April 30, 2026 • 49 mins
Potatoes are amazing. While these sturdy little tubers may not seem immediately impressive, they're one of agricultural's biggest success stories. So, how did they grow from a domestic crop in South America to an absolute global phenomenon? In the first part of this special two-part series, Ben, Noel and Max discover the origin of the potato -- and how a single French pharmacist launched a massive PR campaign to popularize spuds in Europe.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Ridiculous History is a production of iHeartRadio. Welcome back to
(00:27):
the show, fellow Ridiculous Historians. Thank you, as always so
much for tuning in. Let's hear it for the man,
the myth, the legend, the guy I almost called super
producer Max Taters Williams. Sorry, there's a guy from Daly's
eyegeist who goes by Tater's O'Brien.
Speaker 2 (00:47):
I don't know guys know this, but potatoes, I can
have them on the with the condition condition one of
the seven.
Speaker 3 (00:52):
Foods, one of the seven.
Speaker 1 (00:57):
There's a pantheon. We are joined by none other that
not only my favorite co host, but also our research
associate for today's episode, which will be part of a series,
mister Noel Brown.
Speaker 3 (01:12):
Yeah, it's me and Apollo, the dog who lent a
paw in this potato deep dive which went a lot
deeper than I thought. It was your Ben Ben Bowlin.
Speaker 1 (01:22):
We've got mister Jackpots over here, who has quieted down
because Jackpots can't wait to explore nol. What you and
I agreed will be part of a continuing series.
Speaker 3 (01:36):
Well, a series of two likely, but you know who knows.
I was kind of surprised at how deep the what
do you got it? The potato hole went all the
way down to the core of the earth. Potatoes run
deep in this one and they're delicious too, and you know,
sometimes humble. They're often referred to as a humble potato,
which I think is selling them a little short. Frankly,
(01:58):
I guess maybe it comes from the fact that they're
not exactly the prettiest things to look at, which entered
into some of the suspicion that surrounded the early days
of potatoes in the Western world. But you know, whether
you've enjoyed a delicious French fry with ketchup or mayonnaise
if you're wild and or from Europe, or maybe a
(02:20):
little bit of mash with your bangers, probably you've had
a potato a cross your table and your palate and
ultimately make its way into your heart.
Speaker 1 (02:29):
M Yeah, you know this is this is fascinating Old.
This is a great compliment to our continuing series on
sauces and condiments. There are so many varieties of tubers.
There are so many different you know, different members of
(02:49):
the pantheon of what we call the potato. But as
you point out in your research, the potato is one
of the world's most important crops. It is scientifically known
solidum tubursum, Yes, solanum tuber rossum.
Speaker 3 (03:06):
That is right. The potato is, in fact one of
the to your point been world's most important crops, with
a fascinating history that isn't just the history of one
humble it's not a vegetable, one humble tuber, but also
the history of cultivation of agriculture in many ways. The
(03:27):
stretches from the hilltops of the Andes all the way
to the fictional world of J. R. R. Tolkien's The Shire,
where they like to boil and mash them or perhaps
stick them in a stew.
Speaker 1 (03:40):
Yeah, it's it's something that can be called ridiculous. You
might be asking us, guys, why are you dedicating so
much time to the potato. Well, first off, it's because
we love it. Secondly, we needed a palate cleanser after
our thoroughly curse word written exploration of one of our
(04:04):
favorite words.
Speaker 3 (04:06):
Yeah, we had to write our names on the blackboard
a bunch of times because we were bad boys. All
the teachers out there in the audience wrote to us
individually and said that we had to do that to
make amends. For that swear laden episode, but I think
it was worth it, Ben, I think it was worth
it because it was educational.
Speaker 1 (04:28):
Hey, And speaking of educational novel, this one I'm very
excited about. And I can't thank you enough because what's
funny about the Potato is that everywhere you go in
this wide world of ours, people will know what a
potato is. It is as famous and as ubiquitous as
(04:50):
perhaps Michael Jackson was in the nineteen eighties.
Speaker 3 (04:55):
Yeah, and Michael Jackson's back baby in the form of
a biopic from Antoine Fuqua called Michael in a burst
of creativity, Dude, I know this is We're gonna get
to the potatoes and a second. But I always think it's
fascinating when a movie's critics score and audience score are
so wildly out of whack, and that is very much
(05:15):
the case for Michael thirty eight thirty four something like that.
To ninety seven audiences and even some real snarky YouTubers
that I like who do movie reviews, love it and
find it to be a delight and a bit of
a romp.
Speaker 1 (05:29):
I don't love a sanitized or authorized biography.
Speaker 3 (05:33):
I don't love a biography period especially about musicians. Most
of this stuff not to be like, I'm the nerdy,
nerdiest Michael Jackson aficionado on the planet, but a lot
of this stuff is kind of obvious. And the fact
that they're not digging into the nuance of some of
the accusations and some of the more you know, to
your point, been unsanitary aspects of the story does give
me pause. But I did think I would mention that
(05:54):
out of whack critic to audience score.
Speaker 1 (05:57):
Isn't it crazy? Because the previous pick and we promise
We'll move on had the exact reverse. It was. It
was lauded by critics, it was a critic starling, but
the fans did not care for it, did not care
for it. The previous Michael Jackson exploration thing that went
to film. Yeah it I got to send this to.
Speaker 3 (06:20):
You off air.
Speaker 1 (06:22):
It's it's a study in the division between the public
and the holders of critical power. But the reason I'm
bringing up this popularity here, Noel, is because the potato,
i would argue, is one of the most recognizable food
stuffs across the planet. It's up there with rice, you
(06:44):
know what I mean, It's up there with bread. But
a lot of people are not aware of its strange
origin story. It is so much older. We want to
bust a myth right at the top. Potatoes are not
from Ireland, sorry, every body. They're from way further back
and way farther away.
Speaker 3 (07:05):
You're right, Ben, They do come from much farther afield
than one might think, and they are a whole heck
of a lot older than one might think, eight thousand
years old by some estimations, but their place in Western
cuisine is a good bit newer than folks might have thought.
So it's kind of an interesting mixed bag. Potatoes were
first cultivated, as we were saying, by some estimations, close
(07:29):
to eight thousand years ago by the Inca Indians in
the Andes Mountain region of Peru, southern Peru and northwestern Bolivia. They,
to your point, been developed thousands of different varieties of potato,
suited to the regions, different climates, altitudes, and various soils,
various types of soils. Not only were they an important
(07:50):
food to the antient people, but the crop was incredibly
central to their culture. For example, some of the ancient
civilizations in this region actually measured time by how long
it took potato to cook, or how you know long
it took the potato to grow.
Speaker 1 (08:07):
I love that. I love a different clock, man, you
know I do.
Speaker 3 (08:10):
So it's actually, isn't a potato clock a thing? Can't
you like power from a potato sticking like electrodes a
different kind of potato cloth.
Speaker 1 (08:21):
I love the idea that thousands of years ago someone
would say, hey, you're two potatoes late.
Speaker 3 (08:27):
Did jumping here?
Speaker 2 (08:29):
I'm thinking of like the old Futurama episode where they
go into the Death Star of old people and there's
making sure about the matrix, about how everyone's like all
the people are in the things being batteries and bender goes.
Wouldn't anything be a better battery like a potato or
a battery or a battery?
Speaker 1 (08:46):
Yeah, as we mentioned this, this guy not to answer
for warphize too much, but this little guy is what
we call an herbaceous annual, so it grows about the
plant itself grows about forty inches tall in freedom units
or one hundred centimeters tall for the rest of the world.
As it grows, it's leaves the stuff above ground manufacture
(09:10):
starch that gets transferred to the ends of its underground stems.
The fancy were there being Stolens Stolns. Congratulations to everybody
who just won a spelling bee.
Speaker 3 (09:26):
Yeah, and I learned some new words and some new
cultivation techniques yesterday when I watched the first episode of
Zach Galifanakis's new gardening show.
Speaker 1 (09:34):
Oh it's great.
Speaker 3 (09:35):
Yeah, I've only seen the first episode where he talks
about apples. I really hope they get to potatoes. But
I can't speak to that for certain, because I haven't
really looked at apples.
Speaker 1 (09:43):
They're just crazy.
Speaker 3 (09:44):
Apples are wild. The thing called grafting, like all of
this stuff where you like slice off, it's not quite
the same as propagating. It's its own thing, and they
acknowledge in the episode that it is something that a
lot of people are painfully unfamiliar with. So the stems
that you were talking about ben thicken underground to form
just a few or as many as twenty tubers close
(10:06):
to the soil surface. And you know, we talk a
lot about route beggas on our sister show Stuff. They
don't want you to know why. You may ask, you'll
have to listen to find out. I'm not even sure
exactly why. But it's become a theme, and I think
we all love it and are here for it. We
had a little off my discussion as to whether a
potato was in fact a root vegetable like a root
(10:29):
of bega, because we've been thrown around this term tuber,
and we had a little bit of a debate and
did a little bit of googling and found out that
both root vegetables and tubers are something known as geophytes,
which is a botanical classification for plants that have that
main the major part that is to be cultivated growing
beneath the soil. And here's the kicker. All tubers fall
(10:52):
under that umbrella term of root vegetables. However, not all
root vegetables are tubers. So the method in which the
rude bega grows and propagates is different than or the
I guess mechanic of it is different than what happens
with a tuber. So I think that hopefully clears it
(11:12):
up for everyone out there who maybe had a question
about rudebegas versus potatoes, because they do seem like they
would be exactly the same, but they are similar enough,
but then have some distinct differences. So to continue on
the number of tubers that actually can reach maturity depends
a lot on conditions, things like the nutrients in the
(11:33):
soil and moisture that is available. Tubers can vary distinctly,
as we all know, in shape and size, and usually
weigh roughly up to three hundred grams. And this comes
from a delightful site, the International Potato Center, which I'm
just glad a thing like that exists.
Speaker 1 (11:53):
I'm super happy that there is an international cabal of
people very interested in potatoes.
