Potato





The potato Solanum tuberosum is a perennial tuber of the Solanaceae, or
nightshade, family, which is one of the most widely used vegetables in
Europe and North and South America. There are six other species of Solanum
of minor importance. There are thousands of varieties of potato in
cultivation.

The potato is unrelated to the sweet potato. In the United States it is
sometimes referred to as the "Irish Potato" to distinguish it.

History

The potato plant is thought to be native to the Andes and cultivated
originally by the Inca and other Pre-Columbian people of the region,
spreading over time throughout other Native American groups and becoming a
staple food.

In the 16th century, the Spaniards introduced it to the rest of the world.
The name "Potato" came from the Spanish word "patata" (the original quechua
word was "papa"). Many other European languages took forms of this Spanish
name. Although, in Spanish, the word "papa" is more used than "patata",
singularly in the Americas.

It has long been popularly taught that Sir Walter Raleigh was responsible
for bringing the potato to England, but historians now believe that this is
a myth, as the first potatoes apparently appeared in North America in the
18th century. Sir Francis Drake is more likely to be responsible. In 1586,
after battling the Spaniards in the Caribbean, Drake stopped at Cartegena in
North Columbia to collect provisions - including tobacco and potato tubers.
Before returning to England he stopped at Roanoke Island, where the first
English settlers had been attempting to set up a colony. The pioneers
returned to England with Drake, along with the potatoes.

By 1650 potatoes were the staple food of Ireland, and they began to replace
wheat as the major crop elsewhere in Europe, being used to feed both people
and animals. The first mention of potatoes appearing in North America comes
from Irish settlers in Londonderry, New Hampshire during 1719.

Augustin Parmentier is said to have popularised it in France in the 18th
century, after his captivity in Prussia.

The potato was such an important food to the Irish that it is permanently
associated with them today in the popular imagination, due to a single
devastating event - the Irish potato famine. In the 1840s there was a major
outbreak of potato blight, which swept through Europe, wiping out the potato
crop in many countries. The Irish economy was so dependent on a single
variety of potatoes as a staple at this time that the event led to terrible
disease, death, famine, and subsequently emigration by many of the survivors
to areas where there was more food. The blight marks an important, though
tragic, point in Irish history.

Other theories that accept the possibility of pre-Columbian transatlantic
contacts, attribute an earlier date of the very limited existence of potato
in the Old World and Asia.

Varieties

Potatoes come in brown, yellow, pink, red, and purple (sometimes called
"blue"). Their flesh may be white or colored like the skin. Small types are
called "fingerling" or "new" potatoes, larger potatoes are often
distinguished as "earlies" or "main crop", with the "main crop" being
varietes that will store well. Individual varieties may be labeled
"boiling", indicating that they retain some shape when boiled, "baking"
indicating that they only hold their shape if baked, "roasting", indicating
that they are flavoursome when roasted, "salad" to indicate that they are
suitable for salad use (often firm and waxy fleshed when boiled), or
"mashing" to indicate that when mashed they form a smooth consistency
neither fibrous nor grainy.

Some common North American varieties are:

   * Burbank Russet - large, brown skin, white-fleshed, developed by Luther
     Burbank
   * Yellow Finn - small, with yellow skin and flesh
   * Red Gold - red skin, yellow flesh
   * German Butterball - a yellow fingerling
   * Yukon Gold - yellow skin and flesh

In the United States the term "Idaho potato" is often used, but does not
denote a variety, but simply an origin in Idaho, that countries principal
potato-growing region.

Some common British varieties are:

   * Maris Piper - a good general purpose white main crop potato, not
     suitable for salads though
   * King Edward - the best roasting potato, often served with the Sunday
     Roast, white main crop
   * Desiree - a red skinned main crop potato, a favourite with allotment
     holders because of disease resistance
   * Jersey Royal - a salad new potato, grown on the island of Jersey and in
     Spain
   * Pink Fir - a pink salad new potato which grows in irregular shapes
   * Golden Wonder - famous Scottish frying potato used to make crisps

Food value

Potatoes have a high carbohydrate content and include protein, minerals
(particularly potassium, calcium) and vitamins, including vitamin C. More
vitamin C is found in freshly harvested potatoes than potatoes that have
been stored.

