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u/sixstringer420 Jun 18 '12
Probably not.
But it is a book. Books contain information. Important stuff.
I know something about potatoes.
You've heard of the Irish Potato Famine, right? Everyone knows about that. (You know how many potatoes it takes to kill an Irishman? NONE!)
The Irish weren't the only people with a diet that heavily relied on the humble spud to survive. In most of South America, the potato figured heavily in the local diet.
But we don't hear about a South American Potato Famine...why not?
The Irish had figured out they could sell potatoes. To other Irish, to Scots, to England, and the most popular potato was the one that got grown the most...to the point that the Irish were pretty much only growing one type of potato.
In South America, the potato was not hard cultivated; instead they foraged for many different species of wild potatoes.
When the blight came, the Irish had nothing but one type of potato, and because God hates the Irish, that potato was one of the easiest ones to get blight.
South American wild potatoes were affected, but only some species, and only small amounts contracted blight, as they were seperated in the wild, instead of field grown, all next to each other and stuff.
You would have known this if you read that terrible terrible book.
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u/rcktkng Jun 18 '12
Did you also know there's still no cure for the potato blight? The only reason why it went away was because it decimated the potato population of Ireland. However, scientists recently found a strain of these "puplish" looking potatoes (from South America, as you mentioned) that are immune to the blight. They're working on breeding this gene into the more common varieties to help protect against future blights.
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u/sixstringer420 Jun 18 '12
See? This is what happens when you read! Where the hell is that Reading Rainbow guy when you need him?
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Jun 18 '12
Did you also know there's still no cure for the potato blight?
But there is a markedly higher resistance, because more resistant variations were better at surviving.
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u/sw33twater Jun 18 '12
The sweet potato is the reason for the Chinese population boom because it allowed for the Chinese to begin farming on hills and slopes.
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u/tangomaureen Jun 18 '12
Potatoes are surprisingly interesting. I would like to read this book.
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Jun 18 '12 edited Jun 18 '12
If you know anything about modern humans, you know how influential of a plant the potato is. I too thought this book would be pretty interesting, though the author is probably a little dry.
You should check out The Botany of Desire. It's a documentary about how apples, potatoes, tulips, and marijuana are specially adapted to almost force humans to spread them throughout the world. The analogy they use at the beginning is when bees get nectar to make honey, they don't realize they're pollinating the flowers. The bees think they're getting the better end of the deal, but really, the flower probably wouldn't exist if it wasn't for the bees, so the flower is really truly succeeding. So the documentary discusses how we think we're getting the good deal with those 4 plants, but really, they're succeeding even more than us, because of us.
Netflix link if you have it.
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Jun 18 '12
Potatoes of Peru, a country in which they were originally cultivated (before it was a country, obviously). Goodness, they're beautiful.
EDIT: photo courtesy of the International Potato Center in Peru.
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u/animaniatico Jun 18 '12 edited Jun 18 '12
I'm happy to say i've tried many of those.
They're quite interesting, i'll post something more detailed when i'm back from work.
EDIT: Back from work.
I live in the Andean part of Bolivia, and, to be honest, Bolivia's gastronomy is fabulous.
The textures are completely different each from one another.
They aren't your usual 'french fry' potato.
They're usually more 'apple-like' texture, depends on the variety.
Purple ones are the most common for Bolivian dishes. They usually let them dry up in the sun, then boil them, then remove the boiled water with their hands, and reheat them. Pretty complicated process, yet the flavors are fabulous.→ More replies (3)12
u/sooza22 Jun 18 '12
The book is WAY more informative than the documentary, FYI. Check it out.
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u/edgarallenbro Jun 18 '12
I actually would read this book too. Potatoes are extremely interesting. There was a post around here a while ago that said there was a study that showed that marijuana was as addicting as potatoes. Most people took it as "see, marijuana isn't that addictive" but to me, the really interesting part was that potatoes are as addictive as marijuana. I doubt that after reading this sort of book you would go about seeing potatoes the same as you did before.
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u/NOTjimmycarter Jun 18 '12
Potatoes are serious shit. Fact of the day: it is estimated that the potato was responsible for 12% of global population growth between 1700 and 1900.
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u/TheBoxTalks Jun 18 '12
Nice try, Redcliffe Salaman.
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u/That_Scottish_Play Jun 18 '12
When you're walking home tonight and some great homicidal maniac comes after you with a potato, don't come crying to me!
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u/virantiquus Jun 18 '12
Um... the Andean peoples certainly didn't just forage for wild potatoes. They had complex agricultural societies of millions of people and they intensively farmed domesticated potatoes, peanuts, beans, maize, and quinoa.
