April 20, 2023 • 25 mins
On this episode, Eva and Maite explore the history of the mighty potato which was first cultivated in Peru by the Inca people thousands of years ago.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
In Inca mythology, Aksumama, the potato goddess, is one of
the daughters of Bacha Mama, the earth mother, and legend
has it when the ancient Andian people first encountered potatoes
growing seven thousand years ago, they took them to be
gifts from the gods.
Speaker 2 (00:19):
Today's episode is all about you guessed it.
Speaker 1 (00:23):
Potato potatoes. My name is Eva Longoria and I am
My de Gomez Racon and welcome to Hungry History, a
podcast that explores our past and present through food.
Speaker 2 (00:38):
On every episode, we'll talk about the history of some
of our favorite dishes, ingredients, and beverages.
Speaker 1 (00:43):
So make yourself at home. When our potatoes indigenous to Peru, yes, yes.
Speaker 2 (00:55):
So we were focusing this whole season. We've been focusing
mainly on Mezzo Maria, but this time we thought, okay,
let's go, let's go a little further south and go
to Peru. So, first of all, the bay the word
baba is Getchua for a tuber. But the potato, the
first wild potatoes were harvested in the high altitude soils
(01:19):
in the Andes Mountains about eight thousand years ago.
Speaker 1 (01:24):
So what do you do you plant that little sprout thingie.
Speaker 2 (01:28):
Yeah, So if you were to grow a potato, if
you you know, see an old potato, you know how
sometimes they have those things sprouting out of it. So
you could take the potato and cut them into sections
and then plant the potato basically in rows. And you
just take that piece of the potato and then you
plant it with that pointing upwards. You plant them about
(01:50):
a foot apart, and then in a few months you'll
have a ton of potatoes.
Speaker 1 (01:55):
What.
Speaker 2 (01:55):
Yeah, it's the craziest thing to grow.
Speaker 1 (01:57):
It is high. Everybody grows tomatoes because it's so easy.
But I think I'm gonna try plant and potatoes.
Speaker 2 (02:03):
It's supposed to be the easiest thing to grow.
Speaker 1 (02:05):
Interesting, well, apparently they were to grow them in rows
because the inc and civilization grew thousands of different types
of potatoes and they were ranging in like different shapes, textures, colors, flavors,
some that we recognize today, but thousands of different types.
I feel like every time I go to the grocery
store there's like rustle and golden.
Speaker 2 (02:26):
Like I know, there's not that many, there's like three
or four different kinds, but still in Peru, the native plants,
these papas and nativas. There are still thousands of them
in Peru.
Speaker 1 (02:37):
Wow. And the fact that they taste different is interesting, ink.
Speaker 2 (02:51):
And rulers were ad ho their own gardens in order
to set a good example and to show that nobody
was so rich that they could afford to incite. The
poor and even the disabled who could not work the
soil for food were fed from public storehouses.
Speaker 1 (03:08):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (03:09):
Is that cool?
Speaker 1 (03:10):
So cool? But you know, this all makes sense that
it comes from Peru and the Incing because if you
think about Peruvian food, they always have the potatoes in
the bottom of that rice. But it was the Incans
who were farmers in the Andes that attributed their success
of cultivating potatoes based on spiritual knowledge like the moon
and the mountain spirits and signals from the ancestors. And
(03:32):
so I think, you know, the farmers in the Andes
kind of attribute this successful cultivation of potatoes to spiritual knowledge.
Like I actually do think plants grow when they're happy
and when you talk to them.
Speaker 2 (03:47):
Now, but I think that is so interesting, And I
think we touched upon this a little bit when we
talked about farmers and food justice and all of this.
You know, this whole concept of in mes America and
just pre colonial peoples. They were so connected to the land.
I mean, yes, they're attributing it to the Goddess of
Potato and the Earth Mother and the moon and all
of that, but really they knew what they were doing.
(04:08):
I mean, they were so connected to the earth and
the climate, and.
Speaker 3 (04:11):
They were scientists really well, that's why I was it
was interesting to read that Bedu has almost an entirely
organic farming structure thanks to the work done by the
Incans thousands of years ago because they were they did
this insane.
Speaker 1 (04:27):
Amount of research on farming practices.
Speaker 2 (04:29):
It's insane. And I yeah, there's this one Andian agricultural
laboratory known as Morai, and this is this laboratory that
was developed by the ink And people, I mean, and
they cultivated new varieties of plants, not just potatoes, but
they're really known for the potatoes. And they also kept
(04:51):
seed banks.
Speaker 1 (04:52):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (04:53):
So this research that they were doing thousands of years
ago is still paying off today.
Speaker 1 (05:00):
Wow. That is amazing, which is extraordinary. Yeah, And I
also find it interesting because I learned this in Wahaka
as well, with the mescal growers that are very similar,
but growers of papas nativas grow only what they need
to feed their own family. So for most of them,
it's not practical to produce these crops at a larger
scale because that's really labor intensive and like commercial pesticides
(05:23):
and fertilizers, So they mostly grow it for their community
and their families. Like mesca, well traditional mescalo, very very
traditional mescal, they only make enough for their community.
Speaker 2 (05:33):
I think that's it some parts of Wohaka as well.
I think we see this with corn. They only grow
enough to feed themselves in their.
Speaker 1 (05:43):
Family, which is you know, if we all did that,
we wouldn't need the big egg business that we have today.
Speaker 2 (05:49):
We have to learn from the Incas and the Sappothanks.