Speaker 3 (12:01):
Another thing that this Potato org had to say about
the science of potatoes is that at the end of
the season, the plants leaves and stems die down to
the soil level, and then it creates new tubers. It's like,
thus the circle of potato continues. The tubers then serve
as a nutrient store that allows the plant to survive
(12:23):
and lay dormant during the cold months and then regrow
later and reproduce. And this isn't It's going to come
into play in part two when we talk about a
horrific potato related event in history known as the Irish
Potato fam Potatoes are all actually clones of themselves. They
do this through a process called vegetative propagation. So when
(12:47):
a potato or a piece of one develops sprouts from
those little things that we kind of look at to
see if a potato is still good the eyes, if
it starts to form a bunch of those, you maybe
know that the potatoes a little long in the tooth.
Once it's planted, it then can grow a new plant
that is genetically identical to the parent. And as we've
(13:08):
discussed in stuff that I want you to know and
surely on this show as well, this can create something
called a monoculture, which is very susceptible to blight and
certain other types of disease.
Speaker 1 (13:21):
See also the gross Michelle banata, right, so, which is
a very different type of flauta. So the issue is, folks,
if you are looking at your old bag or rusted
potatoes that you hid in the pantry away from the light,
and you see those eyes, you probably know that you
can cut those sprouts out and still use the non
(13:45):
discolored part of your potato.
Speaker 3 (13:47):
Yeah, unless it's like got rot, actual grossness or any
kind of mildewy nastiness on it, they're utterly fine. And
it's another reason the potatoes are so incredible as staple
crops because that very reason. Then they are just really
resilient and if you store them in a cool, dry place,
they can last months.
Speaker 1 (14:05):
Part of why I am here now recording this podcast
with us is to the fact that during the Great Depression,
some of my family members survived entirely because they were
able to dig up old potatoes from the frozen ground.
So thank you, potato, thank you for making it the
(14:27):
world round. You've migrated noble potato instead of humble. You've
migrated and stepped with humanity. You know, we are aware
that human populations arrived at the South American continent. Current
history says around seven thousand years ago.
Speaker 3 (14:45):
Yes, seven thousand or eight thousand, depending on this.
Speaker 1 (14:48):
Yeah, what's between friends. Yeah, so this is where we
begin to see. If you fast forward seven thousand years,
you begin to see wild potato plants sprouting up around
Lake Titi Kaka Lake Uh huh just so and no
(15:10):
Bevis Beavis, I think, yeah, and it's funny. I recently
rewatched that Saturday Night Live sketch, you know, the one
on top with Ryan.
Speaker 3 (15:21):
Yeah, he's actually like the what of beavs but real people?
Speaker 1 (15:24):
Yeah, it was it was fascinating. And the uh, the
the interesting thing for so many archaeologists here is that
you can find, as you were saying earlier, No, you
can find remains of potato cultivation from around four thousand BCE.
You can see examples of potatoes getting praised in local
(15:47):
art of the time in Nasca and Chimu pottery.
Speaker 3 (15:51):
Yeah, Naska famous for those lines.
Speaker 1 (15:53):
Yeah, I still wonder whether they built an early version
of a hot air balloon. How else do you see
the whole thing?
Speaker 3 (16:01):
And that's the deal. If anyone's not familiar, then Nasca
lines are a popular pet subject of conspiracy buffs and
we've certainly talked about it on the podcast. And it
is sort of like what a giant array of lines
that can really like create like some sort of pattern
that can really only be seen from way high up.
Speaker 1 (16:20):
Yeah. Yeah, you'll see a big steak or you'll see
a big dude doing something and you have to wonder,
how how do they do? That is the question. So
the cool thing, the very clever thing about these farmers
in the Andes is that they understood you could grow
potatoes not just at higher altitudes, but you could grow
(16:44):
them more successfully at higher altitudes.
Speaker 3 (16:48):
That's right. The Cusco Valley was just such a place
with you know that existed at pretty high altitudes. It
became occupied by the Incas in around fourteen hundred as
a result of the collapse of the Huari civilization and
the state of Tiajuanaku. I'm doing my best here. I
think that was fine in the years one thousand to
(17:10):
twelve thousand. We're talking BCE here.
Speaker 1 (17:13):
So this is at this time the largest settlement, the
settlement that is expanding at the highest rate in what
we call the Americas North and South. These folks are
becoming advanced in agricultural approaches that descend to them from
their ancestors, and because they know how to interact with
(17:38):
the soil, how to speak with the lands, they see
a tremendous boost in the production of not only the
noble potato, but also maze.
Speaker 3 (17:47):
You know corn. Yeah, yeah, exactly. And not only were
they hugely successful in cultivating all of these things, they
also figured out some pretty awesome science y ways of
preserving them that we more or less still use versions
of to this day, the idea of freeze drying, which
really blew my mind when I read this. They created
(18:09):
a potato product. And by the way, this stuff's coming
from another incredible organization, the Irish Potato Federation. This is
a federation like a star trek. They created this potato
product called chuniol, which was one of their main food
items because it just traveled so well. It involved a
process wherein raw potatoes would be frozen and then thawed
(18:31):
outdoors over and over again before the farmer squeezed the
remaining moisture out of them, creating this like astronaut ice cream.
Speaker 1 (18:40):
Yeah potato, yeah, yeah, yeah, man, you nailed it. Get
out of my head because that's the best example.
Speaker 3 (18:47):
This is so tasty and lately, dude, I don't know
if you've seen that. They're like freeze dried skittles. You
can get freeze dried snacks are back in a big way,
especially at places like Trader Joe's Artemis too. Yeah, good time.
Oh I love a free stride stack because they're so
crunchy and there's a little something, a little uncanny valley
about them, but in a good way, you know.
Speaker 1 (19:08):
Yeah, and also Max will keep it in. But I
accidentally had a Freudian slip and said shark out instead
of shout out to Artemis two. That is a joke
about their problems with bathrooms at the spacecraft.
Speaker 3 (19:23):
They got that sharded.
Speaker 1 (19:25):
Yeah, sure, perfect dude to shout out to you guys.
This is a perfect comparison astronaut food because far before
the invention of what we call supermarkets, we have a
shelf stable food stuff. This is your insurance for any
(19:49):
failed harvest, right, and it doesn't necessarily kind of like tofu.
It doesn't necessarily have a big, bold, forward flavor on
its own, but it does have a lot of nutritional value,
and so you could cook it, perhaps in a very
spicy stew. You could make something similar to dumplings in
(20:13):
Central Italy. This is before, by the way, Europe finds
out about the potato.
Speaker 3 (20:18):
Well, that's the thing. We're going to get to that
real soon. But since you mentioned the nutritious value of
the nutrient rich nature of the potato, I just thought
we'd rattle off a few of those stats. It contains
more pat potassium than a banana, about thirty percent of
one's daily allotment of vitamin C and vitamin B six.
Speaker 1 (20:38):
Always eat the skin, folks, that's right, that's right, Ben,
That's exactly right.
Speaker 3 (20:42):
Because that is what is contained in the skin. Is
those nutrients are very rich in the skin, and they
also provide about three grams of protein and two to
four grams of fiber, also mostly in the skin, and
they can act as an incredible source of energy and
nutrients and ones. And I know we're sort of in
an era where potatoes are getting slammed a little bit
(21:03):
for being like too starchy or carby or whatever. But
let's just remember that, like the civilizations have risen and
fallen based on the ability to cultivate. This noble tuber and.
Speaker 2 (21:17):
As jump in here real quick, I was actually watching
something recently talking about like how if you're trying to
lose weight, potatoes are actually a very good food to
eat because they're super stationable. You can mean a lot
of them, you can feel very full, but not actually
just a lot of calories.
Speaker 1 (21:32):
Yeah, yeah, they'll fill you up. Another cheat code would
be a lot of green vegetables, leafy greens, and of
course celery because it's mainly water, right, it's mainly crunchy
water with an opinion about itself. Great, let's keep that.
Noel riddle us this. We're talking a lot about the
(21:53):
fundamental role the potato plate and these ancient meso American empires.
But how did potatoes make it to the wider world
for sure?
Speaker 3 (22:04):
Well, it has a lot to do with the fact
that once again they traveled well, you know, they really did.
Those freeze dried I believe it is what they were called.
They were actually used to feed the Incan armies if
it already has such shelf stability as we know, like
it takes quite a while for a potato to truly
(22:24):
go bad, and even if it goes bad, you can
kind of just cut the bad part off of it
and plenty of it will be still fine. I know
that's gross. I wouldn't do that unless they were in
a pinch.
Speaker 1 (22:34):
Look, I know you well, we do the same thing
with some types of cheese. I'm just laughing, Nol, because
I'm imagining you and I separately looking at some potatoes
in the pantry with a lot of eyes and saying,
I can fix her.
Speaker 3 (22:48):
I can fix it. It's fine. But they they literally
traveled well, in ships, Spanish ships from you know, imperialist
Spaniards who raped and pillaged and did horrible things to
the Incas and their culture. We're not here to litigate
all that. We've done it plenty. But in fifteen thirty two,
(23:09):
the Spanish invaded the Incan Empire and brought an end
to all of that incredible culture, and with it they
brought back a lot of plunder as well as certain
types of crops that they had not seen before, and
the potato was one of them. They brought these tubers
(23:30):
back across the Atlantic, as well as things like avocados.
They're probably we were a little more popular real quick,
and corn, as you mentioned, ben and tomatoes. Historians call
this the Great Colombian Exchange, which we have certainly talked
about as well on ridiculous history and stuff they don't
want you to know. And so for the first time
(23:50):
the potato made its way outside of what was you know,
we would now refer to as the Americas. These Spaniards,
by the way, are of course conquistators. They were conkers,
and they brought back all of these spoils to present
to their overlords and to show that they had done
a good job at conquistadori.
Speaker 1 (24:09):
And we've got to tell you the truth here, folks.
At first, Europe overall was pretty skeptical, partially because they
were super xenophobic.