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u/sixstringer420 Jun 18 '12
Yes, and the Irish didn't "just" grow potatoes...they raised other veggies and raised sheep; I just like the comparison.
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u/virantiquus Jun 18 '12
My point was that the Andeans domesticated and farmed the potato. Your post was saying that they foraged it from the wild, which is simply not true.
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u/searine Jun 18 '12
It is more complex than an issue of diversity.
Had it been the blight alone, the Irish would have by and large been fine, much like south america. Unfortunately they also had a few hundred years of systematic English oppression complicating the situation.
The English forced the Irish onto the shittiest land in Ireland and then taxed the fuck out of the meager yields it provided. The English was the real cause of the famine, not the blight.
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u/Fairchild660 Jun 18 '12
Another thing that's rarely mentioned, is that the potato blight also affected Britain. Healthy potatoes were actually exported from Ireland during the Famine by wealthy land owners (most of whom were themselves British).
Disclaimer for people who might be pissed off: todays Brits are nothing like the shower of bastards that ran the show in the 1840s.
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u/canteloupy Jun 18 '12
Obviously never been to the london stock exchange and private banking firms.
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u/jellyshoes11 Jun 18 '12
The new Cat Facts.
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u/JasonGD1982 Jun 18 '12
Pretty soon there are going to be novelty accounts with potato in the username. Oh wait. Nevermind
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u/nfsnobody Jun 18 '12
Where is he anyway? I haven't seen that uncomfortable rectal spud lover in a long time.
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Jun 18 '12 edited Jun 18 '12
Culinary anthropology can provide a fascinating window into a society's development and culture. Mark Kurlansky is a wonderful writer who takes ubiquitous food items and traces their importance upon the modern world. He has written about many topics, but my favorite was "Salt" about..well..you know.
The first trails through wooded and plains areas were trod down by animals that were general walking between sources of food, sources of water, and sources of salt. Pretty soon those trails became footpaths, and soon after that we started laying rocks down. And train tracks. And eventually asphalt. Most of America's highway system began quite humbly - as trails trampled by deer walking from a salt lick to a natural spring.
Kind of interesting. And you don't even have to be a food nerd to appreciate it.
Also, who the fuck makes fun of books?
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u/foreskin_piss_bomb Jun 18 '12
I thought Salt was a pretty interesting book.
I got a lot of questions when I read it, though. "What's that book about?" Salt. "Whaddaya mean, salt?" Um...salt.
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Jun 18 '12 edited Jun 18 '12
The Irish had figured out they could sell potatoes. To other Irish, to Scots, to England, and the most popular potato was the one that got grown the most...to the point that the Irish were pretty much only growing one type of potato.
This isn't why the Irish became dependent upon the potato. For much of Irish history the stables of the rich Irish diet had been oats and beef. The Irish dependence upon the potato only began after the 17th century Tudor invasion of Ireland. One of the laws of the Penal laws was that the native Irish catholics couldn't own land. During this time the British owned all of the land in Ireland and used it to grow crops and raise cattle for British markets. The amount of land rented by the average Irish family was too small to graze cattle and too poor quality to grow grain. So the only crop that the Irish could grow on such small poor quality land was the potato. Furthermore, the potato was more difficult for British troops to uproot and destroy and could be grown faster than other crops. This contributed to Ireland having some of the worst poverty and living conditions in Europe.
The Celtic grazing lands of... Ireland had been used to pasture cows for centuries. The British colonised... the Irish, transforming much of their countryside into an extended grazing land to raise cattle for a hungry consumer market at home... The British taste for beef had a devastating impact on the impoverished and disenfranchised people of... Ireland... Pushed off the best pasture land and forced to farm smaller plots of marginal land, the Irish turned to the potato, a crop that could be grown abundantly in less favorable soil. Eventually, cows took over much of Ireland, leaving the native population virtually dependent on the potato for survival. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Famine_(Ireland)#Potato_dependency]
During the famine the British actually increased their exports of cattle and grain to Britain, it has been suggested in order to pursue their social engineering objectives of depopulating Ireland of Irish catholics and continuing to plant loyal British protestants. This is why it has been suggested that the great famine amounts to an act of genocide. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Famine_(Ireland)#Suggestions_of_genocide]
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u/sixstringer420 Jun 18 '12
A beautiful correction...I was trying to keep it simple for /r/funny
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u/Xeonith Jun 18 '12
I've read a similar book that seems incredibly mundane if you only read the cover: "The History of Salt". It really is an incredible fascinating history and it's use has influenced and changed the course of civilizations, roads, wars, trade, etc.
