History: The potatoes we have grown to know and love today evolved from its poisonous ancestor of the plant nightshade between Peru and Bolivia. The potato has an extensive amount of years being around; however, it wasn’t until the 8 millennia that the wild potato would be domesticated. In the 1500s Spanish conquistadores started exploring and when they came across the potato it definitely peaked their interest. They ended up taking the potato back to Europe in between the years of 1571-1593. It is funny reading on the history of a potato because I feel like it has completely made me disregard whatever knowledge I thought I had. For instance, when the potato arrived in Belgium, Germany, Austria, Ireland, and France they believed the potato was weird, unneeded, poisonous, and blamed potatoes for things like leprosy and thought to destroy the soil where it grew. Because of the warfare, people were starving and then came a botanist and chemist by the name Antoine-Augustin Parmentier, he had been studying potatoes extensively when he finally managed to persuade king Louis XVI to mass cultivation of potatoes. Once the potato was accepted it prospered. The potato flower even became a sign of nobility because of Maria Antoinette. Then came the worst, potato blight. In 1845 and 1849 potato blight ruined crops which in turn destroyed the entire potato production of Ireland. Today, this occurrence is known as the Great Famine/ Starvation because not only were potato crops being wiped out, but people that depended on potatoes as food or income began to starve, steal, and die. By the end of the great famine, it was estimated to have caused around 1 million deaths.
Nutrition: its value nutritionally is not much because it is a starch therefore it is meant you give you the sensation of being full. However, it does have vitamin C, iron, vitamin B-6, Magnesium, potassium, carbohydrates. Like I said before though, if you’re looking to get a super food then I wouldn’t really consider potatoes simply because potatoes are one of the sources of food you can get a low price and are really just meant to take up space and weight gain.
Political-Economic Analysis: Potatoes are everywhere there are so many things that can be made including potato soup, fries, alcohol, and salads. They are cheap, filling, and delicious. Potatoes are grown in farms typically these things are done by families who depend on their crop yield to survive. However, there are more than a couple who have managed to become million maybe even billionaires. I mean business will continue to boom in the potato industry so long as people keep eating fast food or buying them from the grocery store because their a cheap meal.
Symbolic Analysis: Today, I decided to bring in my boyfriends potato salad. If you know me you know I am a fairly picky eater and my dislikes include excess mayo, olives, pickles, ketchup, and mustard. However, the reason I chose this dish is because it reminded me of when I had a cooking class in high school. My teacher was the kind of lady that really wouldn’t take “but I don’t like that” as a reason to not try something and the reason she was like this was because of her grandson who she said was the pickiest eater and her daughter let it be well known before the holidays. My teacher straight up said I do not care he will eat what I make and that’s the end of that. Holidays came around and sure enough she made a dish that included almost all of the things her grandson didn’t like except she didn’t let him know. Her grandson ended up eating 3 plates of that night. The reason I bring this up is because my boyfriends potato salad includes mayo, and olives but to me it’s one of the most amazing things I’ve had and my taste buds can seriously not compute what’s going on when I eat whatever he cooks because he likes to add a lot of the things that I typically dislike.
Ugent, D. (1970). The Potato. Science, 170(3963), 1161-1166.
http://www.vegetablefacts.net/vegetable-history/history-of-potatoes/