Speaker 1 (05:52):
We got to learn from, you know, the indigenous cultures
that had been doing it for thousands of years before
we came along and fucked it up. All right, let's
talk about well more, the Incan Potato Laboratory. It's incredible.
A lot of science going on when it comes to potatoes.
Speaker 2 (06:07):
A lot, and this place is incredible. It's on my
bucket list of places so well.
Speaker 1 (06:11):
I want to go to Peru. And now that I
know potatoes are from there, and this laboratories there, like,
let's go.
Speaker 2 (06:17):
Let's go on a field. T I mean, this is
like incredible. So it's this ancient agricultural laboratory built by
the Incas in the Sacred Valley and it's seated at
over eleven thousand feet above sea level in a series
of these enormous concentric stone terraces. So if you imagine
(06:40):
a massive anphitheater with all of these terraces with different
soils at each levels, and the soils were imported from
different parts of the Andean region, so the Incas observe
the crops planted in each terrace, helping them determine which
(07:01):
varieties were best suited for the varying climate. It's unbelievable.
And they built this with limestone, and there are these
irrigation canals and they were growing thousands of different kinds
of potatoes and it's considered a temple to Batchamama, the
(07:21):
Earth Mother.
Speaker 1 (07:22):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (07:22):
The lowest and most insulated of these circles contains the
warmest temperature, and the higher that the terraces get, the
colder and colder that it gets.
Speaker 1 (07:33):
Wow. Yeah, yeah, I've never been to the Andes. So
the Indians were so advanced, and the fact that these
crops could withstand these harsh conditions of high mountainous areas
and give more yield, Like that's that, Like we can't
even do that today without really interfering with the seeds
(07:55):
and fertilizer and stuff like that.
Speaker 2 (07:57):
Yeah, totally, totally, And it has around twenty different microclimates. Wow,
it's unbelievable at that altitude. It's like it's crazy, it's crazy.
It really goes to show how they had this ancient
understanding of the land and the climate that is still
present in Andean communities. And if you google this place,
(08:19):
it's so beautiful. It's just massive and just green, and
they were growing, you know, everything, And according to Alejandro Agumelo,
the founder of Associacion and This, this laboratory has maintained
one of the highest diversities of native potatoes in the world.
Speaker 1 (08:41):
Wow. They also did freeze drying back in the day,
and they knew how to freeze dry the potatoes to
you know, use as insurance against a bad harvest, and
they also sustain the ink and armies. But how they
did it was like they were soaked in icy waters
of the rivers and streams, then sun dried in the
harsh climate of the highlands and then left out in
(09:04):
the freezing air overnight, so then they could be stored
for up to a decade. And it was like what
they did freeze drying before it was popular.
Speaker 2 (09:11):
And this sustained their armies. And in order to they
would just rehydrate them in water and then use them
in soups or in stews. And like how how Yeah,
they say that the name Murdai might come from these
types of freeze dried potatoes.
Speaker 1 (09:33):
More on the history of the potatoes stay with us,
So let's talk about how the potato got to Europe
because they use it a lot. I mean, obviously colonization,
we know this, but like when how who?
Speaker 2 (09:55):
Yeah? So eventually in the sixteenth century. So Peruz colonized
in fift teen thirty two and Francisco Pisarro was the
man and he noticed this strange round object eating by
the indigenous population. So this new food, you know, spread
within you know, decades. It was used. You know, Spanish
(10:16):
farmers as far away as the Canary Islands were exporting
potatoes to France into the Netherlands. A Spanish conquistador named
Jimenez de Quesada. He encountered the potato in fifteen thirty
seven and what is now Colombia and described these potatoes
of good flavor as truffles. So like everything you know
that was from this New World, everybody saw it was
(10:40):
with curiosity.
Speaker 1 (10:41):
It was later introduced to Britain because Protestants wouldn't plant
them because they weren't mentioned in the Bible. I love that,
but Catholic Irish people do had qualms about it because
they would plant them on Good Friday and they would
sprinkle the potato seeds with holy water because it wasn't
because it wasn't a ved vegetable mentioned in the Bible.
(11:01):
Like what is that? That's so funny, That is so funny.
Speaker 2 (11:06):
But you know, all of these European countries they were
they treated it with suspicion. I mean they you know,
sometimes like a lot of ingredients from the New World,
they were It was believed to be an aphrodisiac or
cause fever or leprosy.
Speaker 1 (11:19):
They used potatoes to feed livestock in Northern Europe, and
it had such bad publicity that it didn't really what
reached mass appeal into the late eighteenth century.
Speaker 2 (11:28):
Exactly until the late eighteenth century. And this man Antoine
Agustine Parmentier, who made the potato popular in France. And
around this time, around the eighteenth century, everybody was looking
at the French for their cuisine, right right, because we
still do as we do. It's true, we still do,
(11:49):
but this is when it started. Around the seventeenth eighteenth century.
The French were the ones to use butter and fresh
herbs and all of this. But he was super interesting.
So he was a pharmacist and you know, agronomist, and
he was in the army and Prussia during the Seven Years'
(12:09):
War and he was taking prisoner and kept in attention
in what is now Hamburg, you know, Germany, and potatoes
were part of his diet. So when he came back
to France, he decided that he was going to change
this idea that potatoes were bad for you and the
potatoes caused leprosy, because that's what the French thought, you know,
(12:31):
about the potato, that it was the cause of leprosy. Yeah,
so he took the scholarly approach and he started writing it.
