I haven’t seen it, so I don’t know the context, but how about a word about the potato, which I understand has attracted the attention of many people through the movie The Promised Land?
The potato, one of the world’s most significant plant food sources today, is a member of the “nightshade family” (solanaceae), which is “foreign” to our country, continent, and even the globe outside of the American continent. It is assumed to originate in the Peruvian and Bolivian lowlands at the foot of South America’s Andes Mountains. It was named after the Quechua language, which is spoken by a tribe in Peru. It has spread to every language, with terms derived from its name. However, the plant they dubbed “batatas” was really the name of a different crop, the sweet potato, not the potato we know today. Archaeobotanical data and radiocarbon dating from excavations in a cave in the Chilca Canyon, located at an altitude of 2800 m in the Andes Mountains, show that the domestication of the potato dates back to 8,000 BC. The potato, which was the ‘official’ food of the Inca civilization, was expelled from the region as a result of the Spanish invasion between 1532 and 1572.
Potatoes in Europe
Why are we certain it was the Spanish? Because Spanish commander Francisco Pizarro, who invaded the Inca territory, included historian and botanist Pedro Cieza de Leon in his troops. Leon described beans and potatoes as “little pods” in his 1553 book Cronica del Peru. In 1560, Pizarro carried precisely 99 tubers to Europe and offered them to King Felipe II of Spain… (This Felipe was the same Felipe who fought against the Ottomans in the Battle of Inebahti, was kidnapped by Algerian pirates, was released for a large ransom and returned to his homeland, and then laughed as he read the writings of Cervantes, the world’s most famous writer…)
In addition, the Spanish chronicler Juan de Castellanos states that in 1537, the plant was introduced during a campaign in what is now Colombia, and that the plant was named ‘turmas’, which means the same thing in Spanish, because of its similarity to the truffle, as it would later be in Europe.
So we are sure that Spanish colonizers brought the Inca’s sacred food, the potato, to Europe in the 16th century. However, the Chinese, who traveled to the New World many times before the Europeans, may have had a priority in the departure of the potato from the continent. However, no information on this has yet been found.
The first to document the potato
Gaspard Bauhin was the Swiss botanist who first mentioned the potato in botanical literature in 1590 and gave it its Latin name. Bauhin, a medical doctor and anatomy professor, identified, named, and classed over 6,000 plant species and published two works on plants and botany, Phytopinax (plant catalog) and Prodomus Tfieatri Botanici (botanical catalog). In 1591, he gave the plant the Latin name “Solanum tuberosum” and categorized it as a nightshade (Solanaceae).
Two people were among the first to bring the potato to Britain: Sir Francis Drake, a pirate and explorer who traveled under the patronage of Queen Elizabeth I of England, and Thomas Harriot, an astronomer and mathematician who traveled to America with Sir Walter Leigh’s company in the 1580s.
The English healer John Gerard in his History of Plants (1597) and the Italian healer Pietri Andrea Mattioli in his book of medicinal plants (1598) use the English name “potato” for the first time. Potato was adapted into English from the Andean “batata”, Spanish “patata”.
Clasius’ contributions
The potato arrived in Italy, or rather the Papacy, via Pizarro, and the Pope commissioned Carolus Clasius, the director of Vienna’s botanical garden, to name the plant. Clasius named this plant “taratufli” because it resembled a truffle, which eventually became “kartoffel” in German. The oldest potato recipe comes in a German cookbook. A recipe from Ein New Kochbuch (1582) by Marx Rumpolt, a court cook who had worked in Bohemia and Hungary: “Earth apples. Peel and slice into tiny pieces. Boil them well in water and press them firmly onto a towel. Fry tiny chunks of bacon. “Flavor with a little milk.” (Pomme de terre is French for “earth apple”).
