension Specialist for Food Safety at the University of Missouri, notes that no reported cases of potato-source solanine poisoning have occurred in the U.S. in the last 50 years and most cases involved eating green potatoes or drinking potato-leaf tea.^{[citation needed]}

Cultivation

Potato Planting
Washington

Potato field
Fort Fairfield, Maine

Potatoes grown in a tall bag are common in gardens as they increase potato yield and minimize the amount of digging required at harvest

Correct potato husbandry can be an arduous task in some circumstances. Good ground preparation, harrowing, plowing, and rolling are always needed, along with a little grace from the weather and a good source of water. Three successive plowings, with associated harrowing and rolling, are desirable before planting. Eliminating all root-weeds is desirable in potato cultivation. The potatoes themselves are generally grown from the eyes of another potato and not from seed. Home gardeners often plant a piece of potato with two or three eyes in a hill of mounded soil. Commercial growers plant potatoes as a row crop using seed tubers, young plants or microtubers and may mound the entire row. Seed potato crops are 'rogued' in some countries to eliminate diseased plants or those of a different variety from the seed crop.

Potatoes are sensitive to heavy frosts, which damage them in the ground. Even cold weather makes potatoes more susceptible to bruising and possibly later rotting which can quickly ruin a large stored crop.

At harvest time, gardeners usually dig up potatoes with a long-handled, three-prong "grape" (or graip), i.e. a spading fork, or a potato hook which is similar to the graip but its tines are at a 90 degree angle to the handle. In larger plots, the plow can serve as the fastest implement for unearthing potatoes. Commercial harvesting is typically done with large potato harvesters which scoop up the plant and the surrounding earth. This is transported up an apron chain consisting of steel links several feet wide, which separates some of the dirt. The chain deposits into an area where further separation occurs. Different designs use different systems at this point. The most complex designs use vine choppers and shakers, along with a blower system or "Flying Willard" to separate the potatoes from the plant. The result is then usually run past workers who continue to sort out plant material, stones, and rotten potatoes before the potatoes are continuously delivered to a wagon or truck. Further inspection and separation occurs when the potatoes are unloaded from the field vehicles and put into storage.

Immature potatoes may be sold as "New Potatoes" and are particularly valued for taste. These are often harvested by the home gardener or farmer by "grabbling", i.e. pulling out the young tubers by hand while leaving the plant in place.

Potatoes are usually cured after harvest to improve skin-set. Skin-set is the process by which the skin of the potato becomes resistant to skinning damage. Potato tubers may be susceptible to skinning at harvest and suffer skinning damage during harvest and handling operations. Curing allows the skin to fully set and any wounds to heal. Wound-healing prevents infection and water-loss from the tubers during storage. Curing is normally done at relatively warm temperatures 50 °C (122 °F) to 60 °C (140 °F) with high humidity and good gas-exchange if at all possible.^[57]

Storage

Storage facilities need to be carefully designed to keep the potatoes alive and slow the natural process of decomposition, which involves the breakdown of starch. It is crucial that the storage area is dark, well ventilated and for long-term storage maintained at temperatures near 4 °C (39 °F). For short-term storage before cooking, temperatures of about 7 °C (45 °F) to 10 °C (50 °F) are preferred.^[2][58] Temperatures below 4 °C (39 °F) convert potatoes' starch into sugar, which alters their taste and cooking qualities and leads to higher acrylamide levels in the cooked product, especially in deep-fried dishes.

Under optimum conditions possible in commercial warehouses, potatoes can be stored for up to ten to twelve months.^[2] When stored at homes the shelf life is usually only for several weeks.^[58] If potatoes develop green areas or start to sprout, these areas should be trimmed before using.^[58]

When stored commercially, Potatoes should undergo the following storage phases^[2] –

• Equalisation or drying phase: tuber surface moisture may need drying. Ventilation fans are run continuously to equalize average pile temperature to within 2°C (3°F) of average pulp temperature.
• Wound Healing, pre-conditioning phase: 10 °C (50 °F) to 20 °C (68 °F) at 85% to 95% RH for 15 to 30 days. Care is taken to avoid water condensation. Higher temperatures are sometimes used but above 25 °C (77 °F) is avoided.
• Cooling phase: temperature is brought down by from 4°C (7°F) to 10°C (18°F) (depending on variety) at about 0.5 to 1 °C per day. Cooling air should not be lower than 1.5 °C than the potatoes. Efficient Air flow is maintained to provide even cooling. A RH of 95% to 98% is preferred.
• Holding phase: holding temperature and high RH is maintained. Intermittent ventilation only to control CO² build up and maintain O² levels. Maintain potatoes at various locations within 1°C (2°F) pulp temperature of one another.
• Reconditioning phase: warming up of the potato from holding temperature to preferably within 5°C (9°F) of handling temperatures to avoid condensation, handling damage, recover color.