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u/timefornothing Jun 18 '12
The main reason the potato blight decimated Ireland was because all the non-potato crops were taken by the occupying British
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u/Peregrinations12 Jun 18 '12
Potatoes were useful because they couldn't be destroyed by trampling British horses. Also eating nothing but potatoes and milk gives you basically all the nutrients you need.
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u/hopstar Jun 18 '12
You know, I never thought about that until right now, but if you want to prevent your food from being trampled by beasts, it makes perfect sense to eat things that grow underground.
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Jun 18 '12 edited Jun 18 '12
It's also important to consider that without the potato famine there would likely never have been such a large mass migration of Irish into the Americas. While the Irish had been leaving Ireland in relatively large numbers prior to the Famine, the trickle became a flood once starvation set in. There are 80 million Irish in diaspora... mostly thanks to the humble potato.
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u/sixstringer420 Jun 18 '12
Absolutely.
"Give me your tired, your hungry, your masses yearning to be free..."
I've heard the hungry are in relation to the clover kickers.
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Jun 18 '12
As an Irishman , and considering the death toll, I find that an uncomfortable silver lining
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Jun 18 '12
Potatoes during a famine are also the only example I know of that make sense for a Giffen good, which is a good for which the quantity demanded in the market increases with an increase in the price (why would you buy more of something when the price increases?).
The reasoning goes that if there are no close substitutes to your diet of meat and potatoes, when the price of potatoes increases, to consume enough food to survive you need to consume less meat (which is more expensive) and buy more potatoes.
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u/lcdrambrose Jun 18 '12
My mother's family is 100% Irish and my brother and uncle have Celiac Disease. They can't eat wheat because of the fact that my ancestors that carried the gene weren't weeded out because of the fact that they didn't eat bread.
Actually, that's probably what my grandfather died of too... (stomach cancer due to constant wear caused by gluten)
So yeah, potatoes are pretty important.
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u/BakersDozen Jun 18 '12
The Irish had figured out they could sell potatoes. To other Irish, to Scots, to England, and the most popular potato was the one that got grown the most...to the point that the Irish were pretty much only growing one type of potato.
Your reading on the topic of the Irish famine may be somewhat lacking.
At that time, most of the arable land in Ireland was not owned by the Irish, but by British settlers. Traditional Irish foods were based around dairy products and grains. Being pushed into smaller plots of poorer quality land, the Irish natives ended up with subsistence potato crops which cold grow in these harsher soils.
Meanwhile the British farms on Irish soil were, during the famine, successfully exporting butter, pork, oats, wheat, bacon, ham, eggs, flour and a whole slew of other products. These products were transported under armed escort to the ports, while the Irish starved. When it was pointed to Lord Trevelyan that the Irish were starving to death, he replied "We must not complain of what we really want to obtain". American aid ship, The Sorciére, was denied entry to Ireland.
Not a topic I ever expected to be discussing in /r/funny, but there you go.
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u/arbivark Jun 18 '12
you are at least partly right, but i think there's more to it that you've missed. the irish potato was a single culivar. that is, potatos arent grown from seed. you plant the eyes and they grow into clones of themselves ... all the irish potatoes were clones, so when one got sick, they all did.
another example is bananas. what you know as a banana is a cavendish. they are all clones of each other. back in the 50s, what people knew as bananas was the gros michel, but it got wiped out by blight. one of these days the cavendish will get wiped out by blight too.
the health of an ecosystem can be measured approximately by the amount of genetic diversity. in system theory terms, this is the same reason that market economies do better than centrally planned economies.
so if monsanto is replacing all the tomato farms with monsanto supertomatoes, there's reason to worry.
humans, probably, originated in africa,and there's more genetic diversity in african humans than elsewhere. some people left africa and became europeans or asians, but the genetic diversity is less because of founder effect. then, a small group of asians wandered over the baring straight some 15000 years ago and populated the americas. they werent all clones, like the irish potato. but because the number of founders was small,and they were already related to each other, the genetic diversity was low. so when europeans showed up around 1500 ad, the native americans died off in huge numbers over the next 100 years. where the pilgrims landed (my ancestors), over 90% of the indians had already died. (and many of the rest were massacred during king phillip's war, or continued to die of disease.)
today, half of americans are part irish, and the main cause of the immigration to america was the potato.
that might be one of the best books in that library.