Speaker 3 (24:21):
Right, and uh with tomatoes right, talked about.
Speaker 1 (24:24):
This, yes, because they're getting these unfamiliar things right, and
people are saying no, seriously, we survived for months across
the Atlantic Ocean eating this weird stuff, right. And the
issue is that night shade is recognizable to Europeans. But
(24:45):
get this, folks, not just tomatoes but also eggplant, peppers
and potatoes are botanically related to night shade, and nightshade
at this time had a bad rep. It was associated
with disease, it was associated with witchcraft, it was poisoning,
poison and social stigma in general.
Speaker 3 (25:08):
So Jimis was referred to as deadly night shade.
Speaker 1 (25:11):
Right. It was a hard cell. And also they had
to figure out how to cultivate it, you know, like,
how do we take this thing that was most popular
in the highlands of the Andes and most successful in
those very high altitude regions. How do we convince the
(25:32):
noble potato to take root in Europe half a world away.
Speaker 3 (25:37):
It's a good question, Ben, because, as we mentioned, the
potato is pretty resilient, but it also likes certain types
of altitudes and climates, right, high ones specifically in terms
of altitude, and also it being a shade, a shady plant.
It also kind of liked cooler weather. So European long
(26:00):
days kind of freaked the potato plant out a little
bit and they didn't grow very well during the warmer months. Instead,
they would grow a bit better in the autumn, which
was of course too close to the early days of
winter for them to survive. So they were really on
a very good cycle.
Speaker 1 (26:18):
Yeah, and we're getting a lot of this from our
friends across the pond, our British cousins at the BBC
shout out to Diego Arguadas orties how the humble potato
changed the world. So at first, like you were saying, Noel,
this thing is a stranger in a strange land, right,
(26:39):
But luckily we did find a better place for the potato.
That would be Ireland. Ireland has better conditions for the
tuber because this is a cool but frost free autumn.
This gives our potato crop enough time to mature after
its introduction from Spain in the fifteen eighties. And now
(27:03):
we see another thing that farmers are brilliant at. They
are they're practicing vegetable eugetics, right, They're selecting the tubers
the potato crops that work best in this time, and
so they start selecting for potatoes that work better earlier
(27:24):
in the summer, and now the potato becomes irreplaceable. It's
also less work than grain, to be quite honest, right,
put it in the ground, set it and forget it.
Speaker 3 (27:36):
Yeah, and I mean, I don't know that they'd figure
this out quite yet. But as we know today, you
can do a lot of the same things with potatoes
that you can do with grain. You can make potato flour,
or you can ferment potatoes to make alcohol. You can
you know, make vodka, potato vodka in various other ferments.
Speaker 1 (27:53):
You're welcome Russia.
Speaker 3 (27:54):
Yeah, exactly. It's pretty incredible all of the things that
you can do with the potato. You can, you know,
shoot it out of a cannon. Apparently people like to
do that potato guns. Don't try that at home, apparently
quite dangerous. Okay, who are we to judge? Now, you know,
live your life, but just don't hurt anybody. So by
the eighteenth and nineteenth century, the potato had truly become
integral to many European diets, particularly in Ireland. As we mentioned,
(28:18):
we're gonna jump around in history a little bit because
there's something really horrible that's going to happen, as we
probably all know in Ireland, the Great Irish Potato Famine.
But we're going to devote much more of an episode
to that. It is worthy of its own path, if
not a giant chunk of an episode, So we're gonna
save that for part two. Parts of Russia also were
(28:39):
relying on potatoes. European colonial trade networks carried them beyond
Europe to Africa and Asia and parts of Oceania, where
they would then be integrated into new culinary traditions and
agricultural systems. So the potato really started to create a
bit of a population boom, which is kind of kind
(28:59):
of wild to get. It is because like people were starving,
food was scarce, and this really was like a pretty
significant boost to people's ability to nourish themselves and they're
you know offspring.
Speaker 1 (29:13):
Yeah, it's got a high yield, it's as we said,
quite nutritious, especially if if you're not fancy and you
eat the skin the way we do today. It's calorie dense.
It's also a very tolerating type of plant, so it's
similar to anybody growing in herb garden. You may know
(29:36):
that mint is a real go getter. It's actually kind
of hard to kill mint, and it's actually kind of
hard to kill a potato. So it makes sense that
this specific type of food stuff could transmit across cultures
and across regions across the planet. It also solves for
(29:59):
a a very difficult problem that a lot of civilizations
and empires face, which is how do we feed everybody cheaply?
Speaker 3 (30:08):
Right?
Speaker 1 (30:08):
If food is expensive in terms of time or in
terms of labor, then the population of a given civilization
or empire will meet a hard glass ceiling. It's very
difficult to break. However, the fact that this has utility
does not really explain how the potato reached ubiquity. And
(30:33):
for that, for the widespread popularity of the potato in
European climes and later thanks to colonialism the world. No,
I believe we have to thank the French. French mel
we love the French.
Speaker 3 (30:49):
Indeed, Ben I have really lately been enjoying videos by
this incredible Englishman who studied in the French tradition of cuisine.
His name is Marco Pierre White and he is he
had like three Michelin stars, like I think in this
in the maybe the eighties, and he kind of gave
up the restaurant tour life to just sort of be
(31:13):
like Cane from Kung Fu, but like the culinary version.
He just sort of like trapeses around the woods of
the countryside of England and hunts wild game. And lately
he's been doing these Maestro series of videos on BBC.
He has the most zen, absolutely philosophical, so he says
something like turn three stars in Michelin, you don't have
(31:35):
to be a great cook, you just have to know
how the system works. It's like that kind of stuff.
But he also says like I don't love to cook,
I love to feed people. It's just like these incredible
little moments and you can just watch, like, you know,
compilations of this dude just talking about French cuisine until
the cows come home, and there's a ton of it
(31:56):
out there and it'll help you fall asleep. So I
highly recommend it. But he is the one who's truly
gotten me in the zone of how important potatoes are.
And we're to French cuisine. We obviously know about French
fries of course, which I think there's even some debate
as to whether in Belgium. Yes, thank you very much, Pumfleet.
(32:16):
But we do know that the potato ended up occupying
an incredibly important place in French culinary tradition, which is
obviously very fancy. It's not, you know, the people's potato anymore,
but it comes from a background of being the people's potato.
So the potato is brought to France from Peru before
(32:37):
the French Revolution, and at first they just weren't accepted
at all. And this kind of mirrors what was going
on in most of Europe. The people would were so
suspicious of them they barely would give them to their pigs,
to their livestock to eat. They were that suspicious of them,
and that was because they found them to be hideous,
misshapen abominations, because of their kind of lumpy, sort of
(33:02):
misshapen look they look at. They associated them with leprosy.
They associated them with the kind of tumors and cysts
bubos that would form on the skin of folks afflicted
with that condition, which was a big problem at the
time because it was contagious. People would get sent off
to these colonies to live out their lives away from
(33:22):
you know, the general population. It was a scary time.
Speaker 1 (33:26):
How do you say the devil's apple in French?
Speaker 3 (33:29):
It's a good question, Ben, Let's see, let's it would
be pm do diablo.
Speaker 1 (33:34):
Ah makes sense, Yes, pom di diabla. So apple is
pum that makes sense. So palmle is like fried apple
kind of yeah, because you know, it.
Speaker 3 (33:44):
Is funny because an apple and a potato are both
this white, kind of crunchy thing on the inside. And
a big problem too, was when folks in Europe initially
got their hands on the potato, they would just take
a big old chalk out of it without boiling it,
mashing it or sticking it in a stew. And let
me tell you, as I'm sure you know, Ben, that's gross.
Speaker 1 (34:05):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (34:05):
Yeah, it doesn't taste good. It needs seasoning.
Speaker 1 (34:08):
It needs It's kind of like how we always laughed
for years about prisoners in early America complaining about having
the lobster all the time. It was all due to
the preparation. They didn't take the shell out. They weren't
thinking of the shell. The potato needs a little bit
(34:29):
of TLC. Right, it's hardy. It's hardy when it grows,
so it can grow on its own throughout the wide world.
But you got to give it a little bit of
love if you want it to be delectable.
Speaker 3 (34:42):
And that's another thing that Marco Pierre White says. He
says that all things when it comes to cooking time,
and if it doesn't take time, if it doesn't take
effort and love, then you're not doing it right.
Speaker 1 (34:59):
So will introduce us to this French pharmacist, this champion of.
Speaker 3 (35:05):
The potato, Antoine Augustine de Parmentierre. He was, as you said,
ben a pharmacist in Paris who was so fond of
the potato and saw so much promise in it and
usefulness in it to utility, much like George Washington Carver
and the peanut, that he was on a mission because
at this point, besides just the general suspicions surrounding the
(35:29):
potato and people thinking it was gross and misshapen, you
point it out and calling it the devil's apple, because
of belief that it maybe was used by witches and
some sort of black magic rituals. It was actually forbidden
to cultivate the potato in France because there was a
belief that it would poison the soil.
Speaker 1 (35:48):
Yeah, poison the soil, poison the livestock, the cattle or
the sheep or the pigs that might eat it. So
our buddy Antoine manages to convince the Paris Facult of Medicine,
as we were saying, to devilify the potato and say,
in seventeen seventy two, grow it if you want, eat
(36:10):
it if you can. However, this high faluting policy change
does not convince the public. People are still saying, I
might be starving. Because there was a lot of famine
in France at this point, leading to some great unrest.
There were a lot of people who would desperately be hungry,
(36:30):
they had not eaten for days. They would be offered
a potato and they would say, forget you. I still
have standards. So, just like our story about the guy
in the United States with the tomato, our champion of
the potato, Antoine has to start doing some Breneese level
pr and he tries to popularize the potato through marketing stunts.