Varieties

Different types of potato

Organically grown Russet Burbanks

While there are close to 4000 different varieties of potato,^[59] it has been bred into many standard or well-known varieties, each of which has particular agricultural or culinary attributes. Varieties are generally categorized into a few main groups—such as russets, reds, whites, yellows (also called Yukons) and purples—based on common characteristics. Around 80 varieties are commercially available in the UK.^[60] For culinary purposes, varieties are often described in terms of their waxiness. Floury, or mealy (baking) potatoes have more starch (20–22%) than waxy (boiling) potatoes (16–18%). The distinction may also arises from variation in the comparative ratio of two potato starch compounds: amylose and amylopectin. Amylose, a long-chain molecule, diffuse out of the starch granule when cooked in water, and lends itself to dishes in which the potato is mashed; varieties containing a slightly higher amylopectin content, a highly branched molecule, help to retain the potato its shape during boiling.^[61]

The European Cultivated Potato Database (ECPD) is an online collaborative database of potato variety descriptions, updated and maintained by the Scottish Agricultural Science Agency within the framework of the European Cooperative Programme for Crop Genetic Resources Networks (ECP/GR) which is organised by the International Plant Genetic Resources Institute (IPGRI).^[62]

Popular varieties (cultivars) include:

Anya Atlantic Belle de Fontenay BF-15 Bintje Cabritas Camota Chelina Chiloé[63] Cielo Clavela Blanca Désirée

Fianna Fingerling Flava Golden Wonder Jersey Royal Kerr's Pink Kestrel King Edward Kipfler Maris Piper Nicola Pachacoña

Pink Eye Pink Fir Apple Red Norland Red Pontiac Rooster Russet Burbank Russet Norkotah Shepody Spunta Vivaldi Yukon Gold

Genetic research has produced several genetically modified varieties. New Leaf, owned by Monsanto Company, incorporated genes from Bacillus thuringiensis, which conferred resistance to the Colorado potato beetle; New Leaf Plus and New Leaf Y, approved by US regulatory agencies during the 1990s, also included resistance to viruses. McDonald's, Burger King, Frito-Lay, and Procter & Gamble announced that they would not use genetically modified potatoes, and Monsanto published its intent to discontinue the line in March 2001.^[64] The starch content of Amflora, waxy potato variety from the German chemical company BASF, has been modified to contain only amylopectin, making it inedible but more useful for industrial purposes; as of 2007, it was close to gaining acceptance in the European Union.^[20] On 22 September 2007, Benguet State University (BSU) announced that four potato varieties—Igorota, Solibao, Ganza and one not yet officially named—possess more than 18% dry matter content required by fast-food chains to make crispy and sturdy French fries.^[65] Since 2005 a natural 100% amylopectine waxy potato variety called ELIANE is being cultivated by the starch company AVEBE.

Some horticulturists sell chimeras, made by grafting a tomato plant onto a potato plant, producing both edible tomatoes and potatoes. This practice is not very widespread.

Pests

A potato ruined by late blight

Main article: List of potato diseases

The historically significant Phytophthora infestans (late blight) remains an ongoing problem in Europe^[66] and the United States.^[67] Other potato diseases include Rhizoctonia, Sclerotinia, Black Leg, Powdery Mildew, Powdery Scab, Leafroll Virus, and Purple Top.

Insects that commonly transmit potato diseases or damage the plants include the Colorado potato beetle, the potato tuber moth, the green peach aphid (Myzus persicae), the Potato Aphid, Beetleafhoppers, Thrips, and Mites. The potato root nematode is a microscopic worm that thrives on the roots, thus causing the potato plants to wilt. Since its eggs can survive in the soil for several years, crop rotation is recommended.

Organic potatoes

During the crop year 2008 many of the certified organic potatoes produced in the United Kingdom and certified by the Soil Association as organic were sprayed with a copper pesticide^[68] to control potato blight (Phytophthora infestans).^[69] According to the Soil Association, the total copper that can be applied to organic land is 6 kg/ha/year.^[70]

Culinary uses

Various potato dishes.

Potatoes are prepared in many ways: skin-on or peeled, whole or cut up, with seasonings or without. The only requirement involves cooking to break down the starch. Most potato dishes are served hot, but some are first cooked then served cold, notably potato salad and potato chips/crisps.

Common dishes are: mashed potatoes, which are first boiled (usually peeled), and then mashed with milk or yogurt and butter; whole baked potatoes; boiled or steamed potatoes; French-fried potatoes or chips; cut into cubes and roasted; scalloped, diced, or sliced and fried (home fries); grated into small thin strips and fried (hash browns); grated and formed into dumplings, Rösti or potato pancakes. Unlike many foods, potatoes can also be easily cooked in a microwave oven and still retain nearly all of their nutritional value, provided that they are covered in ventilated plastic wrap to prevent moisture from escaping—this method produces a meal very similar to a steamed potato while retaining the appearance of a conventionally baked potato. Potato chunks also commonly appear as a stew ingredient.

Potatoes are boiled between 10 and 25^[71] minutes, depending on size and type, to become soft.

Regional dishes

Latin America

Papa rellena

Peruvian Cuisine naturally contains the potato as a primary ingredient in many dishes, as around 3,000 varieties of this tuber are grown there.^[72] Some of the more famous dishes include Papa a la huancaina, Papa rellena, Ocopa, Carapulcra, Causa and Cau Cau among many others. French-fried potatoes are a typical ingredient in Peruvian stir-fries, including the classic dish Lomo saltado.