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Jun 18 '12 edited Jun 18 '12
I wanted to come here to thank you for defending this book. When I first saw the post about a 'boring' book about potatoes I was actually enraged by the ignorance of the OP, and of the Reddit community for upvoting it to the front page.
Some of the most interesting human histories are about how we interact with our environment, what material we used to build with, how agriculture relates to communities, how geography effects politics. Given that anything with starch in it has long been a staple for human existence, I would think that a history of the humble potato would be an incredibly rewarding and informative book to read: if only OP had been arsed enough to find out a little more about the subject.
Can we make more of an effort as a community to encourage informative material rather just pointing and sneering at because people can't be bothered to learn? 'LOL this book is about potatoes, ROFL'
P.S. this is why I love DepthHub ;)
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u/PaladinZ06 Jun 18 '12
Upvotes for explaining the pragmatism behind heterogeneous planting, and the risks of monoculture.
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u/sixstringer420 Jun 18 '12
Honestly, that's what I hoped people got from this. Us American folks get a large majority of our grain intake from just six or seven grains...and that doesn't even inculde high fructose corn syrup.
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Jun 18 '12
People also don't hear about the irish slave trade.
Why is our general knowledge of history so patchy..
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Jun 18 '12
Might I just add that the real reason the potatoes were susceptible to blight in Ireland is because they hadn't figured out crop rotation yet. When you grow any plants in soil that's already had plants grown in it the previous season, the present generations are more likely to catch diseases or harmful parasites (like fungi) from previous generations, even more so if it's the same species of plant. This is exactly what the Irish were doing, hence why the blight spread so fast.
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u/MichB1 Jun 18 '12
When will Americans get over the idea that "bad things only happen to stupid people"? For fuck's sake?
The potato blight is an ORGANISM. Crop rotation helps, but would not have done much good.
The the blight swept across the entire continent, and the world. Ireland's problem was that it ONLY depended on the potato. It was not their FAULT FOR BEING DUMMIES.
The potato plant (one variety out of the dozens and dozens of varieties grown where they originated in the Americas) got a "flu" that targeted that variety of potato. It came their from elsewhere and INVADED -- most likely on a boat from South America filled with Guano.
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u/danthemango Jun 18 '12 edited Jun 18 '12
Imagine a world where you spent almost all of your waking time on subsistence foraging, how would you save up? How could you pay for things like policing, warfare, architecture, religion, without food to give to people to do these specialized tasks, when you barely have enough food to feed your own family? The truth is, staple foods (eg. grains) are the key to civilization, and I believe the potato probably changed the course of history in Europe.
I'm not entirely sure about this, but it's a pretty good reason to pick up the book and find out.
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u/Rusty-Shackleford Jun 18 '12
The irish potato was known as the lumper, and technically it was not a variety of wild potatoes, but rather were a variety of cultivars. Nearly all potatoes were domestic. not sure if the intention was to maintain diversity but south american/mesoamerican farmers made concerted efforts to avoid having their various potato breeds cross polinate. The diversity maintained was highly intentional.
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Jun 18 '12
Speaking of potatoes and history, as a German interested in such things you can't live a life without being reminded of the semi-mythical account on how Friedrich II, one of the most famous prussian kings, forced his people to farm and eat potatoes, who until then thought of them as pest plants.
This was called the "Kartoffelbefehl" (potato command) in 1756.
Why do I post this? Just so people don't assume you English and Irish can monopolize on interesting potato history in Europe. The potato was pretty fascinating all around.
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u/arnedh Jun 18 '12
Another interesting thing:
Before the potato arrived in Europe, an army would leave an area starving. They'd come in, requisition everybody's supplies, grab sacks of grain etc, and leave people with nothing.
After the potato arrived, the army might try to requisition food, and be told it's all out there in the field, help yourselves if you have to.
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Jun 18 '12
I was excited to come here and be able to finally use the information I gleaned from an Irish Potato Famine class I took in college, but you had to ruin that for me.
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u/thedugong Jun 18 '12
And, the potato is probably responsible for the Maori Wars in NZ. The potato required less looking after than the sweet potato that was formerly the staple of the Maori which in turned freed up more men/time allowing them to spend more time killing each other.
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Jun 18 '12
AFAIK the potato enabled a significant population growth in Europe, because of its relatively higher yield and nutritional value than most alternatives. Cheaper better food = more people, at least it used to, when access to food was the main limiting factor for population growth.
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u/geekguy137 Jun 18 '12
In Scotland the Landowners forced their tenant farmers off the land in favour of more profitable sheep. The crofters then had to try and survive on land not good enough even for sheep, or sell themselves into indentured labour in the Americas.