Speaker 3 (36:56):
Yeah, he's growing the potato in his own personal fields
and does this sort of psyop I guess you could
call it where he hires guards to stand watch over
his potato feel in the hopes that people would notice
and be like, what are they like? You always like
to say, Ben that Tom Waite's song, what's the building
(37:18):
in there? Yeah, that's nothing more, nothing better than a
guard or a fence to make people curious about what's
going on on the other side. And hey, if the potatoes,
oh the potatoes, you say, well, if they're so horrible
as we've thought as is, you know, popularly believes, why
has he got to hire these guards? What's so special
about these potatoes?
Speaker 1 (37:38):
It's so brilliant, especially because a twade tells his guards
in secret, okay, let's the word get out, that they
are guarding this high value garden of potatoes, And in
private he tells his hired mercenaries his guards. He says, look,
if literally anybody comes up to you and they offer
(38:01):
you literally anything, I need you to act like a
crooked cop and tell them you're going to let them
steal some potatoes. And you tell them not to tell anybody,
and they're like, but obviously, sir, they're gonna blab on us.
And he goes, I know, perfect for d chess, this guy, Oh.
Speaker 3 (38:22):
Gosh, five D. Maybe that's what our president's plan apparently.
Or is it Checkers or is it Dominos?
Speaker 1 (38:29):
It always comes back around. This guy's play works right,
as we know, thanks to cookingwoclass dot com. He gets
an award in seventeen seventy two, the same year he
writes the reputation of the potato. He gets this award
for making them palatable to the rest of France in
(38:54):
case of a bad harvest. But Noel, as you point out,
it's not until seventeen eighty five that Louis the fifteenth,
at a dinner hosted by Antoine, declares, one day France
will thank you for discovering get this the bread of
the poor people.
Speaker 3 (39:13):
Oh dear, oh dear, how that age?
Speaker 1 (39:16):
I don't know. He was trumpet all over the place.
Speaker 3 (39:19):
Yeah, we're not gonna dig dig deep into the French
revolution right now. But needless to say, full toned, deaf,
bull tone deaf didn't go well. Marie Answin, I didn't
say let the meat cake. But the vibes were there.
The vibes were there. And the funny thing about it
is this was also the king. Louis the fourteenth and
(39:41):
Mary Antoinette are the ones who really popularized the potato
to the bougie class. You know, they would wear these
purple potato flowers are actually quite beautiful. They grow out
of the top parts, the above ground parts of potato.
He would wear them as the pels, and she would
like have them woven into her fanc he hats. And
in eighteen eighty six they financed a plot of land
(40:03):
to grow potatoes in Seblan, which was on the western
edge of Paris. But to the French Revolution side of things,
it did ultimately become the official food stuff of the
French Revolution while also becoming this hot, hot cuisine thing.
It's such an intest it just really speaks to its versatility.
(40:23):
It went from the devil's apple to the apples of
the earth or palm detail, which is what potatoes are
referred to as a cornerstone of French cuisine. They were
transformed from this famine food and very suspect even before that,
to a comfort food staple. That is largely due to
(40:47):
the efforts of Antoine Augustin Parmentier. And he finally even
got his potato flowers in the form of several potato
dishes that bear his name, forever solidifying his place in
the history of humble and what did you say, ben Noble?
Noble and also fancy potato.
Speaker 1 (41:06):
And we have to mention a weird circuitous path toward
potato popularity in what is called the United States today,
because this guy is such a champion of the potato
and such a great pr dude that he is appealing
to the American cousins as well. We know Jefferson, right, Franklin,
(41:32):
We know that Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson went to like.
This guy didn't just do one potato fun time dinner.
He did multiple potato centric dinners. He invited folks like
the famous libertine Benjamin Franklin, who has never been convicted
of being a serial killer, and Thomas Jefferson, who will
never answer for his slavery crimes. He had these guys
(41:56):
over at dinners centering the potato and chopped it up
in all these different ways. I don't want to sound
too Bubba Gump, but you could do so much with
the potato. As we're about to get to, he had
a twenty course meal for these guys, a feast with potatoes.
His fancy work on potato Parmentier's found its way to
(42:18):
Jefferson's famous Library of Monticello, and this is probably where
Thomas Jefferson becomes inspired to bring what we call the
French fry to the United States and serve it at
the White House.
Speaker 3 (42:32):
This guy's killing it, and I always forget what a
Franco file. Both Jefferson and especially Franklin were so Yes,
Parmensier is also the reason that we love potatoes so
well over here in the US. So we didn't want
to close out without mentioning a handful of some delicious
(42:53):
and varied, fancy French potato dishes, the first two of
which bear the name of our hero, mister Parmentier. This
one is called potage Parmentier. I thought we could round
robin this one, Ben. This is a classic rustic French
potato and leak soup. Oh boy, do I love a
potato and leak soup with a little cream, traditionally made
(43:15):
by simmering the potatoes, leaks and onions and stock before
pureing into a smooth and comforting soup, often enriched with
a bit of butter or cream.
Speaker 1 (43:24):
And then our second champion here is Palm Palmonier. These
are picture your classic dice potatoes your roast them. You
pan fry them home style with garlic and herbs, typically
going to be rosemary or thyme to fry, yeah, until
they're crispy on the outside, they're soft inside and you'll
(43:45):
usually look, these might not be great for you every
day all the time, but it's not Christmas. If it's
every day, you want to put these in a high
heat with oil and butter. But weight, folks, it gets fancier. Yep.
Speaker 3 (43:59):
We got one more before, I think, the one that
is both of our favorites. This one is called Palm
Detail foul Sea, which already sounds about as fancy as
potatoes get.
Speaker 1 (44:10):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (44:11):
It's a traditional potato based dish from France, of course,
and there are a lot of different regional versions, but
it's typically made from a combination of potatoes, bacon, onions, garlic, parsley, eggs, milk, oil, butter, salt,
and pepper. The tops are cut off of the potatoes
and the flesh is then dug out with a spoon,
creating like a potato skin thing, which is then stuffed
(44:31):
with a mixture of onions, garlic, parsley, salt, pepper, bacon,
flour and milk. Once stuffed, the lids are put back
on the potato. This is like a like a potato,
like a stuffed potato, but a very fancier version of it.
They're then browned in a mixture of olive oil butter
over high heat Palm deterre far seas are then sprinkled
with salt and baked in the oven at low heat
until everything is fully cooked and tender. It's kind of
(44:54):
like a twice baked potato. It's a little cup. It's
a little cup, kind of like a twice baked potato.
But Ben, I leave this one to you. I think
we're both big fans of this dish.
Speaker 1 (45:03):
Oh this one might not be my number one noll,
but it is very close. This one is potato duffin. Well,
this is where you thinly slice your potatoes. Yeah, yeah,
very thin like Mandolin style or you know o CD style.
Speaker 3 (45:21):
Has those on the man.
Speaker 1 (45:24):
Get your chain mailed Michael Jackson glove for that one.
Speaker 3 (45:27):
As Marco says, just use your palm. Don't use your fingers,
Just use the palm.
Speaker 1 (45:32):
Yeah yeah yeah, make a make a blood pact with
that knife. So you infuse this cream with garlic. You
often want a nice grew yeah, cheese or a multiple cheese,
and then you layer them, you bake them until tender
and you see snip with thyme, nutmeg, garlic, cream gonuts,
speak your truth. This is pretty cool. I've actually thrown
(45:54):
some sage in those with great results.
Speaker 3 (45:57):
Wonderful, wonderful. The nutmeg really is the kick gin makes
it special. But yeah, the thinner the better. And there's
lots of different ways to do it, layering it in
different ways. Some people don't use cheese, some people just
add the cheese at the end. But the kicker is
that after you've baked it and you got it all
infused with the cream and the garlet, you then broiler
oil uncovered and you get that Chris, it's like a casserole,
(46:19):
a hash brown casserole, but with this creamy. My mom
used to make it and it's really truly one of
my favorites. And it's a pain in the butt because
you do it takes love, it takes care, and it
takes time.
Speaker 1 (46:30):
Yeah, now here's something I'm going to cook for you
guys when when we all get together for a pot luck,
Palm full vaults or fon potatoes. You've seen these at steakhouses.
Speaker 3 (46:43):
It's similar to this, but they're individual la.
Speaker 1 (46:46):
Yeah, yeah, right, yeah, They're similar to our potato cup.
They're similar to the kind of scalloping thing we're talking about.
But what I like to do is you cut them.
You cut the top and bottom off, right, you brown them.
Got to simmer them in a nice you know, you
go chicken stock and go beefstock, and you brown the
(47:06):
ends with the butter. I'm so excited to cook for
you guys, and Noel, thank you so much for cooking
for us with what we are calling ridiculous history of
the potato. One potato, two potato.
Speaker 3 (47:20):
Yeah this one was one potato and two potato. We
will have for you on our next episode where we're
going to dig into some of the more I don't know,
sociological sociological aspects of the potato, like the potato famine
and the French Revolution, and then kind of bring into
the modern day. And one thing I was thinking about, Ben,
when you were talking about how it's been a constant
(47:43):
struggle of civilization to figure out how to feed everybody.
It's not one we fully figured out yet, despite all
of our best intentions and advancements. So We're going to
get into that as well. But man, what a fun talk.
This is great and we.
Speaker 1 (47:57):
Hope you enjoyed it as well. Fellow Ridiculous Historians, big
big thanks to our super producer, mister Max the Condition Williams.
Big thanks to my faithful co host and research associate
for this series mister Noel Brown Nol. Who else do
we need to thank you?
Speaker 3 (48:14):
Well, he's Jeff Gotz and Chris frasciotis here in spirit
of course, Jonathan Strickland, the Quister, A j Bahamas Jacobs
the Puzzler.
Speaker 1 (48:21):
Big big thanks to doctor Rachel Big Spinach Lance, as
well as the rude dudes at Pridiculous Crime. If you
dig us, you will.
Speaker 3 (48:29):
If you dig us like.
Speaker 1 (48:30):
A potato, keep it in next then you will love
them at one more time, folks. For Noel, thank you
so much.
Speaker 3 (48:37):
Man.
Speaker 1 (48:38):
I'm looking forward to the next chapter in our exploration
Off the Potato.