Chuño is a freeze-dried potato product traditionally made by Quechua and Aymara communities of Peru and Bolivia,^[73] and is known in various countries of South America, including Peru, Bolivia, Argentina, and Chile. In Chile's Chiloé archipelago, potatoes are the main ingredient of many dishes, including milcaos, chapaleles, curanto and chochoca. In Ecuador the potato, as well as being a staple with most dishes, is featured in the hearty Locro de Papas, a thick soup of potato, squash, and cheese.

Europe

Fish and chips

In the UK, potatoes form part of the traditional staple fish and chips. Roast potatoes are commonly served with a Sunday roast. Mashed potatoes also form a major component of several other traditional dishes such as shepherd's pie, bubble and squeak, champ, bangers and mash, and the mashed potatoes which accompany haggis. The Tattie scone is another popular Scottish dish containing potatoes. Potatoes are also often sautéed to accompany a meal. In the UK, new potatoes are typically cooked with mint and served with a little melted butter; Jersey Royal potatoes are the most prized new potatoes, and have their own Protected Designation of Origin.

In Ireland, Colcannon is a traditional Irish dish involving mashed potato combined with shredded cabbage and onion. Boxty pancakes are eaten all over Ireland, although associated especially with the north, and in Irish diaspora communities: they are traditionally made with grated potatoes, soaked to loosen the starch and mixed with flour, buttermilk and baking powder. A variant eaten and sold in Lancashire, especially Liverpool, is made with cooked and mashed potatoes.

Bryndzové halušky is the Slovakian national dish, made of a batter of flour and finely grated potatoes that is boiled to form dumplings. These are then mixed with regionally varying ingredients.^[74]

In Northern and Eastern Europe, especially in Scandinavian countries, Poland, Russia, Belarus and Ukraine, newly harvested, early ripening varieties are considered a special delicacy. Boiled whole and served with dill, these "new potatoes" are traditionally consumed together with Baltic herring. Puddings made from grated potatoes (kugel, kugelis, and potato babka) are popular items of Ashkenazi, Lithuanian, and Belarussian cuisine.^[75]

A baked potato served with butter

In Western Europe, especially in Belgium, sliced potatoes are fried to create frieten, the original French fried potatoes. Stamppot, a traditional Dutch meal, is based on mashed potatoes mixed with vegetables.

In France, the most famous potato dish is the Hachis Parmentier, named after Antoine-Augustin Parmentier, a French pharmacist, nutritionist, and agronomist who, in the late 18th century, was instrumental in the acceptance of the potato as an edible crop in the country. The Pâté aux pommes de terre is a regional potato dish from the central Allier and Limousin regions.

In the north of Italy, particularly in the Friuli region of the northeast, potatoes serve to make a type of pasta called gnocchi.^[76] Similarly, cooked and mashed potatoes or potato flour can be used in the knödel or dumpling eaten with or added to meat dishes all over central and Eastern Europe, but especially in Bavaria and Luxembourg. Potatoes form one of the main ingredients in many soups such as the vichyssoise and Albanian potato and cabbage soup. In western Norway, komle is popular.

A traditional Canary Islands dish is Canarian wrinkly potatoes or Papas arrugadas. Tortilla de patatas (potato omelete) and Patatas bravas (a dish of fried potatoes in a spicy tomato sauce) are near-universal constituent of Spanish tapas.

North America

French fries served with a hamburger

Poutine: Fried potatoes, cheese curds, and gravy

In the United States, potatoes have become one of the most widely consumed crops and thus have a variety of preparation methods and condiments. French fries and often hash browns are commonly found in typical American fast-food burger joints and cafeterias. One popular favorite involves a baked potato with cheddar cheese (or sour cream and chives) on top, and in New England "smashed potatoes" (a chunkier variation on mashed potatoes, retaining the peel) have great popularity. Potato flakes are popular as an instant variety of mashed potatoes, which reconstitute into mashed potatoes by adding water, with butter or oil and salt to taste. A regional dish of Central New York, salt potatoes are bite-sized new potatoes boiled in water saturated with salt then served with melted butter. At more formal dinners, a common practice includes taking small red potatoes, slicing them, and roasting them in an iron skillet. Among American Jews, the practice of eating latkes (fried potato pancakes) is common during the festival of Hanukkah.

A traditional Acadian dish from New Brunswick is known as poutine râpée. The Acadian poutine is a ball of grated and mashed potato, salted, sometimes filled with pork in the center, and boiled. The result is a moist ball about the size of a baseball. It is commonly eaten with salt and pepper or brown sugar. It is believed to have originated from the German Klöße, prepared by early German settlers who lived among the Acadians.

Poutine, by contrast, is a hearty serving of french fries, fresh cheese curds and hot gravy. Tracing its origins to Quebec in the 1950s, it has become a widespread and popular dish throughout Canada.