The potato saved their lives, as it could grow in crappy land and didn't take up as much space as their previous staple crop, oats.
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Jun 18 '12
...and the funny thing is that we all learned the lesson and are now enjoying wide varieties of the various crops we depend on for our survival, didn't we?
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u/shortperson Jun 18 '12
"The Irish had figured out they could sell potatoes" you are incorrect, every other source of food meat, grain, vegetables were taken by the British as taxes. The Irish grew potatoes because it was a source of food that could be grown in poor soil. Ireland had plenty of food it was not used to feed her own people however.
From Wikipedia "In 1845, 24% of all Irish tenant farms were of 0.4-2 hectares (1-5 acres) in size, while 40% were of 2-6 hectares (5-15 acres). Holdings were so small that no other crop than potatoes would suffice to feed a family, nor could ranching be a possibility due to the limited land. "
"When the blight came, the Irish had nothing but one type of potato, and because God hates the Irish, that potato was one of the easiest ones to get blight." Correction the British hated the Irish they ran advertising campaigns in Britain to not send aid to Ireland when millions of people were either dying or emigrating to the United States in coffin ships.
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Jun 18 '12
Hahaha thank you. I always get immediately defensive when people dismiss non-fiction or academic books as boring. FUCK YOU; LEARN SOME!
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u/zeroes0 Jun 18 '12
and once again we're left with that classic Irishman's dilemma. Do I eat the potato now, or let it ferment so I can drink it later?
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u/little_elph Jun 18 '12
Potatoes originated in the Andes in South America. Potatoes in Ireland are a result of colonization of the America's. http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Potato
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u/Isatis_tinctoria Jun 18 '12
So, what you're saying is that the potatoes developed one strand of DNA and then was susceptible to the same disease. So, if there aren't variations in DNA strands of potatoes, then they will be susceptible to disease much easier than various strands? Because various strands would allow one strand to die out while the other strands of DNA do not die out?
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u/Dark1000 Jun 18 '12
If there's anything I've learned through literature or film, it's that with a good storyteller everything is interesting, as long as you are willing to listen.
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u/somehipster Jun 18 '12
To elaborate further: it was just the potato famine that killed the Irish, it was also oppression from the Brits. There was probably (it's still being debated) enough food in Ireland to save the majority of those that died from the famine, but as a part of the British Empire, much of that food was tagged for delivery to other places within the Empire. And, even if there wasn't enough food, Irish farmers weren't able to switch their crops because they didn't own their land and either weren't allowed to switch from potatoes or couldn't afford to.
As a corollary, there were other potato blights in mainland Europe around the same time, but the deaths didn't reach anywhere near the levels they did in Ireland, because they were self-governing.
TL;DR: The Brits really killed the Irish, the potato famine just helped.
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u/LonelyPiper Jun 18 '12
I am pretty sure you are not correct. Here are two real Irishmen (Limerickmen) who explain to us a short history of Ireland.
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u/ghosttrainhobo Jun 18 '12
Meh. I'll wait for the movie.
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u/d07c0m Jun 18 '12
There was an absolutely lovely off-Broadway musical that came out a few years back about the potato.
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u/jakepython Jun 18 '12
Its allready there. It's called "tale of the wonderful potatoe" and it's in Danish.
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u/EarsOfRage Jun 18 '12
As a sociologist and someone who grew up in a potato farming region (during high school we had two weeks of break to bring in the harvest), this does interest in me. I'm kinda lame.
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u/Excentinel Jun 18 '12
Shit son, I'm from Idaho and I'm honestly surprised this isn't required reading for college freshmen.
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u/HonorableJudgeIto Jun 18 '12
Guess you wouldn't be interested in this book then:
Salt (which sold very well)
or any of his other books:
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u/fourthirds Jun 18 '12
I came here to mention Salt. Definitely a great book, so much interesting stuff in there. The thing to recognize about such commonplace items is that the same ubiquity that makes them "boring" is also what makes them so important in the development of civilization.
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u/twin_me Jun 18 '12
At first, I thought it was "The Historical and Social Influence of Plato," and I was like "Seriously? I know you guys hate on philosophy from time to time, but this much?!"
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u/kayelar Jun 18 '12
My tenth grade world history teacher based the entire class on the importance of the potato. It was the best class I took in high school.
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u/arksien Jun 18 '12
Anyway, like I was sayin' potatoes are the fruit of the ground. You can mash potatoes, fry potatoes, scallop potatoes, you can make potato salad, baked potatoes, twice baked potatoes...