He wrote this treatise called Inquiry into Nourishing vegetables that
in times of necessity could substitute for ordinary food.
Speaker 4 (12:48):
She's such a mouthful.
Speaker 2 (12:51):
But he was also a showman, and this is what
is very cool. So he threw a famous all potato
dinner party in Paris, and the who's who of Paris came,
including Thomas Jefferson, who was living in Paris at the time.
He planted a forty acre potato field just outside of Paris,
(13:12):
and he posted guards all around this potato field so
that people could think what was in there was really
valuable and worthy of stealing. This is like so crazy,
which of course they did. People stole the potato. And
then he gave Marie Antoinette, who loved to put flowers
in her hair, potato flowers to wear in her hair.
(13:34):
All of a sudden, people were like, wait a minute.
Speaker 1 (13:37):
It finally had a pr campaign. It's got a publicist.
Speaker 4 (13:40):
He got a publicist.
Speaker 1 (13:51):
This epocha, this era in Europe, during this time, and
famine was famine was constant, like I mean, so much
poverty and destruction with all the wars and everything happening
in Europe at the time that once potatoes became a
staple routine, famine almost disappeared pretty much.
Speaker 2 (14:14):
Yeah, yeah, I mean it's incredible. During in France, you know,
during the Revolution, Marie Antoinette's flower beds and the Tuileries
gardens were hoedown to plant potatoes. It became a potato field,
you know, when it became a staple. This lack of
genetic diversity because they didn't have the four thousand varieties
(14:36):
that they had in the Andes. They had you know,
one two. So this leads to this monoculture and these
limited varieties of potato become very vulnerable to disease. So
we see this in the Irish potato famine.
Speaker 1 (14:53):
Yeah, in the eighteen hundreds. Well, the potato is a
staple food in most parts of the world, and it's
grown on every continent except Antarctica.
Speaker 2 (15:03):
And scientists at Nasau have been testing growing potatoes on Mars.
Speaker 1 (15:09):
Wow, from Bedu to Mars. Talk about that. That sounds crazy.
What do you mean, who's growing them? Who's on Mars?
We have people on Mars that I miss that.
Speaker 2 (15:19):
We don't have people on Mars, but we have people
know what the Mars soil is like. The soil in
Mars is lacking in nitrogen and in some chemicals that
help plants grow. It also has very little oxygen. Well,
Mars has very little oxygen, and it's freezing. It's like
eighty degrees below fahrenheit. In twenty sixteen, a group of
(15:43):
Dutch scientists were growing ten different plants in dirt engineered
to mimic this harsh soil that I was just talking about.
Among them were tomatoes and peas, and in Limp, the
Centri Intern the International Potato Center, sprouted a potato in
this Mars like soil and taking soil from the desert
(16:08):
the Pampas la Joye dessert in Peru and planting tubers
that thrive in really salty soils. Basically to grow a
potato in this type of soil that is like lacking
in oxygen, lacking in nitrogen, lacking in chembicals, and it's
really incredible.
Speaker 1 (16:27):
So these scientists are mimicking the surface and soil of
Mars to see what grows, and so far they've only
done potatoes, tomatoes, and peas.
Speaker 2 (16:34):
Well.
Speaker 1 (16:34):
I hope peas don't survive, because that is a vegetable
I do not like. I don't like peas, so I hope.
I'm so happy that the potato thrived in this testing.
Speaker 2 (16:44):
I think the pieas did too, But that's so interesting.
I love peace, especially a bag of frozen peas. Oh
my god, they're perfect. After the break, we've got more
on the history of the potato.
Speaker 1 (17:07):
When did the potato? When did the papa make its
way into Mexican dishes? Because it's it's important in a
lot of Mexican dishes. I love it in Mexican pigadio.
I love me too. I love beef and potatoes and
a tomato sauce.
Speaker 2 (17:19):
Oh my gosh, me too. I love it in Piccaio.
You know, we see potato, we don't really see we
see sweet potato in Mexico, you know, pre conquest, we
see a lot of sweet potato. But it's a whole
other family. But now it is pretty much a staple
everywhere in the world. I love it in Piccado. I
love a good tacoa.
Speaker 1 (17:39):
I love papas ala Mexiicana for breakfast, where it's like
it has lapeni and onions, sometimes bell peppers.
Speaker 2 (17:45):
Like a little breakfast pechio. Is that is that how
you mainly use a.
Speaker 1 (17:49):
Potato in Mexican cooking? Yeah, yeah, it's always what about
in general, like in general, you know what's so funny,
I'm not. I grew up as a baked potato person.
My mom. Once the microwave was invented, which was my era.
By the way, one of the few things as an
(18:10):
example to cook quickly was in an egg, which is
horrible in the microwave, and a potato, and like instead
of baking a potato for an hour, because they take
like an hour to bake, you know, it took seven minutes.
And so I grew up with a baked potato, and
especially in Texas, like the loaded baked potatoes with brisket
and cheese or chili or you know, we really load
(18:34):
them up. So that's how I grew up eating them,
and sometimes do I'll do a baked potato. Now I
usually do a baked sweet potato. If I'm going to
do me to side of some sort of potato or
some sort of starch, I will do the sweet potato. Yes,
I don't have a lot of I do like roasted
potatoes again from England with duck fat. So there's a hole.
(18:57):
There's a chef in Britain that taught me how to
do those Sundays roast potatoes, which you gotta like boil,
then re roast and then roast and then dip them
all over duck fat and then put them back in
the oven and they just come come out so mrisky
and just it's mostly the duck fat that I like
more than the potato.
