Before we begin I should state that I once commissioned a birthday cake that was not a cake… it was in fact four different preparations of potatoes held together with a variety of cheeses, and served topped with my homemade gumbo. I have even gone as far as to eat potato chips with salsa. So be forewarned: when it comes to the potato, I am both biased and heretical.

In many accounts of the dawn of human time, in the beginning, there was much darkness.

And then light. And eventually, us.

And then came the mighty potato.

The protagonist in this story is a root vegetable which is excellent with salt and butter and cheese, a vegetable which is suitable for vegans and is naturally gluten free, a vegetable which may exist as an appetizer, entree, or even a dessert; a vegetable which has been a driving force in centuries of human history. Just ask the Smithsonian.

Some people saw the potato for what it was and enjoyed the filling, starchy goodness in their native cuisine. But others saw the potato and feared it, even though they also took it from the place it grew and sent it on a long journey to a foreign land. There, it would be cast down as the fruit of witchcraft and would struggle for years before its reputation was no longer maligned among these foreigners. Myths were spoken about it, laws were enacted against it, and it may have remained in infamy if it weren't for the plucky determination of a few key players in the potato's journey.

All of which, of course, would have been unnecessary if the Europeans had asked the Inca about how to care for and eat potatoes. Though even among the Incas there was some fear of the potato—pregnant women feared that if they ate too many potatoes, their children's heads would be too big at birth.

Potatoes have been grown in the Andes for something like 3,000-10,000 years. Though my readers may have one specific potato variety in mind as they read this, there are hundreds of varieties—even today, indigenous Andeans grow as many as 200 varieties in one field.

An estimated 388,191,000 metric tons were grown worldwide in 2017 (Source: FAOSTAT, 2019). Which is certainly a lot of potatoes, but that number doesn’t even begin to tell the potato’s story. The potato's story is one of cultural legacies, colonization, religious fervor, leprosy panic, witchcraft, culture wars, poverty, imprisonment, famine, scientific discoveries, and truly effective marketing strategies.

The potato occupied a notable place in Inca culture. One of their more prolific food staples, it was grown in great quantities. Varietals were developed for every kind of soil and growing condition. The potatoes were venerated among the Inca, with specific prayers given for their protection, and they were even interred with the dead.

But civil war alone did not lead to the empire’s downfall.

Convinced of the great wealth of the Inca by an earlier conquistador, Francisco Pizarro traveled there to take as much as he could for himself. Pizarro was born into poverty, and like many of us who come from stark beginnings, had great aspirations for wealth. He sent his captain, Hernando De Soto, to set up a meeting with Atahualpa under the guise of diplomacy and faith while secretly hiding his soldiers around the meeting place.

Back in the day, it was assumed by many cultures that eating foods which resembled symptoms of a disease could cause the disease. To naturalists in the 1700s, potatoes looked like the fingers of those with leprosy, and thus potatoes must cause leprosy (although some say this was merely a myth spread by clerics, because what they truly feared was that the potato would cause rampant lust, and no, I don’t understand that correlation either as potatoes make me sleepy).

Potatoes grow underground but not from a seed—apparently this was quite strange for European peasants in the 1700s. The mechanism for the transformation from small spud to large spud was not well understood. As with all things that were poorly understood at the time (like women living happily without children) such magical growth was a clear indication that witchcraft was involved.

And of course, potatoes hail from the "New World." Thus, potatoes were "heathen." Once introduced in Europe they became the domain of pigs and the very poorest of peasants. Thus, potatoes were worse than gauche. It didn't help that European growers learned that the green potatoes were poisonous through lived experience (if only there were some Incas left to teach them), and so they were determined to be unfit for human consumption after some enterprising souls poisoned themselves.

Taking all of this into consideration it's only obvious that they would become embroiled in the religious conflicts of the day. Namely, the struggles between the Roman Catholic and Protestant Church. "No Potatoes. No Popery." was an actual slogan used by the Protestants in the culture wars of the day.