Speaker 3 (48:43):
And with you as well, my friend. We'll see you
next time, Folks. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the
iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your
favorite shows.
Ridiculous History is a production of iHeartRadio. Welcome back to
(00:27):
the show, fellow Ridiculous Historians. Thank you, as always so
much for tuning in. Let's hear it for the man,
the myth, the legend, the guy I almost called super
producer Max Taters Williams. Sorry, there's a guy from Daly's
eyegeist who goes by Tater's O'Brien.
Speaker 2 (00:47):
I don't know guys know this, but potatoes, I can
have them on the with the condition condition one of
the seven.
Speaker 3 (00:52):
Foods, one of the seven.
Speaker 1 (00:57):
There's a pantheon. We are joined by none other that
not only my favorite co host, but also our research
associate for today's episode, which will be part of a series,
mister Noel Brown.
Speaker 3 (01:12):
Yeah, it's me and Apollo, the dog who lent a
paw in this potato deep dive which went a lot
deeper than I thought. It was your Ben Ben Bowlin.
Speaker 1 (01:22):
We've got mister Jackpots over here, who has quieted down
because Jackpots can't wait to explore nol. What you and
I agreed will be part of a continuing series.
Speaker 3 (01:36):
Well, a series of two likely, but you know who knows.
I was kind of surprised at how deep the what
do you got it? The potato hole went all the
way down to the core of the earth. Potatoes run
deep in this one and they're delicious too, and you know,
sometimes humble. They're often referred to as a humble potato,
which I think is selling them a little short. Frankly,
(01:58):
I guess maybe it comes from the fact that they're
not exactly the prettiest things to look at, which entered
into some of the suspicion that surrounded the early days
of potatoes in the Western world. But you know, whether
you've enjoyed a delicious French fry with ketchup or mayonnaise
if you're wild and or from Europe, or maybe a
(02:20):
little bit of mash with your bangers, probably you've had
a potato a cross your table and your palate and
ultimately make its way into your heart.
Speaker 1 (02:29):
M Yeah, you know this is this is fascinating Old.
This is a great compliment to our continuing series on
sauces and condiments. There are so many varieties of tubers.
There are so many different you know, different members of
(02:49):
the pantheon of what we call the potato. But as
you point out in your research, the potato is one
of the world's most important crops. It is scientifically known
solidum tubursum, Yes, solanum tuber rossum.
Speaker 3 (03:06):
That is right. The potato is, in fact one of
the to your point been world's most important crops, with
a fascinating history that isn't just the history of one
humble it's not a vegetable, one humble tuber, but also
the history of cultivation of agriculture in many ways. The
(03:27):
stretches from the hilltops of the Andes all the way
to the fictional world of J. R. R. Tolkien's The Shire,
where they like to boil and mash them or perhaps
stick them in a stew.
Speaker 1 (03:40):
Yeah, it's it's something that can be called ridiculous. You
might be asking us, guys, why are you dedicating so
much time to the potato. Well, first off, it's because
we love it. Secondly, we needed a palate cleanser after
our thoroughly curse word written exploration of one of our
(04:04):
favorite words.
Speaker 3 (04:06):
Yeah, we had to write our names on the blackboard
a bunch of times because we were bad boys. All
the teachers out there in the audience wrote to us
individually and said that we had to do that to
make amends. For that swear laden episode, but I think
it was worth it, Ben, I think it was worth
it because it was educational.
Speaker 1 (04:28):
Hey, And speaking of educational novel, this one I'm very
excited about. And I can't thank you enough because what's
funny about the Potato is that everywhere you go in
this wide world of ours, people will know what a
potato is. It is as famous and as ubiquitous as
(04:50):
perhaps Michael Jackson was in the nineteen eighties.
Speaker 3 (04:55):
Yeah, and Michael Jackson's back baby in the form of
a biopic from Antoine Fuqua called Michael in a burst
of creativity, Dude, I know this is We're gonna get
to the potatoes and a second. But I always think it's
fascinating when a movie's critics score and audience score are
so wildly out of whack, and that is very much
(05:15):
the case for Michael thirty eight thirty four something like that.
To ninety seven audiences and even some real snarky YouTubers
that I like who do movie reviews, love it and
find it to be a delight and a bit of
a romp.
Speaker 1 (05:29):
I don't love a sanitized or authorized biography.
Speaker 3 (05:33):
I don't love a biography period especially about musicians. Most
of this stuff not to be like, I'm the nerdy,
nerdiest Michael Jackson aficionado on the planet, but a lot
of this stuff is kind of obvious. And the fact
that they're not digging into the nuance of some of
the accusations and some of the more you know, to
your point, been unsanitary aspects of the story does give
me pause. But I did think I would mention that
(05:54):
out of whack critic to audience score.
Speaker 1 (05:57):
Isn't it crazy? Because the previous pick and we promise
We'll move on had the exact reverse. It was. It
was lauded by critics, it was a critic starling, but
the fans did not care for it, did not care
for it. The previous Michael Jackson exploration thing that went
to film. Yeah it I got to send this to.
Speaker 3 (06:20):
You off air.
Speaker 1 (06:22):
It's it's a study in the division between the public
and the holders of critical power. But the reason I'm
bringing up this popularity here, Noel, is because the potato,
i would argue, is one of the most recognizable food
stuffs across the planet. It's up there with rice, you
(06:44):
know what I mean, It's up there with bread. But
a lot of people are not aware of its strange
origin story. It is so much older. We want to
bust a myth right at the top. Potatoes are not
from Ireland, sorry, every body. They're from way further back
and way farther away.
Speaker 3 (07:05):
You're right, Ben, They do come from much farther afield
than one might think, and they are a whole heck
of a lot older than one might think, eight thousand
years old by some estimations, but their place in Western
cuisine is a good bit newer than folks might have thought.
So it's kind of an interesting mixed bag. Potatoes were
first cultivated, as we were saying, by some estimations, close
(07:29):
to eight thousand years ago by the Inca Indians in
the Andes Mountain region of Peru, southern Peru and northwestern Bolivia. They,
to your point, been developed thousands of different varieties of potato,
suited to the regions, different climates, altitudes, and various soils,
various types of soils. Not only were they an important
(07:50):
food to the antient people, but the crop was incredibly
central to their culture. For example, some of the ancient
civilizations in this region actually measured time by how long
it took potato to cook, or how you know long
it took the potato to grow.
Speaker 1 (08:07):
I love that. I love a different clock, man, you
know I do.
Speaker 3 (08:10):
So it's actually, isn't a potato clock a thing? Can't
you like power from a potato sticking like electrodes a
different kind of potato cloth.
Speaker 1 (08:21):
I love the idea that thousands of years ago someone
would say, hey, you're two potatoes late.
Speaker 3 (08:27):
Did jumping here?
Speaker 2 (08:29):
I'm thinking of like the old Futurama episode where they
go into the Death Star of old people and there's
making sure about the matrix, about how everyone's like all
the people are in the things being batteries and bender goes.
Wouldn't anything be a better battery like a potato or
a battery or a battery?
Speaker 1 (08:46):
Yeah, as we mentioned this, this guy not to answer
for warphize too much, but this little guy is what
we call an herbaceous annual, so it grows about the
plant itself grows about forty inches tall in freedom units
or one hundred centimeters tall for the rest of the world.
As it grows, it's leaves the stuff above ground manufacture
(09:10):
starch that gets transferred to the ends of its underground stems.
The fancy were there being Stolens Stolns. Congratulations to everybody
who just won a spelling bee.
Speaker 3 (09:26):
Yeah, and I learned some new words and some new
cultivation techniques yesterday when I watched the first episode of
Zach Galifanakis's new gardening show.
Speaker 1 (09:34):
Oh it's great.
Speaker 3 (09:35):
Yeah, I've only seen the first episode where he talks
about apples. I really hope they get to potatoes. But
I can't speak to that for certain, because I haven't
really looked at apples.
Speaker 1 (09:43):
They're just crazy.
Speaker 3 (09:44):
Apples are wild. The thing called grafting, like all of
this stuff where you like slice off, it's not quite
the same as propagating. It's its own thing, and they
acknowledge in the episode that it is something that a
lot of people are painfully unfamiliar with. So the stems
that you were talking about ben thicken underground to form
just a few or as many as twenty tubers close
(10:06):
to the soil surface. And you know, we talk a
lot about route beggas on our sister show Stuff. They
don't want you to know why. You may ask, you'll
have to listen to find out. I'm not even sure
exactly why. But it's become a theme, and I think
we all love it and are here for it. We
had a little off my discussion as to whether a
potato was in fact a root vegetable like a root
(10:29):
of bega, because we've been thrown around this term tuber,
and we had a little bit of a debate and
did a little bit of googling and found out that
both root vegetables and tubers are something known as geophytes,
which is a botanical classification for plants that have that
main the major part that is to be cultivated growing
beneath the soil. And here's the kicker. All tubers fall
(10:52):
under that umbrella term of root vegetables. However, not all
root vegetables are tubers. So the method in which the
rude bega grows and propagates is different than or the
I guess mechanic of it is different than what happens
with a tuber. So I think that hopefully clears it
(11:12):
up for everyone out there who maybe had a question
about rudebegas versus potatoes, because they do seem like they
would be exactly the same, but they are similar enough,
but then have some distinct differences. So to continue on
the number of tubers that actually can reach maturity depends
a lot on conditions, things like the nutrients in the
(11:33):
soil and moisture that is available. Tubers can vary distinctly,
as we all know, in shape and size, and usually
weigh roughly up to three hundred grams. And this comes
from a delightful site, the International Potato Center, which I'm
just glad a thing like that exists.
Speaker 1 (11:53):
I'm super happy that there is an international cabal of
people very interested in potatoes.