Speaker 2 (19:17):
That sounds delicious. Decadent. Yeah, that sounds so decadent and delicious.
I make it like a non mayo because you know,
I hate mayo potato salad. Just like boil the potatoes
and then slice them and then dress them with like
lemon and olive oil and tons of fresh herbs garlic.
(19:39):
Make this sort of dressing with like garlic and anchovy
and lemon and olive oil and just put it all
over the potato. So that I love that I love,
and I love a good thatchoes that that goes that.
I remember growing up in Nova Loro, there was a
woman that used to make these corn thirty yes. But
instead of making it with water she would make she
would use the water that was that she would sort
(20:03):
of like rehydrate chili's I guess, and she would use
that red water for the thirty yas. So the thirty
yas were red and they were a little bit smoky.
Fill them with mashed potatoes, close them up and deep
fry them. Oh they were I've never made them, but
I have this memory of these baccos the papa that
were incredible.
Speaker 1 (20:23):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (20:23):
What about tortilla papa.
Speaker 1 (20:25):
I love tortilla potata like a Spanish tortilla. Yes that
I Actually it's a funny you say that, because I do.
I make that quite a lot.
Speaker 2 (20:35):
I make it too, and I don't really I'm not
an egg.
Speaker 1 (20:37):
Person, know, you're not fassin. I make it mostly potato.
Speaker 2 (20:42):
I mean mostly potato, and the egg is really well
cooked like ata papa that's running. I can't deal with it.
But if it's really, like, really well cooked, I love it.
And sometimes I put toto in it. That is one
thing that I make often.
Speaker 1 (20:56):
Actually. Wow, yeah, so funny you say that. I well,
And for intex Is we have breakfast tuckles and papabo
is one of my favorite breakfast tuckles potato and egg,
which is a version of the tortilla de patata. You
know what I mean, Like it is potato egg, potato.
Speaker 2 (21:12):
And egg just wrapped in a wrapped into the.
Speaker 1 (21:15):
Wrapped in a flour tortilla as opposed to just like
a potato, egg omelet or or kische or it's very
it's so different but same. I don't know, but I
do love, you know, I'm a fan of the potato.
I gotta say, yeah. But here's the thing. French fries
are not French. They were invented in Belgium, according to legend,
(21:38):
and it was in sixteen eighty that the fried fish
loving inhabitants of this city of nay Moor had to
find something else to fry when when the local river froze.
So but the word French refers to the method of cooking,
not its origins. Frenching is a way of cutting ingredients
evenly for even cooking. And so interestingly, the French weren't
(22:03):
the first to fry the potato. The Spaniards were, and
they didn't cut it in long strips. They cut it
like in circles, like you have it in. So it
was technically the Spaniards who fried potatoes first, but it
was the French who made the fry shape first.
Speaker 2 (22:23):
Oh interesting, I did not know that I met the
French hate that the Spanish did.
Speaker 1 (22:28):
At first. The Spanish fried potatoes for they were the
first to fry potatoes apparently apparent allegedly.
Speaker 2 (22:35):
Allegedly do you like French fries? Love?
Speaker 1 (22:39):
I love French fries, honestly, French fries, Yeah, it's up there.
I don't obviously don't eat them a lot, and I'm
very picky about them. I really, honestly, anywhere in France
at a rest if you are at a restaurant, order
in French fries, steak, frites or whatever comes with your meal.
They're usually amazing, like they really, they really do it
the best.
Speaker 2 (23:00):
They too, Yeah, steak freaks. That's one of my favorite things.
Speaker 1 (23:04):
Oh my gosh.
Speaker 2 (23:05):
Yeah, potatoes. They're so versatile.
Speaker 1 (23:08):
It's so versatile. I love it in soups. I love
it in my chicken noodle soup. I have to have
potato in my vegetable soup, in my minnestroni soup, in
my chicken noodle soup, I have to have a potato.
It makes it so hearty and it just adopts whatever
broth you put into it. Well, it was really fun
(23:33):
exploring outside of Mexico for a minute, going down to Peru,
don't you think absolutely?
Speaker 2 (23:38):
I was excited about this.
Speaker 1 (23:39):
Yeah, you know why because.
Speaker 2 (23:40):
But of course we're talking about our Pietti Jos and
our that Goles.
Speaker 1 (23:43):
I mean, yeah, we always have to bring it back
to meso America. But I am fascinated by Peruvian food.
I would love to do a Savica episode, a quinoa
you know, all what is that? It's not hominy.
Speaker 2 (23:58):
But oh the chocolate, yes, the big the really big corn.
Oh my gosh, keenwa, oh my god. There's just so
much import that.
Speaker 1 (24:05):
I am such a fan.
Speaker 2 (24:08):
Yeah, hello, you know there's a whole there's a whole
episode right there. That's like we just usually mentioned like four.
Speaker 1 (24:14):
Different exos exactly so much.
Speaker 2 (24:18):
There's so much, but I'm glad we ventured a little
further south this time. It's fascinating.
Speaker 1 (24:23):
Yeah, endlessly fascinating, endlessly fascinating, And there's endless recipes with potatoes.
Thank you so much for listening to our potato episode.
Don't forget to subscribe, comment, rate us all of it.
Speaker 2 (24:37):
Thank you.
Speaker 1 (24:40):
Hungry for History is an unbelievable entertainment production in partnership
with Iheart's my podcast network.