Indian Subcontinent

In India, the most popular potato dishes are aloo ki sabzi, and samosa, which is spicy mashed potato mixed with a small amount of vegetable stuffed in conical dough, and deep fried. Potatoes are also a major ingredient as fast food items, such as aloo chaat, where they are deep fried and served with chutney. In Northern India, alu dum and alu paratha are a favorite part of the diet: the first is a spicy curry of boiled potato, the second is a type of stuffed chapati.

A dish called Masala Dosa from South India is very famous all over India. It is a thin pancake of rice and pulse paste rolled over spicy smashed potato and eaten with sambhar and chutney.Other favorite dishes are Alu Tikki, pakoda items etc.

Vada pav is a popular vegetarian fast food dish in Mumbai and other regions in the Maharashtra in India.

East Asia

In East Asia, rice still dominates the potato, especially in China and Japan. However, it is occasionally seen in Korean and Thai cuisines.^[77]

Other uses

• Potatoes are also used to brew alcoholic beverages such as vodka, and potcheen. As well as food for domestic animals.
• Potato starch is used in the food industry as for example thickener and binder of soups and sauces, in the textile industry, as adhesive, and for the manufacturing of papers and boards.^[78][79]
• Maine companies are exploring the possibilities of using waste potatoes to obtain polylactic acid for use in plastic products; other research projects seek ways to use the starch as a base for biodegradable packaging.^[79][80]

In art

Potato ceramic from the Moche culture. Larco Museum Collection

The potato has been an essential crop in the Andes since the pre-Columbian Era. The Moche culture from Northern Peru made ceramics from earth, water, and fire. This pottery was a sacred substance, formed in significant shapes and used to represent important themes. Potatoes are represented anthropomorphically as well as naturally.^[81]

During the late 19th century, numerous images of potato harvesting appeared in European art, including the works of Willem Witsen and Anton Mauve.^[82] Van Gogh's 1885 painting "The Potato Eaters" portrays a family eating potatoes.^[83]

Invented in 1949 and marketed and sold commercially by Hasbro in 1952, Mr. Potato Head is an American toy consisting of a plastic model of a potato which can be decorated with a variety of attachable plastic parts such as ears and eyes to make a face. It was the first toy ever advertised on television.^[84]

There is an Idaho Potato Museum in Blackfoot, Idaho.^[85]