Speaker 3 (12:01):
Another thing that this Potato org had to say about
the science of potatoes is that at the end of
the season, the plants leaves and stems die down to
the soil level, and then it creates new tubers. It's like,
thus the circle of potato continues. The tubers then serve
as a nutrient store that allows the plant to survive
(12:23):
and lay dormant during the cold months and then regrow
later and reproduce. And this isn't It's going to come
into play in part two when we talk about a
horrific potato related event in history known as the Irish
Potato fam Potatoes are all actually clones of themselves. They
do this through a process called vegetative propagation. So when
(12:47):
a potato or a piece of one develops sprouts from
those little things that we kind of look at to
see if a potato is still good the eyes, if
it starts to form a bunch of those, you maybe
know that the potatoes a little long in the tooth.
Once it's planted, it then can grow a new plant
that is genetically identical to the parent. And as we've
(13:08):
discussed in stuff that I want you to know and
surely on this show as well, this can create something
called a monoculture, which is very susceptible to blight and
certain other types of disease.
Speaker 1 (13:21):
See also the gross Michelle banata, right, so, which is
a very different type of flauta. So the issue is, folks,
if you are looking at your old bag or rusted
potatoes that you hid in the pantry away from the light,
and you see those eyes, you probably know that you
can cut those sprouts out and still use the non
(13:45):
discolored part of your potato.
Speaker 3 (13:47):
Yeah, unless it's like got rot, actual grossness or any
kind of mildewy nastiness on it, they're utterly fine. And
it's another reason the potatoes are so incredible as staple
crops because that very reason. Then they are just really
resilient and if you store them in a cool, dry place,
they can last months.
Speaker 1 (14:05):
Part of why I am here now recording this podcast
with us is to the fact that during the Great Depression,
some of my family members survived entirely because they were
able to dig up old potatoes from the frozen ground.
So thank you, potato, thank you for making it the
(14:27):
world round. You've migrated noble potato instead of humble. You've
migrated and stepped with humanity. You know, we are aware
that human populations arrived at the South American continent. Current
history says around seven thousand years ago.
Speaker 3 (14:45):
Yes, seven thousand or eight thousand, depending on this.
Speaker 1 (14:48):
Yeah, what's between friends. Yeah, so this is where we
begin to see. If you fast forward seven thousand years,
you begin to see wild potato plants sprouting up around
Lake Titi Kaka Lake Uh huh just so and no
(15:10):
Bevis Beavis, I think, yeah, and it's funny. I recently
rewatched that Saturday Night Live sketch, you know, the one
on top with Ryan.
Speaker 3 (15:21):
Yeah, he's actually like the what of beavs but real people?
Speaker 1 (15:24):
Yeah, it was it was fascinating. And the uh, the
the interesting thing for so many archaeologists here is that
you can find, as you were saying earlier, No, you
can find remains of potato cultivation from around four thousand BCE.
You can see examples of potatoes getting praised in local
(15:47):
art of the time in Nasca and Chimu pottery.
Speaker 3 (15:51):
Yeah, Naska famous for those lines.
Speaker 1 (15:53):
Yeah, I still wonder whether they built an early version
of a hot air balloon. How else do you see
the whole thing?
Speaker 3 (16:01):
And that's the deal. If anyone's not familiar, then Nasca
lines are a popular pet subject of conspiracy buffs and
we've certainly talked about it on the podcast. And it
is sort of like what a giant array of lines
that can really like create like some sort of pattern
that can really only be seen from way high up.
Speaker 1 (16:20):
Yeah. Yeah, you'll see a big steak or you'll see
a big dude doing something and you have to wonder,
how how do they do? That is the question. So
the cool thing, the very clever thing about these farmers
in the Andes is that they understood you could grow
potatoes not just at higher altitudes, but you could grow
(16:44):
them more successfully at higher altitudes.
Speaker 3 (16:48):
That's right. The Cusco Valley was just such a place
with you know that existed at pretty high altitudes. It
became occupied by the Incas in around fourteen hundred as
a result of the collapse of the Huari civilization and
the state of Tiajuanaku. I'm doing my best here. I
think that was fine in the years one thousand to
(17:10):
twelve thousand. We're talking BCE here.
Speaker 1 (17:13):
So this is at this time the largest settlement, the
settlement that is expanding at the highest rate in what
we call the Americas North and South. These folks are
becoming advanced in agricultural approaches that descend to them from
their ancestors, and because they know how to interact with
(17:38):
the soil, how to speak with the lands, they see
a tremendous boost in the production of not only the
noble potato, but also maze.
Speaker 3 (17:47):
You know corn. Yeah, yeah, exactly. And not only were
they hugely successful in cultivating all of these things, they
also figured out some pretty awesome science y ways of
preserving them that we more or less still use versions
of to this day, the idea of freeze drying, which
really blew my mind when I read this. They created
(18:09):
a potato product. And by the way, this stuff's coming
from another incredible organization, the Irish Potato Federation. This is
a federation like a star trek. They created this potato
product called chuniol, which was one of their main food
items because it just traveled so well. It involved a
process wherein raw potatoes would be frozen and then thawed
(18:31):
outdoors over and over again before the farmer squeezed the
remaining moisture out of them, creating this like astronaut ice cream.
Speaker 1 (18:40):
Yeah potato, yeah, yeah, yeah, man, you nailed it. Get
out of my head because that's the best example.
Speaker 3 (18:47):
This is so tasty and lately, dude, I don't know
if you've seen that. They're like freeze dried skittles. You
can get freeze dried snacks are back in a big way,
especially at places like Trader Joe's Artemis too. Yeah, good time.
Oh I love a free stride stack because they're so
crunchy and there's a little something, a little uncanny valley
about them, but in a good way, you know.
Speaker 1 (19:08):
Yeah, and also Max will keep it in. But I
accidentally had a Freudian slip and said shark out instead
of shout out to Artemis two. That is a joke
about their problems with bathrooms at the spacecraft.
Speaker 3 (19:23):
They got that sharded.
Speaker 1 (19:25):
Yeah, sure, perfect dude to shout out to you guys.
This is a perfect comparison astronaut food because far before
the invention of what we call supermarkets, we have a
shelf stable food stuff. This is your insurance for any
(19:49):
failed harvest, right, and it doesn't necessarily kind of like tofu.
It doesn't necessarily have a big, bold, forward flavor on
its own, but it does have a lot of nutritional value,
and so you could cook it, perhaps in a very
spicy stew. You could make something similar to dumplings in
(20:13):
Central Italy. This is before, by the way, Europe finds
out about the potato.
Speaker 3 (20:18):
Well, that's the thing. We're going to get to that
real soon. But since you mentioned the nutritious value of
the nutrient rich nature of the potato, I just thought
we'd rattle off a few of those stats. It contains
more pat potassium than a banana, about thirty percent of
one's daily allotment of vitamin C and vitamin B six.
Speaker 1 (20:38):
Always eat the skin, folks, that's right, that's right, Ben,
That's exactly right.
Speaker 3 (20:42):
Because that is what is contained in the skin. Is
those nutrients are very rich in the skin, and they
also provide about three grams of protein and two to
four grams of fiber, also mostly in the skin, and
they can act as an incredible source of energy and
nutrients and ones. And I know we're sort of in
an era where potatoes are getting slammed a little bit
(21:03):
for being like too starchy or carby or whatever. But
let's just remember that, like the civilizations have risen and
fallen based on the ability to cultivate. This noble tuber and.
Speaker 2 (21:17):
As jump in here real quick, I was actually watching
something recently talking about like how if you're trying to
lose weight, potatoes are actually a very good food to
eat because they're super stationable. You can mean a lot
of them, you can feel very full, but not actually
just a lot of calories.
Speaker 1 (21:32):
Yeah, yeah, they'll fill you up. Another cheat code would
be a lot of green vegetables, leafy greens, and of
course celery because it's mainly water, right, it's mainly crunchy
water with an opinion about itself. Great, let's keep that.
Noel riddle us this. We're talking a lot about the
(21:53):
fundamental role the potato plate and these ancient meso American empires.
But how did potatoes make it to the wider world
for sure?
Speaker 3 (22:04):
Well, it has a lot to do with the fact
that once again they traveled well, you know, they really did.
Those freeze dried I believe it is what they were called.
They were actually used to feed the Incan armies if
it already has such shelf stability as we know, like
it takes quite a while for a potato to truly
(22:24):
go bad, and even if it goes bad, you can
kind of just cut the bad part off of it
and plenty of it will be still fine. I know
that's gross. I wouldn't do that unless they were in
a pinch.
Speaker 1 (22:34):
Look, I know you well, we do the same thing
with some types of cheese. I'm just laughing, Nol, because
I'm imagining you and I separately looking at some potatoes
in the pantry with a lot of eyes and saying,
I can fix her.
Speaker 3 (22:48):
I can fix it. It's fine. But they they literally
traveled well, in ships, Spanish ships from you know, imperialist
Spaniards who raped and pillaged and did horrible things to
the Incas and their culture. We're not here to litigate
all that. We've done it plenty. But in fifteen thirty two,
(23:09):
the Spanish invaded the Incan Empire and brought an end
to all of that incredible culture, and with it they
brought back a lot of plunder as well as certain
types of crops that they had not seen before, and
the potato was one of them. They brought these tubers
(23:30):
back across the Atlantic, as well as things like avocados.
They're probably we were a little more popular real quick,
and corn, as you mentioned, ben and tomatoes. Historians call
this the Great Colombian Exchange, which we have certainly talked
about as well on ridiculous history and stuff they don't
want you to know. And so for the first time
(23:50):
the potato made its way outside of what was you know,
we would now refer to as the Americas. These Spaniards,
by the way, are of course conquistators. They were conkers,
and they brought back all of these spoils to present
to their overlords and to show that they had done
a good job at conquistadori.
Speaker 1 (24:09):
And we've got to tell you the truth here, folks.
At first, Europe overall was pretty skeptical, partially because they
were super xenophobic.
Speaker 3 (24:21):
Right, and uh with tomatoes right, talked about.