Speaker 2 (24:47):
For more of your favorite shows, visit the iHeartRadio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts
Speaker 1 (25:00):
En
In Inca mythology, Aksumama, the potato goddess, is one of
the daughters of Bacha Mama, the earth mother, and legend
has it when the ancient Andian people first encountered potatoes
growing seven thousand years ago, they took them to be
gifts from the gods.
Speaker 2 (00:19):
Today's episode is all about you guessed it.
Speaker 1 (00:23):
Potato potatoes. My name is Eva Longoria and I am
My de Gomez Racon and welcome to Hungry History, a
podcast that explores our past and present through food.
Speaker 2 (00:38):
On every episode, we'll talk about the history of some
of our favorite dishes, ingredients, and beverages.
Speaker 1 (00:43):
So make yourself at home. When our potatoes indigenous to Peru, yes, yes.
Speaker 2 (00:55):
So we were focusing this whole season. We've been focusing
mainly on Mezzo Maria, but this time we thought, okay,
let's go, let's go a little further south and go
to Peru. So, first of all, the bay the word
baba is Getchua for a tuber. But the potato, the
first wild potatoes were harvested in the high altitude soils
(01:19):
in the Andes Mountains about eight thousand years ago.
Speaker 1 (01:24):
So what do you do you plant that little sprout thingie.
Speaker 2 (01:28):
Yeah, So if you were to grow a potato, if
you you know, see an old potato, you know how
sometimes they have those things sprouting out of it. So
you could take the potato and cut them into sections
and then plant the potato basically in rows. And you
just take that piece of the potato and then you
plant it with that pointing upwards. You plant them about
(01:50):
a foot apart, and then in a few months you'll
have a ton of potatoes.
Speaker 1 (01:55):
What.
Speaker 2 (01:55):
Yeah, it's the craziest thing to grow.
Speaker 1 (01:57):
It is high. Everybody grows tomatoes because it's so easy.
But I think I'm gonna try plant and potatoes.
Speaker 2 (02:03):
It's supposed to be the easiest thing to grow.
Speaker 1 (02:05):
Interesting, well, apparently they were to grow them in rows
because the inc and civilization grew thousands of different types
of potatoes and they were ranging in like different shapes, textures, colors, flavors,
some that we recognize today, but thousands of different types.
I feel like every time I go to the grocery
store there's like rustle and golden.
Speaker 2 (02:26):
Like I know, there's not that many, there's like three
or four different kinds, but still in Peru, the native plants,
these papas and nativas. There are still thousands of them
in Peru.
Speaker 1 (02:37):
Wow. And the fact that they taste different is interesting, ink.
Speaker 2 (02:51):
And rulers were ad ho their own gardens in order
to set a good example and to show that nobody
was so rich that they could afford to incite. The
poor and even the disabled who could not work the
soil for food were fed from public storehouses.
Speaker 1 (03:08):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (03:09):
Is that cool?
Speaker 1 (03:10):
So cool? But you know, this all makes sense that
it comes from Peru and the Incing because if you
think about Peruvian food, they always have the potatoes in
the bottom of that rice. But it was the Incans
who were farmers in the Andes that attributed their success
of cultivating potatoes based on spiritual knowledge like the moon
and the mountain spirits and signals from the ancestors. And
(03:32):
so I think, you know, the farmers in the Andes
kind of attribute this successful cultivation of potatoes to spiritual knowledge.
Like I actually do think plants grow when they're happy
and when you talk to them.
Speaker 2 (03:47):
Now, but I think that is so interesting, And I
think we touched upon this a little bit when we
talked about farmers and food justice and all of this.
You know, this whole concept of in mes America and
just pre colonial peoples. They were so connected to the land.
I mean, yes, they're attributing it to the Goddess of
Potato and the Earth Mother and the moon and all
of that, but really they knew what they were doing.
(04:08):
I mean, they were so connected to the earth and
the climate, and.
Speaker 3 (04:11):
They were scientists really well, that's why I was it
was interesting to read that Bedu has almost an entirely
organic farming structure thanks to the work done by the
Incans thousands of years ago because they were they did
this insane.
Speaker 1 (04:27):
Amount of research on farming practices.
Speaker 2 (04:29):
It's insane. And I yeah, there's this one Andian agricultural
laboratory known as Morai, and this is this laboratory that
was developed by the ink And people, I mean, and
they cultivated new varieties of plants, not just potatoes, but
they're really known for the potatoes. And they also kept
(04:51):
seed banks.
Speaker 1 (04:52):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (04:53):
So this research that they were doing thousands of years
ago is still paying off today.
Speaker 1 (05:00):
Wow. That is amazing, which is extraordinary. Yeah, And I
also find it interesting because I learned this in Wahaka
as well, with the mescal growers that are very similar,
but growers of papas nativas grow only what they need
to feed their own family. So for most of them,
it's not practical to produce these crops at a larger
scale because that's really labor intensive and like commercial pesticides
(05:23):
and fertilizers, So they mostly grow it for their community
and their families. Like mesca, well traditional mescalo, very very
traditional mescal, they only make enough for their community.
Speaker 2 (05:33):
I think that's it some parts of Wohaka as well.
I think we see this with corn. They only grow
enough to feed themselves in their.
Speaker 1 (05:43):
Family, which is you know, if we all did that,
we wouldn't need the big egg business that we have today.
Speaker 2 (05:49):
We have to learn from the Incas and the Sappothanks.