Potatoes also contain glycoalkaloids, toxic compounds, of which the most
prevalent are solanine and chaconine. These are partly destroyed by cooking
at high temperatures. Glycoalkaloid concentrations are highest just
underneath the skin of the tuber and increase with age and exposure to
light. Glycolakloids may cause headaches, diarrhea, cramps and in severe
cases coma and death. Light exposure also causes greening, thus giving a
visual clue as to areas of the tuber that may be toxic, however, this is not
a definitive guide as greening and glycoalkaloid accumulation can occur
independently of each other. Some varieties of potato contain greater
glycolalkaloid concentrations than others; breeders developing new varieties
test for this, and sometimes have to discard an otherwise promising cultivar.

A benefit of new and fingerling potatoes is that they contain less solanine,
so that the nutrients under the skin need not be lost. Such potatoes are an
excellent source of nutrition. Peeled, long-stored potatoes fried by
fast-food establishments have less nutritional value although they still
have potassium and vitamin C.

Potatoes can be prepared for eating in numerous ways, either with their skin
on or peeled, whole or cut into pieces, and with seasonings or without. All
that is required is that they be cooked to break down the starch and make
them edible. Potatoes are generally eaten hot, but several basic potato
recipes involve cooking the potatoes and then eating them cold - potato
salad and potato chips. One of the commonest presentation methods is 'mashed
potatoes'. These are peeled, boiled then mashed and mixed with butter,
cream, or other seasonings before serving. Potatoes can also be baked whole;
cut into cubes and roasted; grated and formed into dumplings or potato
pancakes; and cut into long, thin pieces and fried or baked (French fries,
called "chips" in the UK).

Potatoes also provide starch, flour, alcohol (when fermented), dextrin, and
livestock fodder.

Cultivation

Potato plants are low-growing and have white flowers with yellow stamens.
They grow best in cool, moist climates such as Maine, Idaho, New Brunswick,
Prince Edward Island, Germany, Russia, and Poland, though they are widely
adaptable and are grown on a small scale in most temperate regions.

The tubers are covered with buds called "eyes". Common varieties of potatoes
do not produce seeds; the flowers are sterile. Instead, they are propagated
by planting pieces of existing tubers, cut to include at least one eye.
Confusingly, these pieces are called "seed potatoes".

The 1881 Household Cyclopedia adds:

Potatoes, as an article of human food, are, next to wheat, of the greatest
importance in the eye of a political economist. From no other crop that can
be cultivated will the public derive so much food as from this valuable
esculent; and it admits of demonstration that an acre of potatoes will feed
double the number of people that can be fed from an acre of wheat. Very good
varieties are the Gleason, Calico, and Early Goodrich.

GROUND PREPARATION:

To reduce the ground till it is completely free from root-weeds, may be
considered as a desiderutum in potato husbandry; though in many seasons
these operations cannot be perfectly executed, without losing the proper
time for planting, which never ought to be beyond the first of May, if
circumstances do not absolutely interdict it. Three ploughings, with
frequent harrowings and rollings, are necessary in most cases before the
land is in suitable condition. When this is accomplished form the drills as
if they were for turnips; cart the manure, which ought not to be sparingly
applied, plant the seed above the manure, reverse the drills for covering it
and the seed, then harrow the drills in length, which completes the
preparation and seed process.

SEED QUANTITY:

It is not advantageous to cut the seed into small slips, for the strength of
the stem at the outset depends in direct proportion upon the vigor and power
of the seed-plant. The seed plant, therefore, ought to be large, rarely
smaller than the fourth-part of the potato; and if the seed is of small
size, one-half of the potato may be profitably used. At all events, rather
err in giving over large seed than in making it too small because, by the
first error, no great loss can ever be sustained; whereas, by the other,
feeble and late crop may be the consequence. When the seed is properly cut,
it requires from ten to twelve hundredweight of potatoes to plant an acre of
ground, where the rows are twenty seven inches apart; but this quantity
depends greatly upon the size of the potatoes used; if they are large, a
greater weight may be required, but the extra quantity will be abundantly
repaid by the superiority of crop which large seed usually produces.

