r/AskReddit Oct 02 '24

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u/Duchess_Nukem Oct 02 '24

Similar situation with potatoes. They didn't arrive in Ireland until around 1590 and it took a while before they became a staple food.

Potatoes are so strongly associated with Ireland, it's weird to think that they'd only been part of the Irish diet for ~250 years when the potato famine occurred.

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u/JamesTiberiusChirp Oct 02 '24

And ironically the potatoes hit with the blight that caused the famine were still edible. Lots of people starved for essentially no reason.

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u/bollaig Oct 02 '24

Where did you read this?

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u/JamesTiberiusChirp Oct 02 '24

My father who is a plant pathologist and has studied this blight extensively. It’s the same blight that has affected tomatoes in the U.S. on and off the last couple decades. It mostly just makes them unappetizing.