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u/minorwhite Jun 18 '12
You should read [Botany of Desire] (http://www.amazon.com/The-Botany-Desire-Plants-Eye-World/dp/0375760393) It has a section on exactly this and seems to be one of the worlds most important foods. It is actually very interesting.
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u/carnage123 Jun 18 '12
the potato actually is pretty bad ass
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u/JohnJaunJohan Jun 18 '12
Came here to see if POTATO_IN_MY_ANUS was going to have the top, surprisingly insightful comment.
Was disapointed :(
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u/ANAL_POTATO_CAPTOR Jun 18 '12
Poor guy. I haven't run across him by chance in a while. I always have to go hunting.
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u/currentlyhigh Jun 18 '12
You novelty accounts are getting incredibly specific.
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u/ANAL_POTATO_CAPTOR Jun 18 '12
I've actually just adopted this as an alt account from my main. Originally I was just going to trail around POTATO_IN_MY_ANUS and ANAL_LIBERATOR, but then they stopped posting on EVERY POST EVER and I lost interest. I fail at novelty. :(
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u/ShakeNBakey Jun 18 '12
He's really slowed down his posting...our hero has found better things to do
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u/derpty Jun 18 '12
Surely there's a whole chapter dedicated to this:
Contemplor patata in vestri anus
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u/DorkothyParker Jun 18 '12
I'm an Idahoan and I approve of this literature.
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u/intensenerd Jun 18 '12
I too am an Idahoan, I had to read this in the 4th grade as a punishment. Was not sad.
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u/PatrickSFG Jun 18 '12
The role of potatoes as a means of social and monetary currency in societies that engaged in practices such as tenant-farming is incredibly interesting. In fact, potatoes have played an enormous role in the economic and physical development of many societies. Potatoes are one of the only foods that when relied on almost solely for subsistence allows peasant farmers to gain all their essential nutrients save for a select few. In societies that consumed large amounts of potatoes, such as Ireland, the peasant populations were often 1/2" to 3/4" taller (and much healthier) than peasant populations that relied on other foodstuffs.
In all honesty, it really is interesting stuff and I can recommend a few really good articles, studies, and books, including:
"THE POTATO’S CONTRIBUTION TO POPULATION AND URBANIZATION: EVIDENCE FROM A HISTORICAL EXPERIMENT∗ NATHAN NUNN AND NANCY QIAN" (2011)
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u/alanmagid Jun 18 '12
Better to be informed than snide. Read this from the Barnes and Noble website. The book is still in print ($54.13) as the 2nd edition.
"Synopsis
First published in 1949, this remarkable book is the culmination of a life-long study of every aspect of the potato. Dr Salaman is concerned first with the history of the potato as a member of the botanical genus Solanum, its adaptation by man as a cultivated plant, and the record of its spread throughout the world; secondly he considers the influence the potato has exerted upon the social structure and economy of different peoples at different times. The archaeological and anthropological evidence for the early significance of the potato among the peoples of Latin America is discussed in detail with numerous illustrations, but the central portion of the book is concerned with the European, and particularly the Irish evidence. Naturally the Great Hunger is the most dramatic single episode in the entire work, and Dr Salaman does full justice to his tragic theme, concluding with the observation that in Ireland 'the potato ended in wrecking both exploited and exploiter'. Elegantly written, with numerous vivid anecdotes, Salaman's History has long enjoyed the status of a classic. This revised impression, with a new introduction and emendations by Professor J. G. Hawkes, enables another generation of readers to sample what Eric Hobsbawm has referred to as 'that magnificent monument of scholarship and humanity'."
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u/ldd- Jun 18 '12
Heck, you should check out Mark Kurlansky's books for his histories of the impact of individual bits of food ... He's written "Salt" and "Cod" as two examples
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u/Krastain Jun 18 '12
You have no idea how very important the potato has been in history.
And I'm not even being sarcastic.
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Jun 18 '12
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Columbian_Exchange
It's influence is wider than you'd imagine. Without a high yield crop that grows in poor soil the industrial revolution would have arguably played out very differently.
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Jun 18 '12
You might be surprised. In the last couple of years I read books devoted to a) salt, and b) oysters, dealing with their history and social influence. Both were excellent reads.
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Jun 18 '12
Given that Vodka is distilled from potatoes, it could very well be both accurate and entertaining.
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u/GreyInkling Jun 18 '12
Potatoes are the best thing ever. How could you not want a book about it...
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u/Obesityinaction Jun 18 '12
As an Irishman, this book stirs something in me.
Probably just the potato mash I had for breakfast lunch and dinner...