Speaker 1 (24:24):
This, yes, because they're getting these unfamiliar things right, and
people are saying no, seriously, we survived for months across
the Atlantic Ocean eating this weird stuff, right. And the
issue is that night shade is recognizable to Europeans. But
(24:45):
get this, folks, not just tomatoes but also eggplant, peppers
and potatoes are botanically related to night shade, and nightshade
at this time had a bad rep. It was associated
with disease, it was associated with witchcraft, it was poisoning,
poison and social stigma in general.
Speaker 3 (25:08):
So Jimis was referred to as deadly night shade.
Speaker 1 (25:11):
Right. It was a hard cell. And also they had
to figure out how to cultivate it, you know, like,
how do we take this thing that was most popular
in the highlands of the Andes and most successful in
those very high altitude regions. How do we convince the
(25:32):
noble potato to take root in Europe half a world away.
Speaker 3 (25:37):
It's a good question, Ben, because, as we mentioned, the
potato is pretty resilient, but it also likes certain types
of altitudes and climates, right, high ones specifically in terms
of altitude, and also it being a shade, a shady plant.
It also kind of liked cooler weather. So European long
(26:00):
days kind of freaked the potato plant out a little
bit and they didn't grow very well during the warmer months. Instead,
they would grow a bit better in the autumn, which
was of course too close to the early days of
winter for them to survive. So they were really on
a very good cycle.
Speaker 1 (26:18):
Yeah, and we're getting a lot of this from our
friends across the pond, our British cousins at the BBC
shout out to Diego Arguadas orties how the humble potato
changed the world. So at first, like you were saying, Noel,
this thing is a stranger in a strange land, right,
(26:39):
But luckily we did find a better place for the potato.
That would be Ireland. Ireland has better conditions for the
tuber because this is a cool but frost free autumn.
This gives our potato crop enough time to mature after
its introduction from Spain in the fifteen eighties. And now
(27:03):
we see another thing that farmers are brilliant at. They
are they're practicing vegetable eugetics, right, They're selecting the tubers
the potato crops that work best in this time, and
so they start selecting for potatoes that work better earlier
(27:24):
in the summer, and now the potato becomes irreplaceable. It's
also less work than grain, to be quite honest, right,
put it in the ground, set it and forget it.
Speaker 3 (27:36):
Yeah, and I mean, I don't know that they'd figure
this out quite yet. But as we know today, you
can do a lot of the same things with potatoes
that you can do with grain. You can make potato flour,
or you can ferment potatoes to make alcohol. You can
you know, make vodka, potato vodka in various other ferments.
Speaker 1 (27:53):
You're welcome Russia.
Speaker 3 (27:54):
Yeah, exactly. It's pretty incredible all of the things that
you can do with the potato. You can, you know,
shoot it out of a cannon. Apparently people like to
do that potato guns. Don't try that at home, apparently
quite dangerous. Okay, who are we to judge? Now, you know,
live your life, but just don't hurt anybody. So by
the eighteenth and nineteenth century, the potato had truly become
integral to many European diets, particularly in Ireland. As we mentioned,
(28:18):
we're gonna jump around in history a little bit because
there's something really horrible that's going to happen, as we
probably all know in Ireland, the Great Irish Potato Famine.
But we're going to devote much more of an episode
to that. It is worthy of its own path, if
not a giant chunk of an episode, So we're gonna
save that for part two. Parts of Russia also were
(28:39):
relying on potatoes. European colonial trade networks carried them beyond
Europe to Africa and Asia and parts of Oceania, where
they would then be integrated into new culinary traditions and
agricultural systems. So the potato really started to create a
bit of a population boom, which is kind of kind
(28:59):
of wild to get. It is because like people were starving,
food was scarce, and this really was like a pretty
significant boost to people's ability to nourish themselves and they're
you know offspring.
Speaker 1 (29:13):
Yeah, it's got a high yield, it's as we said,
quite nutritious, especially if if you're not fancy and you
eat the skin the way we do today. It's calorie dense.
It's also a very tolerating type of plant, so it's
similar to anybody growing in herb garden. You may know
(29:36):
that mint is a real go getter. It's actually kind
of hard to kill mint, and it's actually kind of
hard to kill a potato. So it makes sense that
this specific type of food stuff could transmit across cultures
and across regions across the planet. It also solves for
(29:59):
a a very difficult problem that a lot of civilizations
and empires face, which is how do we feed everybody cheaply?
Speaker 3 (30:08):
Right?
Speaker 1 (30:08):
If food is expensive in terms of time or in
terms of labor, then the population of a given civilization
or empire will meet a hard glass ceiling. It's very
difficult to break. However, the fact that this has utility
does not really explain how the potato reached ubiquity. And
(30:33):
for that, for the widespread popularity of the potato in
European climes and later thanks to colonialism the world. No,
I believe we have to thank the French. French mel
we love the French.
Speaker 3 (30:49):
Indeed, Ben I have really lately been enjoying videos by
this incredible Englishman who studied in the French tradition of cuisine.
His name is Marco Pierre White and he is he
had like three Michelin stars, like I think in this
in the maybe the eighties, and he kind of gave
up the restaurant tour life to just sort of be
(31:13):
like Cane from Kung Fu, but like the culinary version.
He just sort of like trapeses around the woods of
the countryside of England and hunts wild game. And lately
he's been doing these Maestro series of videos on BBC.
He has the most zen, absolutely philosophical, so he says
something like turn three stars in Michelin, you don't have
(31:35):
to be a great cook, you just have to know
how the system works. It's like that kind of stuff.
But he also says like I don't love to cook,
I love to feed people. It's just like these incredible
little moments and you can just watch, like, you know,
compilations of this dude just talking about French cuisine until
the cows come home, and there's a ton of it
(31:56):
out there and it'll help you fall asleep. So I
highly recommend it. But he is the one who's truly
gotten me in the zone of how important potatoes are.
And we're to French cuisine. We obviously know about French
fries of course, which I think there's even some debate
as to whether in Belgium. Yes, thank you very much, Pumfleet.
(32:16):
But we do know that the potato ended up occupying
an incredibly important place in French culinary tradition, which is
obviously very fancy. It's not, you know, the people's potato anymore,
but it comes from a background of being the people's potato.
So the potato is brought to France from Peru before
(32:37):
the French Revolution, and at first they just weren't accepted
at all. And this kind of mirrors what was going
on in most of Europe. The people would were so
suspicious of them they barely would give them to their pigs,
to their livestock to eat. They were that suspicious of them,
and that was because they found them to be hideous,
misshapen abominations, because of their kind of lumpy, sort of
(33:02):
misshapen look they look at. They associated them with leprosy.
They associated them with the kind of tumors and cysts
bubos that would form on the skin of folks afflicted
with that condition, which was a big problem at the
time because it was contagious. People would get sent off
to these colonies to live out their lives away from
(33:22):
you know, the general population. It was a scary time.
Speaker 1 (33:26):
How do you say the devil's apple in French?
Speaker 3 (33:29):
It's a good question, Ben, Let's see, let's it would
be pm do diablo.
Speaker 1 (33:34):
Ah makes sense, Yes, pom di diabla. So apple is
pum that makes sense. So palmle is like fried apple
kind of yeah, because you know, it.
Speaker 3 (33:44):
Is funny because an apple and a potato are both
this white, kind of crunchy thing on the inside. And
a big problem too, was when folks in Europe initially
got their hands on the potato, they would just take
a big old chalk out of it without boiling it,
mashing it or sticking it in a stew. And let
me tell you, as I'm sure you know, Ben, that's gross.
Speaker 1 (34:05):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (34:05):
Yeah, it doesn't taste good. It needs seasoning.
Speaker 1 (34:08):
It needs It's kind of like how we always laughed
for years about prisoners in early America complaining about having
the lobster all the time. It was all due to
the preparation. They didn't take the shell out. They weren't
thinking of the shell. The potato needs a little bit
(34:29):
of TLC. Right, it's hardy. It's hardy when it grows,
so it can grow on its own throughout the wide world.
But you got to give it a little bit of
love if you want it to be delectable.
Speaker 3 (34:42):
And that's another thing that Marco Pierre White says. He
says that all things when it comes to cooking time,
and if it doesn't take time, if it doesn't take
effort and love, then you're not doing it right.
Speaker 1 (34:59):
So will introduce us to this French pharmacist, this champion of.
Speaker 3 (35:05):
The potato, Antoine Augustine de Parmentierre. He was, as you said,
ben a pharmacist in Paris who was so fond of
the potato and saw so much promise in it and
usefulness in it to utility, much like George Washington Carver
and the peanut, that he was on a mission because
at this point, besides just the general suspicions surrounding the
(35:29):
potato and people thinking it was gross and misshapen, you
point it out and calling it the devil's apple, because
of belief that it maybe was used by witches and
some sort of black magic rituals. It was actually forbidden
to cultivate the potato in France because there was a
belief that it would poison the soil.
Speaker 1 (35:48):
Yeah, poison the soil, poison the livestock, the cattle or
the sheep or the pigs that might eat it. So
our buddy Antoine manages to convince the Paris Facult of Medicine,
as we were saying, to devilify the potato and say,
in seventeen seventy two, grow it if you want, eat
(36:10):
it if you can. However, this high faluting policy change
does not convince the public. People are still saying, I
might be starving. Because there was a lot of famine
in France at this point, leading to some great unrest.
There were a lot of people who would desperately be hungry,
(36:30):
they had not eaten for days. They would be offered
a potato and they would say, forget you. I still
have standards. So, just like our story about the guy
in the United States with the tomato, our champion of
the potato, Antoine has to start doing some Breneese level
pr and he tries to popularize the potato through marketing stunts.
Speaker 3 (36:56):
Yeah, he's growing the potato in his own personal fields
and does this sort of psyop I guess you could
call it where he hires guards to stand watch over
his potato feel in the hopes that people would notice
and be like, what are they like? You always like
to say, Ben that Tom Waite's song, what's the building
(37:18):
in there? Yeah, that's nothing more, nothing better than a
guard or a fence to make people curious about what's
going on on the other side. And hey, if the potatoes,
oh the potatoes, you say, well, if they're so horrible
as we've thought as is, you know, popularly believes, why
has he got to hire these guards? What's so special
about these potatoes?