Speaker 1 (05:52):
We got to learn from, you know, the indigenous cultures
that had been doing it for thousands of years before
we came along and fucked it up. All right, let's
talk about well more, the Incan Potato Laboratory. It's incredible.
A lot of science going on when it comes to potatoes.
Speaker 2 (06:07):
A lot, and this place is incredible. It's on my
bucket list of places so well.
Speaker 1 (06:11):
I want to go to Peru. And now that I
know potatoes are from there, and this laboratories there, like,
let's go.
Speaker 2 (06:17):
Let's go on a field. T I mean, this is
like incredible. So it's this ancient agricultural laboratory built by
the Incas in the Sacred Valley and it's seated at
over eleven thousand feet above sea level in a series
of these enormous concentric stone terraces. So if you imagine
(06:40):
a massive anphitheater with all of these terraces with different
soils at each levels, and the soils were imported from
different parts of the Andean region, so the Incas observe
the crops planted in each terrace, helping them determine which
(07:01):
varieties were best suited for the varying climate. It's unbelievable.
And they built this with limestone, and there are these
irrigation canals and they were growing thousands of different kinds
of potatoes and it's considered a temple to Batchamama, the
(07:21):
Earth Mother.
Speaker 1 (07:22):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (07:22):
The lowest and most insulated of these circles contains the
warmest temperature, and the higher that the terraces get, the
colder and colder that it gets.
Speaker 1 (07:33):
Wow. Yeah, yeah, I've never been to the Andes. So
the Indians were so advanced, and the fact that these
crops could withstand these harsh conditions of high mountainous areas
and give more yield, Like that's that, Like we can't
even do that today without really interfering with the seeds
(07:55):
and fertilizer and stuff like that.
Speaker 2 (07:57):
Yeah, totally, totally, And it has around twenty different microclimates. Wow,
it's unbelievable at that altitude. It's like it's crazy, it's crazy.
It really goes to show how they had this ancient
understanding of the land and the climate that is still
present in Andean communities. And if you google this place,
(08:19):
it's so beautiful. It's just massive and just green, and
they were growing, you know, everything, And according to Alejandro Agumelo,
the founder of Associacion and This, this laboratory has maintained
one of the highest diversities of native potatoes in the world.
Speaker 1 (08:41):
Wow. They also did freeze drying back in the day,
and they knew how to freeze dry the potatoes to
you know, use as insurance against a bad harvest, and
they also sustain the ink and armies. But how they
did it was like they were soaked in icy waters
of the rivers and streams, then sun dried in the
harsh climate of the highlands and then left out in
(09:04):
the freezing air overnight, so then they could be stored
for up to a decade. And it was like what
they did freeze drying before it was popular.
Speaker 2 (09:11):
And this sustained their armies. And in order to they
would just rehydrate them in water and then use them
in soups or in stews. And like how how Yeah,
they say that the name Murdai might come from these
types of freeze dried potatoes.
Speaker 1 (09:33):
More on the history of the potatoes stay with us,
So let's talk about how the potato got to Europe
because they use it a lot. I mean, obviously colonization,
we know this, but like when how who?
Speaker 2 (09:55):
Yeah? So eventually in the sixteenth century. So Peruz colonized
in fift teen thirty two and Francisco Pisarro was the
man and he noticed this strange round object eating by
the indigenous population. So this new food, you know, spread
within you know, decades. It was used. You know, Spanish
(10:16):
farmers as far away as the Canary Islands were exporting
potatoes to France into the Netherlands. A Spanish conquistador named
Jimenez de Quesada. He encountered the potato in fifteen thirty
seven and what is now Colombia and described these potatoes
of good flavor as truffles. So like everything you know
that was from this New World, everybody saw it was
(10:40):
with curiosity.
Speaker 1 (10:41):
It was later introduced to Britain because Protestants wouldn't plant
them because they weren't mentioned in the Bible. I love that,
but Catholic Irish people do had qualms about it because
they would plant them on Good Friday and they would
sprinkle the potato seeds with holy water because it wasn't
because it wasn't a ved vegetable mentioned in the Bible.
(11:01):
Like what is that? That's so funny, That is so funny.
Speaker 2 (11:06):
But you know, all of these European countries they were
they treated it with suspicion. I mean they you know,
sometimes like a lot of ingredients from the New World,
they were It was believed to be an aphrodisiac or
cause fever or leprosy.
Speaker 1 (11:19):
They used potatoes to feed livestock in Northern Europe, and
it had such bad publicity that it didn't really what
reached mass appeal into the late eighteenth century.
Speaker 2 (11:28):
Exactly until the late eighteenth century. And this man Antoine
Agustine Parmentier, who made the potato popular in France. And
around this time, around the eighteenth century, everybody was looking
at the French for their cuisine, right right, because we
still do as we do. It's true, we still do,
(11:49):
but this is when it started. Around the seventeenth eighteenth century.
The French were the ones to use butter and fresh
herbs and all of this. But he was super interesting.
So he was a pharmacist and you know, agronomist, and
he was in the army and Prussia during the Seven Years'
(12:09):
War and he was taking prisoner and kept in attention
in what is now Hamburg, you know, Germany, and potatoes
were part of his diet. So when he came back
to France, he decided that he was going to change
this idea that potatoes were bad for you and the
potatoes caused leprosy, because that's what the French thought, you know,
(12:31):
about the potato, that it was the cause of leprosy. Yeah,
so he took the scholarly approach and he started writing it.
He wrote this treatise called Inquiry into Nourishing vegetables that
in times of necessity could substitute for ordinary food.