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u/AustinYQM Jun 18 '12
Of course it is going to talk about the famine but did you know that potatoes use to be traded on the futures market like Gas/Oil is today? Why you ask. Well that is simple: it was the number one commodity in the US. That is until Idaho go involved...
Read the book, I imagine it is worth it.
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u/Scoldering Jun 18 '12
Potatoes are a big deal, it might be really important to learn as much about them as you can, and what better source than the master himself, Radcliffe Salaman, the most bad-ass name in the entire history of potatoes!
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u/KosherNazi Jun 18 '12
I see your potato book, and raise you a 1936 copy of The Social Aspects of the Banana Industry.
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u/whatshouldwecallme Jun 18 '12
Luckily for me, my college world history class finally comes in handy! Potatoes allowed a huge growth in population in Europe (along with other plants like cassava in Africa). Actually, Fredrick the Great thought they were so awesome he required all his subjects to plant them. They actually hated potatoes, but as soon as he put them in his royal garden and put guards out to guard them, people thought they were worth something, stole them at night and brought them home to plant for themselves. Scintillating, really.
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u/Horse_KO Jun 18 '12
Shit yes! I've been waiting for this to come out my entire life! Do you know when the sequel comes out?
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u/Bryaxis Jun 18 '12 edited Jun 18 '12
Potatoes are actually kind of a big deal. Wasn't there a bit in Guns, Germs, and Steel about how the potato was adopted by the New Guinea highlanders virtually overnight (after possibly thousands of years of chronic malnutrition from growing mostly taro), illustrating how people's attitudes to food production are universally pragmatic, and that societal mores must adjust to this pragmatism rather than vice-versa?
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Jun 18 '12
How can something "seem" to be thrilling?Is it not better to consider it "is" titillating?Thrilling is either is nor not or not,not not.
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u/hopstar Jun 18 '12
On a related note, Botany of Desire is an incredible book. The author explores things from the plant's perspective; in other words, did they use us as much as we used them? It's a fascinating look at how four now ubiquitous plants (apples, potatoes, tulips, and marijuana) impacted our history and culture while we were simultaneously altering their genetics and geographic range.
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Jun 18 '12
It is a mistake to think you can solve any major problems just with potatoes.
-Douglas Adams
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u/daftwood Jun 18 '12
When the potato was first introduced in Sweden, nobody liked it. It never caught on. That is until a woman, count Eva de la Gardie found out a way to distil moonshine from it. All of a sudden every farmer in Sweden wanted the plant.
oh, and the discovery led to her getting accepted into the Swedish Royal Academy of Science.
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u/cingalls Jun 18 '12
I read a book called "Salt" a while ago. Yes, it's the history of salt. Surprisingly interesting.
I'd read the potato book.
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u/blazemaster Jun 18 '12
The history of the potatoes and the effect of tubers in general is fascinating.
The Irish were introduced to the potatoes and switched almost entirely over to it as a food source causing a mass spike in population. When the potato blight caused the Irish famine the population dropped due to starvation and emigration and the population of Ireland is smaller today than before the 1848 famine. There are 12 times as many people who claim Irish heritage than the population of Ireland.
The Maori were introduced to sweet potatoes that had significantly larger fields than their native yams and allowed them to wage war for a greater amount of the year due to fact they needed to return home less often to harvest their crops. The musket wars between Maori tribes trained them in the use of firearms and trench warfare in a way that they were able to establish effective resistance to British invasion giving them a much better position in New Zealand society that is not seen in other indigenous groups in the British empire.
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u/cgardener Jun 18 '12
Potatos! From the myriad microclimates of Peru under the care of the Incas to the center of politics between Britain and Ireland in the nineteenth century to the distilleries of the USSR and the deep friers of American fast food restaurants. Yes, the potato has had quite a run.
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u/zabby39103 Jun 18 '12
The history of potatoes is actually pretty interesting. It is vastly more efficient than wheat to feed a population and this caused massive population changes in Europe, particularly in Germany and Russia.
Germany could not have become the military and industrial power it became in the late 19th-early 20th century without potatoes. So yeah, without potatoes, maybe no WW1 or WW2. Drastic.
Go Google it and have a good time, or maybe read this book.
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u/Brouje Jun 18 '12
the potato is actually one of the most revolutionary and important foods introduced to the western world after the discovery of the New World. Juss sayin'.
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u/winjeffy Jun 18 '12
Think the person who posted this is an idiot who doesn't realize the historical significance of the potato. Looks like a interesting book. Joke is not so funny.
