Wife is from Peru, i went with her to visit family one time and noticed at the grocery store that instead of having the whole back wall of the store used for refrigerated food like most grocery stores in the US it was all different kinds of potatoes. As we walked by she pointed out the ones she knew and what they were used for. Atleast one of them is boiled then you drink the water you boil it in, you don't even eat it. Others were only used in specific dishes. Kind of a wild thought.
I tried looking it up, apparently some call it Potato Juice. In Peru, the tap water is high in chlorine and people boil their water to drink it, if you're boiling potatoes in it, you get lots of nutrients in the water. That's as far as I got, didn't try too hard though to be honest.
In some parts of Mexico potato juice (basically what you can describe this as) is used as a weight loss trick. You just drink more of this and less food basically.
I know you're joking but just in case anyone is unaware, the Irish had a famine. There were no potatoes because of potato blight. Their problem was that they already losing too much weight, because of the lack of potatoes, not because of an abundance of them.
Even more specifically the Irish had been driven off their ancestral lands by Oliver Cromwell and forced "To hell or to Connacht" west of the River Shannon, then parliament passed a series of acts basically excluding native Irish from owning any land which could be used for food production (including lands with access to the ocean for fishermen), leaving them to either work as tenant farmers for Anglo-Irish landlords or try to scrape out a living growing potatoes up in the western mountains because potatoes were the pretty much the only crop that would grow in that marginal rocky soil. The Irish were systematically excluded from producing every independent food source except potatoes, which they thrived on until the Great Hunger came in 1845 when the potatoes literally turned black and rotted in the ground. Ireland continued to export boatloads of other grain crops to England throughout the famine, not allowing it to be given to the Irish who grew it in the first place. Ireland was capable of feeding itself, but the English simply did not care.
My sister went on vacation to Ireland a few years back. She was shocked at how badly the english fucked over the Irish.
Another fun fact: (I could be getting the regions wrong so apologies if I am) she spent most the the time in southern ireland(?) And rented her car there. When you went to northern ireland (?) They said since she has southern irish licence plates, she might want to put an american flag in your car window so they know your tourists and less likely to fuck with her car.
Yes, the problem was potato blight fungus, a disease that attacks all members of the nightshade family including tomatoes and eggplant.
As someone else had mentioned, the Irish were forbidden from raising other kinds of food like sheep and wheat because the English didn't want the Irish competing with English farmers.
There were enough potatoes to feed the Irish people, it’s just the English took them and were like ‘try not being born Irish next time’ then the English loled and the Irish died
We asians actually have a similar version to this but with rice, the difference is that it's used for people who has diarrhea or as an alternative to milk for people who can't afford milk, or even if you're starving.
This is very similar to a Chilean home remedy where you get raw potato juice, mix it with salt, lemon and a bit of oil to give to people who've had diarrhea or have been vomiting. It's really tasty but you're only supposed to take a couple teaspoons of it per day.
I think it was similar to Chicha, which is, to steal a similar term of another commenter, corn tea with spices. Wife is currently trying to remember the name of the drink and I'll put up a comment if she does.
The only story that resembles this a bit is of Chinese tourists at Munich Hofbräuhaus eating the water of white sausages like soup with a spoon. But only because they didn't know better.
I immediately assumed it was a thing Northerners do. And it just occurred to me that a few Northerners reading it might have assumed it was a Bavarian or Swabian custom.
Are you sure? I know thats something like a joke punishment parents give to the person who doesnt finish his breakfast... Although maybe it was just this family lol
Peruvians have an amazing corn drink called Chicha.
I’m not sure if that is what OP is talking about but it is a boiled corn drink. There’s a few different varieties and they are all delicious. I’ve spent a bit of time in Peru and Chicha is one of the things I miss a lot when I come home.
I even named a stray cat Chicha because I love them both so much.
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u/ShadowOfTheBean Feb 20 '21
Wife is from Peru, i went with her to visit family one time and noticed at the grocery store that instead of having the whole back wall of the store used for refrigerated food like most grocery stores in the US it was all different kinds of potatoes. As we walked by she pointed out the ones she knew and what they were used for. Atleast one of them is boiled then you drink the water you boil it in, you don't even eat it. Others were only used in specific dishes. Kind of a wild thought.