Speaker 4 (12:48):
She's such a mouthful.
Speaker 2 (12:51):
But he was also a showman, and this is what
is very cool. So he threw a famous all potato
dinner party in Paris, and the who's who of Paris came,
including Thomas Jefferson, who was living in Paris at the time.
He planted a forty acre potato field just outside of Paris,
(13:12):
and he posted guards all around this potato field so
that people could think what was in there was really
valuable and worthy of stealing. This is like so crazy,
which of course they did. People stole the potato. And
then he gave Marie Antoinette, who loved to put flowers
in her hair, potato flowers to wear in her hair.
(13:34):
All of a sudden, people were like, wait a minute.
Speaker 1 (13:37):
It finally had a pr campaign. It's got a publicist.
Speaker 4 (13:40):
He got a publicist.
Speaker 1 (13:51):
This epocha, this era in Europe, during this time, and
famine was famine was constant, like I mean, so much
poverty and destruction with all the wars and everything happening
in Europe at the time that once potatoes became a
staple routine, famine almost disappeared pretty much.
Speaker 2 (14:14):
Yeah, yeah, I mean it's incredible. During in France, you know,
during the Revolution, Marie Antoinette's flower beds and the Tuileries
gardens were hoedown to plant potatoes. It became a potato field,
you know, when it became a staple. This lack of
genetic diversity because they didn't have the four thousand varieties
(14:36):
that they had in the Andes. They had you know,
one two. So this leads to this monoculture and these
limited varieties of potato become very vulnerable to disease. So
we see this in the Irish potato famine.
Speaker 1 (14:53):
Yeah, in the eighteen hundreds. Well, the potato is a
staple food in most parts of the world, and it's
grown on every continent except Antarctica.
Speaker 2 (15:03):
And scientists at Nasau have been testing growing potatoes on Mars.
Speaker 1 (15:09):
Wow, from Bedu to Mars. Talk about that. That sounds crazy.
What do you mean, who's growing them? Who's on Mars?
We have people on Mars that I miss that.
Speaker 2 (15:19):
We don't have people on Mars, but we have people
know what the Mars soil is like. The soil in
Mars is lacking in nitrogen and in some chemicals that
help plants grow. It also has very little oxygen. Well,
Mars has very little oxygen, and it's freezing. It's like
eighty degrees below fahrenheit. In twenty sixteen, a group of
(15:43):
Dutch scientists were growing ten different plants in dirt engineered
to mimic this harsh soil that I was just talking about.
Among them were tomatoes and peas, and in Limp, the
Centri Intern the International Potato Center, sprouted a potato in
this Mars like soil and taking soil from the desert
(16:08):
the Pampas la Joye dessert in Peru and planting tubers
that thrive in really salty soils. Basically to grow a
potato in this type of soil that is like lacking
in oxygen, lacking in nitrogen, lacking in chembicals, and it's
really incredible.
Speaker 1 (16:27):
So these scientists are mimicking the surface and soil of
Mars to see what grows, and so far they've only
done potatoes, tomatoes, and peas.
Speaker 2 (16:34):
Well.
Speaker 1 (16:34):
I hope peas don't survive, because that is a vegetable
I do not like. I don't like peas, so I hope.
I'm so happy that the potato thrived in this testing.
Speaker 2 (16:44):
I think the pieas did too, But that's so interesting.
I love peace, especially a bag of frozen peas. Oh
my god, they're perfect. After the break, we've got more
on the history of the potato.
Speaker 1 (17:07):
When did the potato? When did the papa make its
way into Mexican dishes? Because it's it's important in a
lot of Mexican dishes. I love it in Mexican pigadio.
I love me too. I love beef and potatoes and
a tomato sauce.
Speaker 2 (17:19):
Oh my gosh, me too. I love it in Piccaio.
You know, we see potato, we don't really see we
see sweet potato in Mexico, you know, pre conquest, we
see a lot of sweet potato. But it's a whole
other family. But now it is pretty much a staple
everywhere in the world. I love it in Piccado. I
love a good tacoa.
Speaker 1 (17:39):
I love papas ala Mexiicana for breakfast, where it's like
it has lapeni and onions, sometimes bell peppers.
Speaker 2 (17:45):
Like a little breakfast pechio. Is that is that how
you mainly use a.
Speaker 1 (17:49):
Potato in Mexican cooking? Yeah, yeah, it's always what about
in general, like in general, you know what's so funny,
I'm not. I grew up as a baked potato person.
My mom. Once the microwave was invented, which was my era.
By the way, one of the few things as an
(18:10):
example to cook quickly was in an egg, which is
horrible in the microwave, and a potato, and like instead
of baking a potato for an hour, because they take
like an hour to bake, you know, it took seven minutes.
And so I grew up with a baked potato, and
especially in Texas, like the loaded baked potatoes with brisket
and cheese or chili or you know, we really load
(18:34):
them up. So that's how I grew up eating them,
and sometimes do I'll do a baked potato. Now I
usually do a baked sweet potato. If I'm going to
do me to side of some sort of potato or
some sort of starch, I will do the sweet potato. Yes,
I don't have a lot of I do like roasted
potatoes again from England with duck fat. So there's a hole.
(18:57):
There's a chef in Britain that taught me how to
do those Sundays roast potatoes, which you gotta like boil,
then re roast and then roast and then dip them
all over duck fat and then put them back in
the oven and they just come come out so mrisky
and just it's mostly the duck fat that I like
more than the potato.