Clasius commissioned Belgian artist Philippe de Sevres to paint a watercolor of the potato (1589), the first European painting of the potato, at the Plantin-Moretus Museum in Antwerp, Belgium. In 1601, Clasius praised the gastronomic qualities of the potato in his book Rararium Plantarum Historia. Clasius was also the botanist who spread the tulip plant, which Ogier Ghislain de Busbecq of Dutch origin, who was sent to the Ottoman Empire in November 1554 as the Papal representative, brought back to his country in 1562 after the signing of the peace treaty between Austria and the Ottoman Empire, to all of Northern Europe, especially to the Netherlands. (I have explained this in detail in this channel.)
Food for the poor
When it was brought to Europe, the potato became known by name even to those who had never seen it. However, it has become infamous in a disreputable way. The first reason for this is class. From the very beginning, potatoes were in the consumption area of the lower classes. Because the tables of the upper classes were rich, almost complete, they did not need a new food. Aristocracy emerged, trade became easier, food diversified, spices took their place firmly. The table and the feast were a reason to show off, and food etiquette had also been established. On the other hand, potatoes were already easy to plant, easy to obtain, and therefore cheap, and therefore “worthless” for the upper classes.
Secondly, even the peasants first used the potato for their livestock. Because this plant was not yet to their taste either. Over time, it became part of their meals out of necessity. The Scots neither planted nor ate potatoes. But in England, the potato seems to have gained a reputation, for example, in Shakespeare’s play The Merry Wives of Windsor, published in 1602, the potato plays a role equivalent to the “apple falling from the sky”. In the play, Falstaff, who seduces women for blackmail, is again trapped by women and told to wait in Windsor Forest dressed as Herne the Huntsman with horns on his head. Falstaff, unaware of what will happen to him, calls out to Mistress Ford in that last scene: “My short-tailed mare! Let it rain potatoes from the sky, let the heavens thunder with the song of green leaves, let it rain sugar instead of hail, marshmallows instead of snow.”
Potato spread
The spread of the potato to Europe took place during the Thirty Years War (1618-1648). Spanish soldiers on their way to Germany took potatoes with them as horse feed, but because they did not know how to eat them, they ate them raw without peeling them. This caused severe digestive disorders. It was then decided that potatoes were a source of disease. It was even rumored to cause deadly infectious diseases such as plague, cholera, fever and leprosy.
It was thought to be poisonous because it came from the same family as the belladonna. Some Christian sects refused to eat and plant potatoes because they were not mentioned in the Bible! They were even labeled as the devil’s food. The Germans did not eat the potato, which they labeled as a source of disease, and used it only as animal feed, but they had no problem giving it to prisoners of war. If it wasn’t for this cruel attitude of the Germans, perhaps the potato would have always remained as animal feed… Why?
The impact of the Industrial Revolution
Prussia was a land of infertile soil. In addition, the agriculture that could be practiced was carried out with backward techniques. The Seven Years War of 1756-63 had also led to a major food crisis. Frederich II tried to solve the nutritional problem by planting potatoes. He had learned about potatoes from Spanish soldiers. While potatoes were encouraged and even forced on the peasants, the army was also involved. Soldiers both pressured the peasants to plant potatoes and helped them when necessary, that is, when the peasants could not keep up with the work and became desperate. Then the soldiers themselves were put to work as potato farmers when there was no war. With the army officially involved in potato farming, and with soldiers also being potato farmers, the extraordinary increase in yields would result in the potato becoming the staple food not only of Prussia, but also of all neighboring countries and societies within twenty years. A traveler named Bonanome, speaking of German villages in 1767, said: ‘The poor peasants of those regions eat only potatoes for six months of the year, but they are extremely beautiful and healthy’.