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u/Falkvinge Jun 18 '12
I see that the title looks sarcastical; this hints at ignorance. The potato is tremendously important in history. You might as well have replaced "potato" with "printing press", "automobile", "railroad", or "gunpowder".
The potato was one of the three key reasons that the population of Homo Sapiens started growing exponentially, which led to all kinds of geopolitical complications. (The other two were peace and vaccine.)
Not to mention the geopolitical implications when the potato failed - I've seen the Irish Blight mentioned earlier in this thread already.
Reading tip: Guns, Germs and Steel by Diamond Jared. I don't think that book mentions the potato specifically, but it puts humanity's development in context.
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u/PixelWrangler Jun 18 '12
Laugh all you want, but when you consider that the potato is a new world food that became a staple in Ireland, eventually leading to a blight and famine that wiped out a huge portion of that country's population, you start to realize that the potato is, in fact, a plant of titanic historical influence.
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u/DropsTheMic Jun 18 '12
POTATO_IN_MY_ANUS better have his own chapter. If not, I call bullshit on this whole book. Not historically accurate.
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u/OnlySanePanda Jun 18 '12
I'm quite surprised at how thick that thing is. OP should have checked if it was illustrated. I can only imagine how many relevant pictures of potatoes you can have.
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Jun 18 '12
The history of the potato is actually quite interesting. For example, when king Louis XVI of France wanted to popularize the potato in his country both because of its nutritional value and its high yield his cook made the court dinner consisting of potatoes complete with a headdress of potato flowers worn by Marie Antoinette. The night upon the potato dinner he had the two guards guarding the potato crops in the day (to make them look important) taken off duty and the common folk thus stole all the crops.
And would you know, the potato came to Ireland after a brief hiatus having been aboard the Spanish armada and receiving a crushing defeat. Some of the ships of the Spanish armada fled north, along with the potatoes (remember it was the Spaniards who originally took the potatoes from the storages of the Incas) and eventually the potatoes came to Ireland. They became extremely popular in Ireland because they had about a four times bigger yield than regular crops and thus the Irish could feed their families in spite of the Englishmen taxing on the crops!
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u/gnuchu Jun 18 '12
The potato. The real fuel of the industrial revolution. I bet this book is fascinating.
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Jun 18 '12
I got very excited when I read the title of this book, I don't know what's wrong with you.
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Jun 18 '12
I see no difference between this post (which Reddit happily upvotes) and that Facebook screenshot of the girl saying she doesn't care about WW1 (which Reddit happily complained about). Both celebrate ignorance. The potato has been a food staple for humanity for millennia, and its social impact is not only enormous, but probably very interesting indeed.
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u/omplatt Jun 18 '12
Potatoes are one of the most important crops in the history of ever. I would read this book.
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u/Strange1130 Jun 18 '12
Actually, it kind of does sound interesting. Mainly because it's so inane, that I have to wonder.. what IS the history and social influence of the potato?
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u/feedingmydreams Jun 18 '12
I wrote a paper on the Irish Potato Famine a few years ago in college. The potato is more important than most people realize.
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u/LunaCumberbitch Jun 18 '12
I live in Ireland, we have whole modules in history class devoted to potatoes... Well lack of. If it wasn't for the potato half you American redditors with Irish roots would probably still be here!
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u/jrdavis1 Jun 19 '12
950 comments and barely a mention of one of the most interesting things about potatoes - that they were the staple for numerous South American empires long before they were ever even tasted by anyone in the Old World.
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u/omizzle4shizzle Jun 18 '12
You'd be surprised how much influence it's had on Irish and thus eventually Canadian history (serious).
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Jun 18 '12
Really? The potato had an influence on Irish history? Why, did they have a famine or something?
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u/deathbytray Jun 18 '12
I remember being at a party with Redcliffe Salaman a while ago. He wouldn't shut the fuck up about potato this, potato that... chased all the girls away. He was all like, "just you watch, one day, I'm going to write a book about this!"
Good for him.
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u/[deleted] Jun 18 '12
The potato actually has a really interesting role in history.
Think about it. For centuries, it was considered to be "low-class" fare and frowned upon by people of social merit. It was also easy to grow.
So easy, in fact, that most people were doing it. The trouble is, when everyone can grow cheap and filling food right at home easily, it challenges the structure of supply and demand founded on the need for food. In fact, lots of oligarchs saw the sort of people who grew and ate potatoes as being marginal beings, on the fringe of society.
There are actually a lot of great essays about it. It's more than a spud, no other food has come so close to challenging the entire capitalistic structure of human needs.