See also

• New World Crops
• Potatoe, archaic spelling

Notes

1. ^ "Potatoes – Notes". Purdue University Department of Horticulture and Landscape Architecture. http://www.hort.purdue.edu/rhodcv/hort410/potat/po00001.htm. Retrieved 15 January 2009. 
2. ^ ^{a b c d} Potato storage, value Preservation: Kohli, Pawanexh (2009). "Potato storage and value Preservation: The Basics". Crosstree Techno-visors. http://crosstree.info/Documents/POTATO%20STORAGE.pdf. 
3. ^ Hijmans, RJ; DM Spooner (2001). "Geographic distribution of wild potato species". American Journal of Botany 88 (11): 2101–12. doi:10.2307/3558435. http://www.amjbot.org/cgi/content/full/88/11/2101. 
4. ^ Spooner, DM; et al. (2005). "A single domestication for potato based on multilocus amplified fragment length polymorphism genotyping". PNAS 102 (41): 14694–99. doi:10.1073/pnas.0507400102.  Lay summary
5. ^ Miller, N (29 January 2008). "Using DNA, scientists hunt for the roots of the modern potato". American Association for the Advancement of Science. http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2008-01/uow-uds012908.php. Retrieved 10 September 2008. 
6. ^ ^{a b} Solis, JS; et al. (2007). "Molecular description and similarity relationships among native germplasm potatoes (Solanum tuberosum ssp. tuberosum L.) using morphological data and AFLP markers". Electronic Journal of Biotechnology 10 (3): 0. doi:10.2225/vol10-issue3-fulltext-14. http://www.scielo.cl/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S0717-34582007000300011&lng=en&nrm=. 
7. ^ ^{a b} John Michael Francis (2005). Iberia and the Americas. ABC-CLIO. http://books.google.com/books?id=OMNoS-g1h8cC&pg=PA867&dq=artistic+potato&as_brr=3&client=firefox-a. 
8. ^ Theisen, K (1 January 2007). "World Potato Atlas: Peru – History and overview". International Potato Center. Archived from the original on 14 January 2008. http://web.archive.org/web/20080114015939/http://research.cip.cgiar.org/confluence/display/wpa/Peru. Retrieved 10 September 2008. 
9. ^ ^{a b} Hijmans, Robert (2001). "Global distribution of the potato crop". [American Journal of Potato Research] 78 (6): 403–12. doi:10.1007/BF02896371. http://www.springerlink.com/content/x337773202025363/. 
10. ^ ^{a b} "Potato World – World-wide potato production statistics". website for the International Year of the Potato. http://www.potato2008.org/en/world/index.html. Retrieved 10 September 2008. 
11. ^ Real Academia Española. Diccionario Usual
12. ^ Weatherford, J. McIver (1988). Indian givers: how the Indians of the Americas transformed the world. New York: Fawcett Columbine. p. 69. ISBN 0-449-90496-2. 
13. ^ ^{a b} J. Simpson, E. Weiner (eds), ed (1989). "potato, n.". Oxford English Dictionary (2nd ed.). Oxford: Clarendon Press. ISBN 0-19-861186-2. 
14. ^ Tony Winch (2006). Growing Food: A Guide to Food Production. Springer Science+Business Media. http://books.google.com/books?id=QDrqL2J-AiYC&pg=PA209&dq=potato+plants+60+cm&client=firefox-a. 
15. ^ Virginia Amador, Jordi Bou, Jaime Martínez-García, Elena Monte, Mariana Rodríguez-Falcon, Esther Russo and Salomé Prat (2001). "Regulation of potato tuberization by daylength and gibberellins" (PDF). International Journal of Developmental Biology (45): S37-S38. http://www.ijdb.ehu.es/abstract.01supp/s37.pdf. Retrieved 8 January 2009. 
16. ^ Chilean Tetraploid Cultivated Potato, Solanum tuberosum is Distinct from the Andean Populations: Microsatellite Data, Celeste M. Raker and David M. Spooner, Univewrsity of Wisconsin, published in Crop Science, Vol.42, 2002
17. ^ "Electronic Journal of Biotechnology – Molecular description and similarity relationships among native germplasm potatoes (''Solanum tuberosum'' ssp.'' ''tuberosum'' L.) using morphological data and AFLP markers". Scielo.cl. http://www.scielo.cl/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S0717-34582007000300011&lng=en&nrm=. Retrieved 2009-12-06. 
18. ^ Spooner, David M.; McLean, Karen; Ramsay, Gavin; Waugh, Robbie; Bryan, Glenn J. (29 September 2005). "A single domestication for potato based on multilocus amplified fragment length polymorphism genotyping". PNAS 102 (41): 14694–99. doi:10.1073/pnas.0507400102. http://www.pnas.org/content/102/41/14694.full. Retrieved 10 April 2009. Lay summary. 
19. ^ "Consumer acceptance of genetically modified potatoes". American Journal of Potato Research cited through Bnet. 2002. http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa4069/is_/ai_n9144615. Retrieved 15 November 2008. 
20. ^ ^{a b} "A Genetically Modified Potato, Not for Eating, Is Stirring Some Opposition in Europe". New York Times. 2007. http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/24/business/worldbusiness/24spuds.html. Retrieved 15 November 2008. 
21. ^ Gene RB cloned from Solanum bulbocastanum confers broad spectrum resistance to potato late blight, Junqi Song et al., PNAS 2003
22. ^ "ISO accreditation a world-first for CIP genebank". International Potato Center. 2008. http://www.cipotato.org/pressroom/press_releases_detail.asp?cod=55. Retrieved 19 November 2008. 
23. ^ The yield of Calories per acre (about 9.2 million) is higher than that of maize (7.5 million), rice (7.4 million), wheat (3 million), or soybean (2.8 million). Audrey Ensminger; M. E. Ensminger, James E. Konlande (1994). Foods & Nutrition Encyclopedia. CTC Press. http://books.google.com/books?id=XMA9gYIj-C4C&pg=PA1104&dq=potatoes+calories+per+acre&as_brr=3. 
24. ^ Spooner, DM; et al.. "A single domestication for potato based on multilocus amplified fragment length polymorphism genotyping". PNAS 102 (41): 14694–99. doi:10.1073/pnas.0507400102.  Lay summary
25. ^ Office of International Affairs, Lost Crops of the Incas: Little-Known Plants of the Andes with Promise for Worldwide Cultivation (1989) online
26. ^ ^{a b} John Reader, John. Propitious Esculent: The Potato in World History (2008)
27. ^ William H. McNeill, "How the Potato Changed the World's History." Social Research 1999 66(1): 67–83.
28. ^ Wilhelm Abel (1986). Agricultural Fluctuations in Europe: From the Thirteenth to the Twentieth Centuries. Taylor and Francis. http://books.google.com/books?id=YAkOAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA208&dq=potato+resisted+france+germany&lr=. 
29. ^ ^{a b} "Columbus's Contribution to World Population and Urbanization: A Natural Experiment Examining the Introduction of Potatoes" (PDF). Harvard University. http://www.economics.harvard.edu/faculty/nunn/files/Potatoes.pdf. Retrieved 8 January 2009. 
30. ^ John Reader, Propitious Esculent: The Potato in World History (2008)
31. ^ von Bremzen, p. 322
32. ^ Economist.com Llamas and mash
33. ^ International year of the potato website
34. ^ William L. Langer, "American Foods and Europe's Population Growth 1750–1850," Journal of Social History, 8#2 (1975), pp. 51–66
35. ^ John Komlos, "The New World's Contribution to Food Consumption During the Industrial Revolution." Journal of European Economic History 1998 27(1): 67–82. Issn: 0391-5115
36. ^ Dorien Knaap, The W.A. Scholtencompany: the first Dutch industrial multinational, Summery of dissertation, University of Groningen, 2004 [1]