Speaker 2 (19:17):
That sounds delicious. Decadent. Yeah, that sounds so decadent and delicious.
I make it like a non mayo because you know,
I hate mayo potato salad. Just like boil the potatoes
and then slice them and then dress them with like
lemon and olive oil and tons of fresh herbs garlic.
(19:39):
Make this sort of dressing with like garlic and anchovy
and lemon and olive oil and just put it all
over the potato. So that I love that I love,
and I love a good thatchoes that that goes that.
I remember growing up in Nova Loro, there was a
woman that used to make these corn thirty yes. But
instead of making it with water she would make she
would use the water that was that she would sort
(20:03):
of like rehydrate chili's I guess, and she would use
that red water for the thirty yas. So the thirty
yas were red and they were a little bit smoky.
Fill them with mashed potatoes, close them up and deep
fry them. Oh they were I've never made them, but
I have this memory of these baccos the papa that
were incredible.
Speaker 1 (20:23):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (20:23):
What about tortilla papa.
Speaker 1 (20:25):
I love tortilla potata like a Spanish tortilla. Yes that
I Actually it's a funny you say that, because I do.
I make that quite a lot.
Speaker 2 (20:35):
I make it too, and I don't really I'm not
an egg.
Speaker 1 (20:37):
Person, know, you're not fassin. I make it mostly potato.
Speaker 2 (20:42):
I mean mostly potato, and the egg is really well
cooked like ata papa that's running. I can't deal with it.
But if it's really, like, really well cooked, I love it.
And sometimes I put toto in it. That is one
thing that I make often.
Speaker 1 (20:56):
Actually. Wow, yeah, so funny you say that. I well,
And for intex Is we have breakfast tuckles and papabo
is one of my favorite breakfast tuckles potato and egg,
which is a version of the tortilla de patata. You
know what I mean, Like it is potato egg, potato.
Speaker 2 (21:12):
And egg just wrapped in a wrapped into the.
Speaker 1 (21:15):
Wrapped in a flour tortilla as opposed to just like
a potato, egg omelet or or kische or it's very
it's so different but same. I don't know, but I
do love, you know, I'm a fan of the potato.
I gotta say, yeah. But here's the thing. French fries
are not French. They were invented in Belgium, according to legend,
(21:38):
and it was in sixteen eighty that the fried fish
loving inhabitants of this city of nay Moor had to
find something else to fry when when the local river froze.
So but the word French refers to the method of cooking,
not its origins. Frenching is a way of cutting ingredients
evenly for even cooking. And so interestingly, the French weren't
(22:03):
the first to fry the potato. The Spaniards were, and
they didn't cut it in long strips. They cut it
like in circles, like you have it in. So it
was technically the Spaniards who fried potatoes first, but it
was the French who made the fry shape first.
Speaker 2 (22:23):
Oh interesting, I did not know that I met the
French hate that the Spanish did.
Speaker 1 (22:28):
At first. The Spanish fried potatoes for they were the
first to fry potatoes apparently apparent allegedly.
Speaker 2 (22:35):
Allegedly do you like French fries? Love?
Speaker 1 (22:39):
I love French fries, honestly, French fries, Yeah, it's up there.
I don't obviously don't eat them a lot, and I'm
very picky about them. I really, honestly, anywhere in France
at a rest if you are at a restaurant, order
in French fries, steak, frites or whatever comes with your meal.
They're usually amazing, like they really, they really do it
the best.
Speaker 2 (23:00):
They too, Yeah, steak freaks. That's one of my favorite things.
Speaker 1 (23:04):
Oh my gosh.
Speaker 2 (23:05):
Yeah, potatoes. They're so versatile.
Speaker 1 (23:08):
It's so versatile. I love it in soups. I love
it in my chicken noodle soup. I have to have
potato in my vegetable soup, in my minnestroni soup, in
my chicken noodle soup, I have to have a potato.
It makes it so hearty and it just adopts whatever
broth you put into it. Well, it was really fun
(23:33):
exploring outside of Mexico for a minute, going down to Peru,
don't you think absolutely?
Speaker 2 (23:38):
I was excited about this.
Speaker 1 (23:39):
Yeah, you know why because.
Speaker 2 (23:40):
But of course we're talking about our Pietti Jos and
our that Goles.
Speaker 1 (23:43):
I mean, yeah, we always have to bring it back
to meso America. But I am fascinated by Peruvian food.
I would love to do a Savica episode, a quinoa
you know, all what is that? It's not hominy.
Speaker 2 (23:58):
But oh the chocolate, yes, the big the really big corn.
Oh my gosh, keenwa, oh my god. There's just so
much import that.
Speaker 1 (24:05):
I am such a fan.
Speaker 2 (24:08):
Yeah, hello, you know there's a whole there's a whole
episode right there. That's like we just usually mentioned like four.
Speaker 1 (24:14):
Different exos exactly so much.
Speaker 2 (24:18):
There's so much, but I'm glad we ventured a little
further south this time. It's fascinating.
Speaker 1 (24:23):
Yeah, endlessly fascinating, endlessly fascinating, And there's endless recipes with potatoes.
Thank you so much for listening to our potato episode.
Don't forget to subscribe, comment, rate us all of it.
Speaker 2 (24:37):
Thank you.
Speaker 1 (24:40):
Hungry for History is an unbelievable entertainment production in partnership
with Iheart's my podcast network.
Speaker 2 (24:47):
For more of your favorite shows, visit the iHeartRadio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts
Speaker 1 (25:00):
En
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