Turn back the clock eight thousand years.
You’re a young Indian living in the Andes Mountains in South America. In the distance are wild llamas. They’re eating. You creep closer and see that the critters are munching on a bitter, slightly poisonous tuber.
You watch.
The animals lick clay before they eat. They’re all safe. Maybe they know something that you don’t?
You report back to the tribe. Michele Debczak wrote in Mental Floss that people “started dunking their potatoes in a mixture of clay and water.” It certainly wasn’t the delicious gravies and spices we use today, but it got rid of the toxins.
Eventually, they cultivated non-poisonous potatoes. It became an Incan staple. They were easy to grow, calorie-dense, and could be stored for a long time. Indigenous people mashed, baked, boiled, dried, and stewed potatoes.
The Spanish Conquistadores brought potatoes to Europe in the sixteenth century (along with silver). Europeans refused to eat them. It was a “non-food,” according to Wikipedia, “regarded with suspicion and fear . . . the creation of witches or devils.” They believed that the rough, uneven shape spoke of evil spirits, causing diseases like leprosy, syphilis, and narcosis (stupor, unconsciousness, or extreme fatigue).
Only livestock and the very poor ate them.
France outlawed potatoes from 1748-1772. According to Lauren Corona in Mashed “they grew underground . . . [to] the people of this time, it meant they were further from G-d . . . unsuitable food for humans.”
Enter Antoine-Augustin Parmentier.
Compliments of Wikimedia Commons
Parmentier fought in The Seven Years War – a conflict that spanned continents. In America it was called the French and Indian War. In Europe, Prussia fought Austria, France, Russia, and Sweden. Winston Churchill would later call it “the first world war.”
Parmentier was captured by the Prussians. As a prisoner, he was forced to eat potatoes or starve. To his surprise, he discovered that the tubers were tasty, filling, and didn’t cause diseases. After the war, Parmentier returned to France and spread the word. Eat potatoes! His biggest achievement was serving potatoes at King Louis XIV’s birthday party.
The government dropped the potato ban.
Who knows? Without Parmentier, we might have never tasted puree de pomme.
English author Hannah Glasse published a popular cookbook called The Art of Cookery Made Plain and Easy. It ran through at least 40 editions – the first in 1747. In 1748 it was published in Dublin, and in 1805 in America. According to Corona, it “gave readers the secrets to creating this humble yet heavenly dish” called mash [potatoes].
The recipe was “2 pounds of butter mashed with a pint of milk, some salt, and a quarter pound of potatoes.”
Sound familiar?
The colonists brought potatoes to North America, along with Glasse’s book. It’s said that Founding Fathers Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, and George Washington all owned copies.
Men didn’t do the cooking. Wives like Martha Washington tweaked her own recipe for mashed potatoes. It was designed for Old George who had no teeth and painful dentures.
Later, celebrities like Martha Stewart, Joanna Gaines, and famous chefs around the world, joined Washington in creating hundreds of delicious mashed potato recipes.
The Irish relied heavily on potatoes. They called mashed potatoes brúitín and made a popular mix of mashed potatoes with kale or cabbage called colcannon. Shane O’Brien wrote in Irish Central, that mashed potatoes has been an “incredibly popular” dish in Ireland for over 200 years. “Some people have gone as far as to say that mashed potatoes are just “Irish guacamole” because Irish people eat them with everything.”
The story of mashed potatoes wouldn’t be complete without instant mashed potatoes. In the early 1950s, the R.T. French Company (now French’s) introduced flash-dried potato granules. A decade later Canadian food scientist, Edward Asselbergs, upped the ante with his instant, boxed potato flakes.
The flash-dried (dehydrated) flakes were easier to handle and tasted better. Brightly colored boxes of potato flakes filled grocery shelves around the world.
These days there are dozens of instant brands and flavors, from Walmart and Trader Joe’s, to Idahoan and Betty Crocker. Flavors range from original to buttery homestyle, and roasted garlic to four cheeses. You can use instants in everything from burgers, cornbread, soups, casseroles, and as thickeners.
Idahoan Foods declared Memphis, Tennessee the “mashed potato capital of the world.” There’s a National Mashed Potato Day in October; Idaho grows the most potatoes in the U.S. (followed by Washington, North Dakota, and Wisconsin); and claims that Memphis eats more Idahoan Foods than any other city in America.
China is the biggest producer of potatoes worldwide.
Amazon lists over 2000 books about mashed potatoes. There are mashed potato bars, mashed potato toppings, and pairings like chicken marsala, pan-seared salmon, and Mississippi pot roast.
Whether you’re young, old, or in-between, eating puree de pomme, brúitín, or mashed potatoes, it can’t be beat!
Holy smoke! Thank goodness the ban on potatoes did not last… I cannot imagine a diet without potatoes! Truly an amazing and versatile food, especially for having such a humble reputation to begin with; even a negative reputation, which I didn’t know. If we need proof that society is evolving, one need only look to our embracing of the ubiquitous and modest tuber! Love your articles always!!