37. ^ William H. McNeill, "The Introduction of the Potato into Ireland," Journal of Modern History 21 (1948): 218–21. in JSTOR
38. ^ Cormac Ó Gráda, Black '47 and Beyond: The Great Irish Famine in History, Economy, and Memory. (1999).
39. ^ Cormac Ó Gráda, et al. When the Potato Failed: Causes and Effects of the Last European Subsistence Crisis, 1845–1850. (2007)
40. ^ Steven Turner, and Heather Molyneaux, "Agricultural Science, Potato Breeding and the Fredericton Experimental Station, 1912–66." Acadiensis 2004 33(2): 44–67. Issn: 0044-5851
41. ^ As other staples soar, potatoes break new ground By Terry Wade, Reuters, 15 April 2008.
42. ^ "Getting Out of the food crisis". Global Policy Forum. http://www.globalpolicy.org/socecon/hunger/general/2008/07grain.htm. Retrieved 14 November 2008. 
43. ^ "Potatoes called savior in global food crisis". San Francisco Chronicle. http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/10/26/MN2O13O982.DTL. Retrieved 14 November 2008. 
44. ^ Khaleej Times Online – UN launches Int'national Year of the Potato
45. ^ 'Humble' Potato Emerging as World's next Food Source, p. 20
46. ^ Cummings JH, Beatty ER, Kingman SM, Bingham SA, Englyst HN. Digestion and physiological properties of resistant starch in the human large bowel. Br J Nutr. 1996;75:733-47.
47. ^ Hylla S, Gostner A, Dusel G, Anger H, Bartram HP, Christl SU, Kasper H, Scheppach W. Effects of resistant starch on the colon in healthy volunteers: possible implications for cancer prevention. Am J Clin Nutr. 1998;67:136-42
48. ^ Raban A, Tagliabue A, Christensen NJ, Madsen J, Host JJ, Astrup A. Resistant starch: the effect on postprandial glycemia, hormonal response, and satiety. Am J Clin Nutr. 1994;60:544–551.
49. ^ Englyst HN, Kingman SM, Cummings JH (1992). "Classification and measurement of nutritionally important starch fractions". Eur J Clin Nutr. 46: S33-S50. 
50. ^ Nutritiondata.com
51. ^ Nutritiondata.com
52. ^ Brody, Jane E. (1985). Jane Brody's Good food book: living the high-carbohydrate way. ?: Norton. p. 32. ISBN 0-393-02210-2. 
53. ^ Fernandes G, Velangi A, Wolever TMS (2005). "Glycemic index of potatoes commonly consumed in North America". Journal of the American Dietetic Association 105: 557–62. 
54. ^ "Tomato-like Fruit on Potato Plants". Iowa State University. http://www.ipm.iastate.edu/ipm/hortnews/2004/7-2-2004/tomatopotato.html. Retrieved 8 January 2009. 
55. ^ "Greening of potatoes". Food Science Australia. 2005. http://www.foodscience.afisc.csiro.au/spuds.htm. Retrieved 15 November 2008. 
56. ^ Glycoalkaloid and calystegine contents of eight potato cultivars J-Agric-Food-Chem. 2003 May 7; 51(10): 2964–73
57. ^ Kleinkopf G.E. and N. Olsen. 2003. Storage Management, in: Potato Production Systems, J.C. Stark and S.L. Love (eds), University of Idaho Agricultural Communications, 363–381.
58. ^ ^{a b c} "Potato storage and care" – Healthy Potato.com
59. ^ John Roach (10 June 2002). "Saving the Potato in its Andean Birthplace". National Geographic. http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2002/06/0610_020610_potato.html. Retrieved 11 September 2009. 
60. ^ Potato Council Ltd.. "Potato Varieties". Potato Council website. Agriculture & Horticulture Development Board. http://www.britishpotatoes.co.uk/potato-varieties/. Retrieved 13 September 2009. 
61. ^ "Potato Primer" (PDF). Cooks Illustrated. http://www.cooksillustrated.com/images/document/howto/JF07_PotatoPrimer.pdf. Retrieved 8 December 2008. 
62. ^ Europotato.org
63. ^ "Papas Nativas de Chiloé – Descripción de tuberculos". Papasnativas.cl. http://www.papasnativas.cl/chwb/cet/variedades.html. Retrieved 2009-12-06. 
64. ^ "Genetically Engineered Organisms Public Issues Education Project/Am I eating GE potatoes?". Cornell University. http://www.geo-pie.cornell.edu/crops/potato.html. Retrieved 16 December 2008. 
65. ^ Inquirer.net, RP's new potato varieties good for French fries
66. ^ "NJF seminar No. 388 Integrated Control of Potato Late Blight in the Nordic and Baltic Countries. Copenhagen, Denmark, 29 November −1 December 2006" (PDF). Nordic Association of Agricultural Scientists. http://www.njf.nu/filebank/files/20060330$105643$fil$vodD3dJE390Hb92eKsGd.pdf. Retrieved 14 November 2008. 
67. ^ "Potato Late Blight in 2006; the year in review and what to look for in 2007" (PDF). University of Maine. http://www.umaine.edu/umext/potatoprogram/images/Johnson%209.00.pdf. Retrieved 14 November 2008. 
68. ^ Section 4.11.11, page 103 Soil Association Organic Standards for Producer, Verion 16, January, 2009
69. ^ "Thousands of tons of organic food produced using toxic chemicals" article by David Derbyshire in The Daily Mail 1 January 2008
70. ^ Links to forms permitting application of copper fungicide on the website of the Soil Association
71. ^ Swegro
72. ^ Peru Celebrates Potato Diversity
73. ^ Timothy Johns: With bitter Herbs They Shall Eat it : Chemical ecology and the origins of human diet and medicine, The University of Arizona Press, Tucson 1990, ISBN 0-8165-1023-7, p. 82-84
74. ^ Sinkovec, Magdalena (2004). "Bryndzové Halušky / Potato Dumplings with 'Bryndza' Sheep Cheese and Bacon". Culinary Cosmic Top Secrets A Nato Cookbook. Lulu. pp. 115–116. ISBN 9781411608375. http://books.google.com/books?id=9fNgBO3aEK8C&pg=PA115. Retrieved 1 March 2009. 
75. ^ von Bremzen, Anya; Welchman, John (1990). Please to the Table: The Russian Cookbook. New York: Workman Publishing. pp. 319–20. ISBN 0-89480-845-1. 
76. ^ Roden, Claudia (1990). The Food of Italy. London: Arrow Books. p. 72. ISBN 0-09-976220-X. 
77. ^ Solomon, Charmaine (1996). Charmaine Solomon's Encyclopedia of Asian Food. Melbourne: William Heinemann Australia. p. 293. ISBN 0-85561-688-1. 
78. ^ Grant M. Campbell, Colin Webb, Stephen L. McKee (1997). Cereals: Novel Uses and Processes. Springer. http://books.google.com/books?id=W4o7lUKSxyQC&pg=PA22&dq=potato+uses&lr=&as_brr=3. 
79. ^ ^{a b} Jai Gopal, S. M. Paul Khurana (2006). Handbook of Potato Production, Improvement, and Postharvest. Haworth Press. http://books.google.com/books?id=hxy8pkP26NEC&pg=PA544&dq=potato+starch+adhesive&as_brr=3&client=firefox-a#PPA544,M1. 
80. ^ "Potatoes to Plastics" (PDF). University of Maine. http://www.umaine.edu/mcsc/reports/potatoesExecSum.pdf. Retrieved 8 January 2009. 
81. ^ Berrin, Katherine & Larco Museum. The Spirit of Ancient Peru:Treasures from the Museo Arqueológico Rafael Larco Herrera. New York:Thames and Hudson, 1997.
82. ^ Steven Adams, Anna Gruetzner Robins (2000). Gendering Landscape Art. University of Manchester. http://books.google.com/books?id=dY7xwrA-ibQC&pg=PA67&dq=potatoes++witsen+gathering+potatoes&lr=&as_brr=3&client=firefox-a#PPA68,M1. 
83. ^ van Tilborgh, Louis (2009). "The Potato Eaters by Vincent van Gogh". The Vincent van Gogh Gallery. http://www.vggallery.com/visitors/004.htm. Retrieved 11 September 2009. 
84. ^ "Mr Potato Head". Museum of Childhood website. V&A Museum of Childhood. http://www.vam.ac.uk/moc/collections/toys/construction_toys/mr_potato_head/index.html. Retrieved 11 September 2009. 
85. ^ “The Tater Temple,” Via Magazine, July 2000