16 Louis XVI and Mari Antoinette’s love of potatoes
A French pharmacist named Antoine-Augustin Parmentier, who was captured by the Germans during the Seven Years’ War, survived in a prison camp by eating only potatoes. When he was released from captivity in 1763 and returned home, he devoted the rest of his life to promoting and justifying the potato that had saved his life. The French, like other peoples, despised the potato under various pretexts, calling it “poor bread”, “pig bread” and believing that the plant caused disease. In the Lorraine region in the 1760s, he was the man who ensured the widespread cultivation of the potato, which had been denounced and opposed there and throughout France. In 1769 and 1770, Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette gave Parmentier the task of introducing this tuberous plant to the population. The king had 50 hectares of military land planted with potatoes and had sentries posted around the field, as if it were a very valuable plant. When Maria Antoinette started wearing potato flowers in her hair, she attracted public attention. That was the point anyway. After the 1789 French Revolution, the Constituent Assembly so encouraged peasants to grow the “revolutionary” plant that the potato quickly became one of France’s most important agricultural products. After the depression of 1812-13, it would also become an important foodstuff there.
By the end of the 18th century, with the “Friedrich Effect”, almost every state power in Europe was encouraging or forcing the cultivation of potatoes. After France, the potato spread to Sweden, Norway, Poland and Russia in this period. The Balkan region joined these countries “with some difficulty”. In 1802, a border commander threatened Serbs and Croats who refused to plant potatoes with beatings.
Potato resistance emerged in Venice in 1817, when potatoes were to be planted on new land. Wheat traders were worried that their order would be disrupted. They were assured that the limited planting would not adversely affect their trade and that wheat would continue to be sold in the markets as usual, and the problem was solved. But then Italy would have potatoes too!
A relationship was established between famine and potatoes. Whichever country was experiencing famine would eventually have to resort to the potato. This was the main means of expansion. Moreover, in places where potatoes were cultivated, if large areas were cultivated and dependent on potatoes, a “potato famine” would occur if measures were not taken. The Irish Potato Famine of 1845-1852 was one of these. But I won’t bore you with that tonight.
Potatoes in the Ottoman Empire
The introduction of the potato to Ottoman cuisine dates back to the 1850s. The potato, probably introduced during the disaster in Ireland, entered Turkey via the Caucasus from Russia and was first cultivated in the highlands of Eastern Anatolia and the Black Sea region. The fact that it is called “kartofi” in the local language Laz proves this. (Apparently, the German “kartofell” was transferred to Russian and from there to us.) At this time, potatoes, which had not yet been cultivated in Ottoman lands, were imported from Europe and sold in the markets in Istanbul.
Potatoes were first cultivated in the Ottoman Empire in 1876 in the Sakarya plain. The pioneer was Ahmet Vefik Pasha, the then Governor of the province of Hüdâvendigar. When the villagers initially shied away from potatoes because the soil smelled, he received permission from the palace and told them that the villagers who planted potatoes would not pay any tax for 15 years, so the villagers turned to potato cultivation. In Lugat-ı Osmani, written by Ahmet Vefik Pasha in 1876, the name of the food is mentioned as “patata”.
By the 20th century, in the context of industrialization policies in agriculture in the Ottoman Empire, agricultural schools were opened in various provinces, and in 1910, with disease-free potato seeds brought from France, efficient and healthy potato cultivation began as it is today.
After the invention of the potato peeler in America in 1920, this vegetable, which became the queen of fast-food, has been put at the top of the list of guilty foods by nutritionists. However, the potato is a very valuable vegetable. Why? First, it is rich in starch, which greatly simplifies nutrition, and it is a good source of nutrients (90-100 calories). It is also known to be rich in vitamins C, B₁ and K, proteins, various amino acids and nicotinic acid. Secondly, it is easy to digest. Third, it is easy to cook and easy to consume. Fourth, it is easy to grow and easy to produce. Fifth, since it grows under the ground, it is little affected by animal attacks and predation. Sixth, it grows in almost any climate (the main climate it seeks is temperate and cool). Seventh, it is also used as animal feed. Eighth, it is suitable for preservation and storage.
Because of these characteristics, it has made countries, societies and individuals dependent on it. In fact, potato dependency has reached a level higher than the ten thousand years of humanity’s dependency on wheat (and grains). I am one of those addicted to potatoes. I eat something with potatoes every other day. I especially love fries and I have fried potatoes at 2 a.m. many times.
Taken from the facebook page of historian and author Ayşe Hür. Page Link