Potatoes and History

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When my niece was little she wouldn't eat mashed potatoes and that left more for me. Then one day she tried them, and that started my personal potato famine.

"You can barbecue it, boil it, broil it, bake it, saute it. Dey's uh, potato-kabobs, potato creole, potato gumbo. Pan fried, deep fried, stir-fried. There's pineapple potato, lemon potato, coconut potato, pepper potato, potato soup, potato stew, potato salad, shrimp and potatoes, potato burger, potato sandwich. That- that's about it." - Apologies to Bubba Blue

I went to a potato museum in Peru. Mind blown. I had no idea there were so many varieties... 4,000! Hay muchas patatas 🥔 🥔 🥔 !

History of the Bow Tie you know you have to do it at some point.

About 40 years ago I met a girl who bewitched me with her Potato Salad.Shes coming down stairs now for lunch!😊

My grandpa Wilson used to fry potatoes in a cast iron skillet in bacon grease. That was real comfort food. 🇮🇪

Loved how you mentioned the effect of the shift from grain to potatoes on evening out food supplies. I remember reading once when armies lived off the land, once an army had gleaned what it could, it would burn the rest to deny foodstuffs to the enemy should they move through the same area. This, of course, was devastating to the local population. Once potato crops were planted, though, burning off the fields left the underground tubers untouched and the locals still had a food supply. So while still devastating, famine was lessened after the potato was cultivated.

You’re now my favorite You...TUBER...

I grew up in Shelley, Idaho. My high school mascot was the Russet potato. Some of the cheerleaders wore uniforms sown from potato sacks. Every year the town holds an annual "Spud Day" festival. Students get two weeks off from school in late September to work in the potato harvest.

Fast Food: French fries Snack: Potato crisps/chips Fancy dinner: Twice Baked Barbecue: Baked Potato Pot luck: Potato salad Quarantine: Vodka There is a potato for all occasions

I’m a homeschooling mom of a 10 and 8 year old. Your videos are so valuable to us. Not only entertaining and informative but also inspiring us to learnmore on these topics/people/events Thank you so much 🙏🙏🙏

The "potatoes fried in the French manner" served during Jefferson's presidency weren't what are now known in the US as French fries (and in Britain as chips) - contemporary descriptions and recipe books clearly say that they were thin, shallow-fried SLICES of potato. This also ties in with the story of how US chips were invented when a diner at a Saratoga restaurant repeatedly sent his fries back, complaining that they were too thick. That only makes sense if the fries were slices of potato rather than batons. The first record of deep fried potato batons (of the kind now known as French fries in the US) is as an accompaniment to fried fish sold by street traders in London and the story goes that the British army took their love of "fried chipped potatoes" to Flanders in WW1 where the Belgians learned to make them and served them up to off-duty soldiers. When the American army took over the western end of the front in 1917 the Belgians continued to serve them to the soldiers who, not realising they were in Belgium rather than France, assumed that these were "French fried potatoes". That's a bit of history that has been mis-remembered.

Not to mention the role of potatoes in the story “The Martian”. When someone asked what the book was about, I replied “a story about a potato farmer”. The person offering the book to her sister had a good chuckle. . .

I met a grad student whose thesis was that the potato caused populations to rise so quickly in Europe that it paved the way for the First World War. It was something I never thought about in that context. My family fled Ireland in the 1850s when there was little left for the survivors of The Starving Times. Thanks for this.

I'm a couch potato and I can relate to this video!

One of my favorite sights in Peru were the enormous piles of potatoes in the outdoor weekend markets, which are as ubiquitous in the country as the potatoes themselves. The piles are stacked as tall as a person in piles with a circumference on the ground of around 10', and maybe half the varieties are different shades of purple, a few of them are quite beautiful. Being an American, after a month down there I started missing bread very badly, but the potatoes were none the less always tasty.

The kind of history that just isn't taught in school that truly does deserve to be remembered. Brought to you exclusively by the one and only HISTORY GUY! 👍🏻😉

My father was a poor peanut farmer in Oklahoma. We raised all of our own food, including potatoes. I wish I had a dollar for every potatoe I dug. My mother, and aunts could all cooked very well, and I especially remember new potatoes, and fresh green beans with bacon grease. My favorite was a dish my aunt made with new potatoes. She made a sauce, and poured over the small potatoes. This was so good it would make a Jack rabbit whip a bull dog.

The potato was the single greatest reason that Ireland's population (Northern Ireland and Republic of Ireland) went from about 3 million in 1700 to over 8 million in 1841. Then came the Potato Blight, causing the (not so)Great Potato Famine and the resultant Irish Diaspora which meant that by 1931 the population had plummeted to just over 4 million. Ireland has still not managed to recover; the 2016 population of all of Ireland was just6.6 million.