References

• Economist. "Llamas and mash," The Economist 28 Feb 2008 online
• Economist. "The potato: Spud we like," (leader) The Economist 28 Feb 2008 online
• Boomgaard, Peter. "In the Shadow of Rice: Roots and Tubers in Indonesian History, 1500–1950." Agricultural History 2003 77(4): 582–610. Issn: 0002-1482 Fulltext: Ebsco
• Hawkes, J.G. (1990). The Potato: Evolution, Biodiversity & Genetic Resources, Smithsonian Institution Press, Washington, D.C.
• Lang, James (2001). Notes of a Potato Watcher, Texas A&M University, College Station, TX.
• Langer, William L. "American Foods and Europe's Population Growth 1750–1850," Journal of Social History, Vol. 8, No. 2 (Winter, 1975), pp. 51–66 in JSTOR
• McNeill, William H. "How the Potato Changed the World's History." Social Research 1999 66(1): 67–83. Issn: 0037-783x Fulltext: Ebsco, by a leading historian
• McNeill, William H. "The Introduction of the Potato into Ireland," Journal of Modern History 21 (1948): 218–21. in JSTOR
• Ó Gráda, Cormac. Black '47 and Beyond: The Great Irish Famine in History, Economy, and Memory. (1999). 272 pp.

1. Ó Gráda, Cormac, Richard Paping, and Eric Vanhaute, eds. When the Potato Failed: Causes and Effects of the Last European Subsistence Crisis, 1845–1850. (2007). 342 pp. ISBN 978-2-503-51985-2. 15 essays by scholars looking at Ireland and all of Europe

• Reader, John. Propitious Esculent: The Potato in World History (2008), 315pp a standard scholarly history
• Salaman, Redcliffe N. (1989). The History and Social Influence of the Potato, Cambridge University Press (originally published in 1949; reprinted 1985 with new introduction and corrections by J.G. Hawkes).
• Stevenson, W.R., Loria, R., Franc, G.D., and Weingartner, D.P. (2001) Compendium of Potato Diseases, 2nd ed, Amer. Phytopathological Society, St. Paul, MN.
• Zuckerman, Larry. The Potato: How the Humble Spud Rescued the Western World. (1998). 304 pp. Douglas & McIntyre. ISBN 0-86547-578-4.

