The potato
The potato was first found in the region of south America, exactlly in southern Peru and northwestern Bolivia. The potato has been used of the incas way before the Spanish kingdom found them.
Here you can see a painting of the incas using potatoes 2000 years befor it even came to Europe.
After America was discovered by Columbus in 1492, it was above all
Spanish sailors who brought the potato to Europe during the 16th century.
So the plant came via Spain to France, Italy and England.
However, the Europeans did not know what to do with this plant at the beginning.
Above all, it was not known that the tuber of the potato plant was edible.
At first one enjoyed the strange-looking pretty flowers and saw in it an ornamental plant.
It was not until the middle of the 17th century, the potato was able to prevail as one of
the most important food. And she is with us until today. After they found out that the potato is an edible plant and you can fill a whole family with it, it became an important food source during the war. The population even doubled it size because of the plant!
The role of a potato today
We eat potatos in many different ways nowadays. As mentioned, one of the most common ones is fries. But there are a lot more options like potato chips, potato stock, oven baked, «Gschwellti» and more. The population in Europe is not as dependent on the potato to survive as they used to be, but many people in the world are still being fed by potatos for survival. Thanks to research, discovery and science we now have multiple different kinds of potatos, for example lilac ones or sweet potatos.
Family and name
The potato is part of the Solanaceae family, which contains quite a few importantagricultural plants as well as toxic crops. Roughly translated the name means « nightshade plant». The potato has many different names. The binomial name is of the potato is Solanum tuberosum, the most common name in german is «Kartoffel». However, there are many more names like «Erdapfel», «Grundbirne» and others.
Why did we choose this vegetable?
We both love foods made by potatos, expecially fries! So naturally, we thought about the potato. Aditionally, we know that our ancesters were able to survive thanks to this inconspicuous plant because it is very filling and full of nutritions and therefore an important part of survival during the wars.
Aina & Melisa