Speaker 1 (37:38):
It's so brilliant, especially because a twade tells his guards
in secret, okay, let's the word get out, that they
are guarding this high value garden of potatoes, And in
private he tells his hired mercenaries his guards. He says, look,
if literally anybody comes up to you and they offer
(38:01):
you literally anything, I need you to act like a
crooked cop and tell them you're going to let them
steal some potatoes. And you tell them not to tell anybody,
and they're like, but obviously, sir, they're gonna blab on us.
And he goes, I know, perfect for d chess, this guy, Oh.
Speaker 3 (38:22):
Gosh, five D. Maybe that's what our president's plan apparently.
Or is it Checkers or is it Dominos?
Speaker 1 (38:29):
It always comes back around. This guy's play works right,
as we know, thanks to cookingwoclass dot com. He gets
an award in seventeen seventy two, the same year he
writes the reputation of the potato. He gets this award
for making them palatable to the rest of France in
(38:54):
case of a bad harvest. But Noel, as you point out,
it's not until seventeen eighty five that Louis the fifteenth,
at a dinner hosted by Antoine, declares, one day France
will thank you for discovering get this the bread of
the poor people.
Speaker 3 (39:13):
Oh dear, oh dear, how that age?
Speaker 1 (39:16):
I don't know. He was trumpet all over the place.
Speaker 3 (39:19):
Yeah, we're not gonna dig dig deep into the French
revolution right now. But needless to say, full toned, deaf,
bull tone deaf didn't go well. Marie Answin, I didn't
say let the meat cake. But the vibes were there.
The vibes were there. And the funny thing about it
is this was also the king. Louis the fourteenth and
(39:41):
Mary Antoinette are the ones who really popularized the potato
to the bougie class. You know, they would wear these
purple potato flowers are actually quite beautiful. They grow out
of the top parts, the above ground parts of potato.
He would wear them as the pels, and she would
like have them woven into her fanc he hats. And
in eighteen eighty six they financed a plot of land
(40:03):
to grow potatoes in Seblan, which was on the western
edge of Paris. But to the French Revolution side of things,
it did ultimately become the official food stuff of the
French Revolution while also becoming this hot, hot cuisine thing.
It's such an intest it just really speaks to its versatility.
(40:23):
It went from the devil's apple to the apples of
the earth or palm detail, which is what potatoes are
referred to as a cornerstone of French cuisine. They were
transformed from this famine food and very suspect even before that,
to a comfort food staple. That is largely due to
(40:47):
the efforts of Antoine Augustin Parmentier. And he finally even
got his potato flowers in the form of several potato
dishes that bear his name, forever solidifying his place in
the history of humble and what did you say, ben Noble?
Noble and also fancy potato.
Speaker 1 (41:06):
And we have to mention a weird circuitous path toward
potato popularity in what is called the United States today,
because this guy is such a champion of the potato
and such a great pr dude that he is appealing
to the American cousins as well. We know Jefferson, right, Franklin,
(41:32):
We know that Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson went to like.
This guy didn't just do one potato fun time dinner.
He did multiple potato centric dinners. He invited folks like
the famous libertine Benjamin Franklin, who has never been convicted
of being a serial killer, and Thomas Jefferson, who will
never answer for his slavery crimes. He had these guys
(41:56):
over at dinners centering the potato and chopped it up
in all these different ways. I don't want to sound
too Bubba Gump, but you could do so much with
the potato. As we're about to get to, he had
a twenty course meal for these guys, a feast with potatoes.
His fancy work on potato Parmentier's found its way to
(42:18):
Jefferson's famous Library of Monticello, and this is probably where
Thomas Jefferson becomes inspired to bring what we call the
French fry to the United States and serve it at
the White House.
Speaker 3 (42:32):
This guy's killing it, and I always forget what a
Franco file. Both Jefferson and especially Franklin were so Yes,
Parmensier is also the reason that we love potatoes so
well over here in the US. So we didn't want
to close out without mentioning a handful of some delicious
(42:53):
and varied, fancy French potato dishes, the first two of
which bear the name of our hero, mister Parmentier. This
one is called potage Parmentier. I thought we could round
robin this one, Ben. This is a classic rustic French
potato and leak soup. Oh boy, do I love a
potato and leak soup with a little cream, traditionally made
(43:15):
by simmering the potatoes, leaks and onions and stock before
pureing into a smooth and comforting soup, often enriched with
a bit of butter or cream.
Speaker 1 (43:24):
And then our second champion here is Palm Palmonier. These
are picture your classic dice potatoes your roast them. You
pan fry them home style with garlic and herbs, typically
going to be rosemary or thyme to fry, yeah, until
they're crispy on the outside, they're soft inside and you'll
(43:45):
usually look, these might not be great for you every
day all the time, but it's not Christmas. If it's
every day, you want to put these in a high
heat with oil and butter. But weight, folks, it gets fancier. Yep.
Speaker 3 (43:59):
We got one more before, I think, the one that
is both of our favorites. This one is called Palm
Detail foul Sea, which already sounds about as fancy as
potatoes get.
Speaker 1 (44:10):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (44:11):
It's a traditional potato based dish from France, of course,
and there are a lot of different regional versions, but
it's typically made from a combination of potatoes, bacon, onions, garlic, parsley, eggs, milk, oil, butter, salt,
and pepper. The tops are cut off of the potatoes
and the flesh is then dug out with a spoon,
creating like a potato skin thing, which is then stuffed
(44:31):
with a mixture of onions, garlic, parsley, salt, pepper, bacon,
flour and milk. Once stuffed, the lids are put back
on the potato. This is like a like a potato,
like a stuffed potato, but a very fancier version of it.
They're then browned in a mixture of olive oil butter
over high heat Palm deterre far seas are then sprinkled
with salt and baked in the oven at low heat
until everything is fully cooked and tender. It's kind of
(44:54):
like a twice baked potato. It's a little cup. It's
a little cup, kind of like a twice baked potato.
But Ben, I leave this one to you. I think
we're both big fans of this dish.
Speaker 1 (45:03):
Oh this one might not be my number one noll,
but it is very close. This one is potato duffin. Well,
this is where you thinly slice your potatoes. Yeah, yeah,
very thin like Mandolin style or you know o CD style.
Speaker 3 (45:21):
Has those on the man.
Speaker 1 (45:24):
Get your chain mailed Michael Jackson glove for that one.
Speaker 3 (45:27):
As Marco says, just use your palm. Don't use your fingers,
Just use the palm.
Speaker 1 (45:32):
Yeah yeah yeah, make a make a blood pact with
that knife. So you infuse this cream with garlic. You
often want a nice grew yeah, cheese or a multiple cheese,
and then you layer them, you bake them until tender
and you see snip with thyme, nutmeg, garlic, cream gonuts,
speak your truth. This is pretty cool. I've actually thrown
(45:54):
some sage in those with great results.
Speaker 3 (45:57):
Wonderful, wonderful. The nutmeg really is the kick gin makes
it special. But yeah, the thinner the better. And there's
lots of different ways to do it, layering it in
different ways. Some people don't use cheese, some people just
add the cheese at the end. But the kicker is
that after you've baked it and you got it all
infused with the cream and the garlet, you then broiler
oil uncovered and you get that Chris, it's like a casserole,
(46:19):
a hash brown casserole, but with this creamy. My mom
used to make it and it's really truly one of
my favorites. And it's a pain in the butt because
you do it takes love, it takes care, and it
takes time.
Speaker 1 (46:30):
Yeah, now here's something I'm going to cook for you
guys when when we all get together for a pot luck,
Palm full vaults or fon potatoes. You've seen these at steakhouses.
Speaker 3 (46:43):
It's similar to this, but they're individual la.
Speaker 1 (46:46):
Yeah, yeah, right, yeah, They're similar to our potato cup.
They're similar to the kind of scalloping thing we're talking about.
But what I like to do is you cut them.
You cut the top and bottom off, right, you brown them.
Got to simmer them in a nice you know, you
go chicken stock and go beefstock, and you brown the
(47:06):
ends with the butter. I'm so excited to cook for
you guys, and Noel, thank you so much for cooking
for us with what we are calling ridiculous history of
the potato. One potato, two potato.
Speaker 3 (47:20):
Yeah this one was one potato and two potato. We
will have for you on our next episode where we're
going to dig into some of the more I don't know,
sociological sociological aspects of the potato, like the potato famine
and the French Revolution, and then kind of bring into
the modern day. And one thing I was thinking about, Ben,
when you were talking about how it's been a constant
(47:43):
struggle of civilization to figure out how to feed everybody.
It's not one we fully figured out yet, despite all
of our best intentions and advancements. So We're going to
get into that as well. But man, what a fun talk.
This is great and we.
Speaker 1 (47:57):
Hope you enjoyed it as well. Fellow Ridiculous Historians, big
big thanks to our super producer, mister Max the Condition Williams.
Big thanks to my faithful co host and research associate
for this series mister Noel Brown Nol. Who else do
we need to thank you?
Speaker 3 (48:14):
Well, he's Jeff Gotz and Chris frasciotis here in spirit
of course, Jonathan Strickland, the Quister, A j Bahamas Jacobs
the Puzzler.
Speaker 1 (48:21):
Big big thanks to doctor Rachel Big Spinach Lance, as
well as the rude dudes at Pridiculous Crime. If you
dig us, you will.
Speaker 3 (48:29):
If you dig us like.
Speaker 1 (48:30):
A potato, keep it in next then you will love
them at one more time, folks. For Noel, thank you
so much.
Speaker 3 (48:37):
Man.
Speaker 1 (48:38):
I'm looking forward to the next chapter in our exploration
Off the Potato.
Speaker 3 (48:43):
And with you as well, my friend. We'll see you
next time, Folks. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the
iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your
favorite shows.
Ridiculous History News
Hosts And Creators
Ben Bowlin
Noel Brown
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