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Potato ceramic from the Moche culture (Larco Museum Collection). The potato was first domesticated in the region of modern-day southern Peru and extreme northwestern Bolivia between 8000 and 5000 BC.
Cultivation of potatoes in South America may go back 10,000 years, but tubers do not preserve well in the archaeological record, making identification difficult. The earliest archaeologically verified potato tuber remains have been found at the coastal site of Ancón (central Peru), dating to 2500 BC.
Aside from actual remains, the potato is also found in the Peruvian archaeological record as a design influence of ceramic pottery, often in the shape of vessels. The potato has since spread around the world and has become a staple crop in many countries. It arrived in Europe sometime before the end of the 16th century by two different ports of entry: the first in Spain around 1570, and the second via the British Isles between 1588 and 1593. The first written mention of the potato is a receipt for delivery dated 28 November 1567 between Las Palmas de Gran Canaria and Antwerp. In France, at the end of the 16th century, the potato had been introduced to the Franche-Comté, the Vosges of Lorraine and Alsace. By the end of the 18th century it was written in the 1785 edition of Bon Jardinier: "There is no vegetable about which so much has been written and so much enthusiasm has been shown ... The poor should be quite content with this foodstuff."
It had widely replaced the turnip and rutabaga by the 19th century. Throughout Europe, the most important new food in the 19th century was the potato, which had three major advantages over other foods for the consumer: its lower rate of spoilage, its bulk (which easily satisfied hunger) and its cheapness. The crop slowly spread across Europe, becoming a major staple by mid-century, especially in Ireland. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_potato
The earliest archaeologically verified potato tuber remains have been found at the coastal site of Ancón (central Peru), dating to 2500 BC. Potatoes dating to about 2000 BC have been found at Huaynuma, in the Casma Valley of Peru, and early potatoes dating to 800-500 BC were also uncovered at the Altiplano site of Chiripa on the east side of Lake Titicaca. Aside from these remains, the potato is also found in the Peruvian archaeological record as a design influence of ceramic pottery, often in the shape of vessels. The vessels represented potatoes in three ways: as clear depictions of the vegetable, as embodying a human form (either mutilated or not) or as transition between the two.
The fact that the Altiplanos chose to represent the potato in their vessels shows they had great social significance to the people there. In the Altiplano, potatoes provided the principal energy source for the Inca Empire, its predecessors, and its Spanish successor. Andean Indians prepared their potatoes in a variety of ways, such as mashed, baked boiled, and stewed in ways similar to modern day Europeans. The Andean Indians also prepared a dish called papas secas, which was a process that involved boiling, peeling, and chopping. These potatoes were then fermented in order to create toqosh: and ground to a pulp, soaked, and filtered into a starch referred to as almidón de papa. However, the cash crop of the Andean people was chuño: created by letting potatoes freeze overnight, then allowing them to thaw in the morning. Doing this repeatedly allowed for a softening of the potatoes. Farmers then extract the water from the potato, leaving it much lighter and smaller. This new creation was then prepared into a stew, and usually was an addition to a stew. The benefits of chuño are plentiful. Its primary benefit is that it can be stored for years without refrigeration, which came into use especially during years of famine or bad harvests. Secondly, this long shelf life allowed it to be the staple food for the Inca Armies, due to how well it traveled and maintained its flavor and longevity. The Spanish fed chuño to the silver miners who produced vast wealth in the 16th century for the Spanish government . Potato was the staple food of most Pre‑Columbian Mapuches, "specially in the southern and coastal Mapuche territories where maize did not reach maturity".
Potato was cultivated by the Chono tribe in Guaitecas Archipelago in Patagonia being this the southern limit of Pre-Hispanic agriculture as noted by the mention of the cultivation of Chiloé potatoes by a Spanish expedition in 1557.
Sailors returning from the Andes to Spain with silver presumably brought maize and potatoes for their own food on the trip. Historians speculate that leftover tubers (and maize) were carried ashore and planted: "We think that the potato arrived some years before the end of the 16th century, by two different ports of entry: the first, logically, in Spain around 1570, and the second via the British Isles between 1588 and 1593 ... we find traces of the transport of potatoes travelling from the Canaries to Antwerp in 1567 ... we can say that the potato was introduced there into the Canary islands from South America around 1562 ... the first written mention of the potato ... a receipt for delivery dated 28 November 1567 between Las Palmas in the Grand Canaries and Antwerp."
Carolus Clusius's botanical illustration of "Papas Peruanorum" (the potato of the Peruvians), Rariorum plantarum historia, 1601 Europeans in South America were aware of the potato by the mid-16th century, but refused to eat the plant.
For the Spaniards the potato was regarded as a food for the natives: the Spanish conquerors speak most favourably of the potato but they recommend it especially for the natives who have to do the heaviest jobs. A similar pattern occurred in England where the potato became the food of the working class.
In 1553, in the book Crónica del Peru, Pedro Cieza de León mentions he saw it in Quito, Popayán and Pasto in 1538. Basque fishermen from Spain used potatoes as ships stores for their voyages across the Atlantic in the 16th century, and introduced the tuber to western Ireland, where they landed to dry their cod. The English privateer Sir Francis Drake, returning from his circumnavigation, or Sir Walter Raleigh's employee Thomas Harriot, are commonly credited with introducing potatoes into England. In 1588, botanist Carolus Clusius made a painting of what he called "Papas Peruanorum" from a specimen in the Low Countries; in 1601 he reported that potatoes were in common use in northern Italy for animal fodder and for human consumption.
The potato first spread in Europe for non-food purposes. It was first eaten on the continent at a Seville hospital in 1573. After Philip II received potatoes from Peru, he sent harvested tubers to the pope, who sent them to the papal ambassador to the Netherlands because he was ill. Clusius indirectly received his tubers from the ambassador; he planted them in Vienna, Frankfurt, and Leyden, and is the person who widely introduced the plant to Europe. It was grown for flowers by Rudolph Jakob Camerarius (1588) and others; John Gerard added the first printed picture of the potato to Herball (1597), although he thought that the plant was native to Virginia.
The Spanish had an empire across Europe, and brought potatoes for their armies. Peasants along the way adopted the crop, which was less often pillaged by marauding armies than above-ground stores of grain. Across most of Northern Europe, where open fields prevailed, potatoes were strictly confined to small garden plots because field agriculture was strictly governed by custom that prescribed seasonal rhythms for plowing, sowing, harvesting and grazing animals on fallow and stubble. This meant that potatoes were barred from large-scale cultivation because the rules allowed only grain to be planted in the open fields.
People feared that it was poisonous like other plants, the potato was often grown with in herb gardens, and distrusted a plant, nicknamed "the devil's apples", that grew underground.
In France and Germany, government officials and noble landowners promoted the rapid conversion of fallow land into potato fields after 1750. The potato thus became an important staple crop in northern Europe. Famines in the early 1770s contributed to its acceptance, as did government policies in several European countries and climate change during the Little Ice Age, when traditional crops in this region did not produce as reliably as before.
At times and places when and where most other crops failed, potatoes could still typically be relied upon to contribute adequately to food supplies during colder years.
Antoine Parmentier holding New World plants, François Dumont 1812
In France, at the end of the 16th century, the potato had been introduced to the Franche-Comté, the Vosges of Lorraine and Alsace. By the end of the 18th century it was written in the 1785 edition of Bon Jardinier: "There is no vegetable about which so much has been written and so much enthusiasm has been shown ... The poor should be quite content with this foodstuff." It had widely replaced the turnip and rutabaga by the 19th century.
http://www.potatogrower.com/2014/06/wisconsin-helps-potatoes-become-first
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_potato
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