A Geography of Potatoes

http://www.photos-public-domain.com/2010/11/10/potatoes/

The humble potato. The mighty spud. The staple food of Irish dinners. There are so many ways to enjoy it. Mashed, roasted, boiled, as chips. But the potato isn't as Irish as it seems. It's actually from Peru. The Incas were the first to grow and domesticate the potato at around 8000BC.



During the Age of Exploration, Spanish conquistadors in Peru brought the potato back with them to Spain. The potato then made its way up from Spain into France, and then onto the rest of Europe. An Englishman named Walter Raleigh introduced the spud to his land in Cork and so began the potato's long Irish journey.




The potato became the staple food of Irish labourers and their families leading up to the Great Famine. The average man would eat anywhere between 10 and 14 pounds of potatoes every day. So when the potato blight hit Ireland in the 1840s, these people really suffered. Roughly one million Irish people died from starvation and another million emigrated.