RAISING METHODS:

The earth should be dug twelve inches deep, if the soil will allow it; after
this, a hole should be opened about six inches deep, and horse-dung or long
litter should be put therein, about three inches thick; this hole should not
be more than twelve inches in diameter. Upon this dung or litter a potato
should be planted whole, upon which a little more dung should be shaken, and
then the earth should be put thereon. In like manner the whole plot of
ground must be planted, taking care that the potatoes be at least sixteen
inches apart. When the young shoots make their appearance they should have
fresh mould drawn around them with a hoe; and if the tender shoots are
covered, it will prevent the frost from injuring them; they should again be
earthed when the shoots make a second appearance, but not covered, as in all
probability the season will be less severe.

A plentiful supply of mould should be given them, and the person who
performs this business should never tread upon the plant, or the hillock
that is raised round it, as the lighter the earth is the more room the
potato will have to expand.

A gentleman obtained from a single root, thus planted, very nearly forty
pounds weight of large potatoes, and from almost every other root upon the
same plot of ground from fifteen to twenty pounds weight; and, except the
soil be stony or gravelly, ten pounds or half a peck of potatoes may
generally be obtained from each root by pursuing the foregoing method.

But note--cuttings or small sets will not do for this purpose.

STORING:

Potatoes are generally dug up with a three-prong grape or fork, but at other
times, when the weather is dry, the plough is used, which is the most
expeditious implement. After gathering the interval, the furrow taken by the
plough is broken and separated, in which way the crop may be more completely
gathered than when taken up by the grape. The potatoes are then stored up
for winter and spring use; and as it is of importance to keep them as long
through summer as possible, every endeavor ought to be made to preserve them
from frost, and from sprouting in the spring months. The former is
accomplished by covering them well with straw when lodged in a house, and by
a thick coat of earth when deposited in a pit, and the latter, by picking
them carefully at different times, when they begin to sprout, drying them
sufficiently by exposure to the sun, or by a gentle toast of a kiln.

IRELAND CULTIVATION:

The drill system, in the cultivation of potatoes in Ireland, is particularly
recommended by Lord Farnham, in a letter to Sir John Sinclair. The small
farmers and laborers plant them in lazy-beds, eight feet wide. This mode is
practised on account of the want of necessary implements for practicing the
drill system, together with a want of horses for the same purpose.

They are cut into sets, three from a large potato; and each set to contain
at least one eye. The sets are planted at the distance of seven inches
asunder, six and a quarter cwt. are considered sufficient seed for an
English acre. Lord Farnham recommends rotten dung in preference to any fresh
dung. If not to be procured, horse-dung, hot from the dunghill. In any soil
he would recommend the dung below the seed.

When the potatoes are vegetated ten inches above the surface, the scuffler
must be introduced, and cast the mold from the potato. If any weeds are
found in the drills they must be hand-hoed; in three days afterwards they
must be moulded up by the double-breasted plough, as high as the neck of the
potato. This mode must be practiced twice, or in some cases three times,
particularly if the land is foul. I do not (says Lord Farnham) consider any
mode so good as the drill system.

GENERAL OBSERVATION:

To prepare for the drill system either oat or wheat stubble, it should be
ploughed in October or the beginning of November; to be ploughed deep and
laid up for winter dry. In March let it be harrowed, and give it three clean
earths. Be very particular to eradicate the couch grass. The drills to be
three feet asunder; drill deep the first time that there is room in the
bottom of the furrow to contain the dung. The best time to begin planting
the potatoes is about the latter end of April by this system. It is as good
a preparation for wheat as the best fallows.

Three feet and a half for drills are preferable to four feet. Mr. Curwen
prefers four feet and a half. He says the produce is immense. Potatoes ought
to be cut at least from two to three weeks before being planted; and if
planted very early whole potatoes are preferable to cut ones, and dung under
and over. Some agriculturists lately pay much attention to raising seedling
potatoes, with the hope of renewing the vigor of the plant.

Early potatoes may be produced in great quantity by resetting the plants,
after taking off the ripe and large ones. A gentleman at Dumfries has
replanted them six different times in one season, without any additional
manure; and, instead of falling off in quantity, he gets a larger crop of
ripe ones at every raising than the former ones. His plants have still on
them three distinct crops, and he supposes they may still continue to
vegetate and germinate until they are stopped by the frost. By this means he
has a new crop every eight days, and has had so for a length of time.