Further reading

• "'Humble' Potato Emerging as World's Next Food Source". column (Asahi Shimbun): p. 20. 11 May 2008. 
• Spooner, David; et al. (October 2005). "A single domestication for potato based on multilocus amplified fragment length polymorphism genotyping". Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 102 (41): 14694–14699. doi:10.1073/pnas.0507400102. PMID 16203994. http://www.pnas.org/cgi/content/full/102/41/14694. 
• The World Potato Atlas at Cgiar.org, released by the International Potato Center in 2006 and regularly updated. Includes current chapters of 15 countries:
  • South America: (English and Spanish): Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru
  • Africa: Cameroon, Ethiopia, Kenya
  • Eurasia: Armenia, Bangladesh, China, India, Myanmar, Nepal, Pakistan, Tajikistan
  • 38 others as brief "archive" chapters
  • Further information links at Cgiar.org.
• World Geography of the Potato at UGA.edu, released in 1993.
• Reference for potato history: The Vegetable Ingredients Cookbook by Christine Ingram, Lorenz Books, 1996 ISBN 1-85967-264-7
• The History and Social Influence of the Potato by Redcliffe N. Salaman ISBN 0-521-31623-5
• Hamilton, Andy & Dave, (2004), Potatoes – Solanum tuberosums retrieved on 4 May 2005
• Gauldie, Enid (1981). The Scottish Miller 1700 – 1900. Pub. John Donald. ISBN 0-85976-067-7.

External links

The Wikibook Gardening has a page on the topic of Potato

Wikibooks Cookbook has a recipe/module on Potato

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Solanum tuberosum

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Potato

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Potato

Look up potato in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

• GLKS Potato Database
• Centro Internacional de la Papa – CIP (International Potato Center)
• World Potato Congress
• British Potato Council
• Online Potato Pedigree Database for cultivated varieties
• Potato Information & Exchange
• GMO Safety: Genetic engineering on potatoes Biological safety research on gm-potatoes
• International Year of the Potato 2008
• Solanum tuberosum (potato, papas): life cycle, tuber anatomy at GeoChemBio
• Potato Genome Sequencing Consortium
• Potato storage and value Preservation – Pawanexh Kohli, CrossTree techno-visors.

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Dansk (Danish)
n. - kartoffel

idioms:

• no small potato    en stor sag
• potato chip    pommes frites
• potato crisp    franske kartofler

Nederlands (Dutch)
aardappel

Français (French)
n. - pomme de terre

idioms:

• no small potato    (ne pas être) une mince affaire
• potato chip    (US) chips
• potato crisp    (GB) chips

Deutsch (German)
n. - Kartoffel

idioms:

• no small potato    unbedeutend
• potato chip    Pommes frites, Kartoffelchips
• potato crisp    Kartoffelchip

Ελληνική (Greek)
n. - (φυτολ.) πατάτα, τρύπα (στη φτέρνα) κάλτσας

idioms:

• no small potato    δεν είναι και αμελητέος
• potato chip    τσιπ, πατατάκι
• potato crisp    τηγανητή πατάτα

Italiano (Italian)
patata

idioms:

• (no) small potato    bazzecole
• potato chip    patatine
• potato crisp    patatine croccanti

Português (Portuguese)
n. - batata (m)

idioms:

• (no) small potato    pessoa/coisa insignificante (ou o contrário)
• potato chip    batata palito, batata frita
• potato crisp    batata frita, fritas

Русский (Russian)
картофель

idioms:

• (no) small potato    важный/пустяки
• potato chip    хрустящий картофель
• potato crisp    хрустящий картофель

Español (Spanish)
n. - patata, papa

idioms:

• no small potato    de considerable importancia, no es un cualquiera
• potato chip    papas fritas, patatas fritas
• potato crisp    papas/patatas fritas a la inglesa

Svenska (Swedish)
n. - potatis

中文（简体）(Chinese (Simplified))
马铃薯, 土豆

idioms:

• no small potato    不少钱
• potato chip    炸土豆片
• potato crisp    炸马铃薯片

中文（繁體）(Chinese (Traditional))
n. - 馬鈴薯

idioms:

• no small potato    不少錢
• potato chip    炸薯片
• potato crisp    炸馬鈴薯片

한국어 (Korean)
n. - 감자, 추한얼굴, 야구공

日本語 (Japanese)
n. - ジャガイモ, サツマイモ, じゃが芋

idioms:

• potato chip    ポテトチップ, ポテトチップス
• potato crisp    ポテトチップス

العربيه (Arabic)
‏(الاسم) بطاطا, بطاطس‏

עברית (Hebrew)
n. - ‮תפוח-אדמה‬

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