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Potato

Potato
Scientific classification
Kingdom: Plantae Division: Tracheobionta Class: Magnoliopsida Subclass: Asteridae Order: Solanales Family: Solanaceae Genus: Solanum Species: tuberosum
Binomial nomenclature
Solanum tuberosum L.

The potato (Solanum tuberosum) is a perennial tuber of the Solanaceae, or nightshade, family, which is one of the most widely used vegetables in Europe and North and South America. There are thousands of varieties of potato in cultivation.

The potato is unrelated to the sweet potato. In the United States it is sometimes referred to as the "Irish Potato" to distinguish it.

Table of contents

1 History 2 Varieties 3 Food value 4 Toxic compounds in potatoes 5 Cultivation 5.1 Ground Preparation 5.2 Seed Quantity 5.3 Raising Methods 5.4 Storing 5.5 Ireland Cultivation 5.6 General Observation 6 Recipes 7 References

History

In the 16th century, the Spaniards introduced it to the rest of the world. The name "Potato" came from the Spanish word "patata" (the original quechua word was "papa"). Many other European languages took forms of this Spanish name. In the Americas, the word "papa" is more common in the Spanish language than "patata".

It has long been popularly taught that Sir Walter Raleigh was responsible for bringing the potato to England, but Sir Francis Drake is more likely to be responsible. In 1586, after battling the Spaniards in the Caribbean, Drake stopped at Cartagena in Colombia to collect provisions - including tobacco and potato tubers. Before returning to England he stopped at Roanoke Island, where the first English settlers had been attempting to set up a colony. The pioneers returned to England with Drake, along with the potatoes.

By 1650 potatoes were the staple food of Ireland, and they began to replace wheat as the major crop elsewhere in Europe, being used to feed both people and animals. The first mention of potatoes appearing in North America comes from Irish settlers in Londonderry, New Hampshire during 1719.

Augustin Parmentier is said to have popularised it in France in the 18th century, after his captivity in Prussia.

The potato was such an important food to the Irish that it is permanently associated with them today in the popular imagination, due to a single devastating event—the Irish potato famine. In the 1840s there was a major outbreak of potato blight, which swept through Europe, wiping out the potato crop in many countries. The Irish economy was so dependent on a single variety of potatoes as a staple at this time that the event led to terrible disease, death, famine, and subsequently emigration by many of the survivors to areas where there was more food. The blight marks an important, though tragic, point in Irish history.

Other theories that accept the possibility of pre-Columbian trans-oceanic contacts, attribute an earlier date of the very limited existence of potato in the Old World and Asia.

Varieties

Potatoes come in brown, yellow, pink, red, and purple (sometimes called "blue"). Their flesh may be white or colored like the skin. Small types are called "fingerling" or "new" potatoes, larger potatoes are often distinguished as "earlies" or "main crop", with the "main crop" being varietes that will store well. Individual varieties may be labeled "boiling", indicating that they retain some shape when boiled, "baking", indicating that they only hold their shape if baked, "roasting", indicating that they are flavoursome when roasted, "salad" to indicate that they are suitable for salad use (often firm and waxy fleshed when boiled), or "mashing" to indicate that when mashed they form a smooth consistency neither fibrous nor grainy.

Some common North American varieties are:

• Burbank Russet - large, brown skin, white-fleshed, developed by Luther Burbank
• Yellow Finn - small, with yellow skin and flesh
• Red Gold - red skin, yellow flesh
• German Butterball - a yellow fingerling
• Yukon Gold - yellow skin and flesh

Some common British varieties are:

• Maris Piper - a good general purpose white main crop potato, not suitable for salads though
• King Edward - the best roasting potato, often served with the Sunday roast, white main crop
• Desiree - a red skinned main crop potato, a favourite with allotment holders because of disease resistance
• Jersey Royal - a salad new potato, grown on the island of Jersey and in Spain
• Pink Fir - a pink salad new potato which grows in irregular shapes
• Golden Wonder - famous Scottish frying potato used to make crisps

Purple Peruvian potatoes

Food value

A benefit of new and fingerling potatoes is that they contain less toxic chemicals. Such potatoes are an excellent source of nutrition. Peeled, long-stored potatoes fried by fast-food establishments have less nutritional value although they still have potassium and vitamin C.

Potatoes can be prepared for eating in numerous ways, either with their skin on or peeled, whole or cut into pieces, and with seasonings or without. All that is required is that they be cooked to break down the starch and make them edible. Potatoes are generally eaten hot, but several basic potato recipes involve cooking the potatoes and then eating them cold - potato salad and potato chips. One of the commonest presentation methods is 'mashed potatoes'. These are peeled, boiled, then mashed and mixed with butter, cream, or other seasonings before serving. Potatoes can also be baked whole; cut into cubes and roasted; grated and formed into dumplings or potato pancakes; and cut into long, thin pieces and fried or baked (Chips, called "French fries" in the US).

Potatoes also provide starch, flour, alcohol (when fermented), dextrin, and livestock fodder.

Toxic compounds in potatoes

Breeders try to keep solanine levels below 0.2 mg/g (200 ppm). However, when even these commercial varieties turn green, they can approach concentrations of solanine of 1 mg/g (1000 ppm). Some studies suggest that 200 mg of solanine can be a dangerous dose. This dose would require eating 1 average-sized spoiled potato or 4-9 good potatoes (over 3 pounds) at one time. The National Toxicolgy Program suggest that the average American consumes 12.5 mg/person/day of solanine from potatoes. Dr. Douglas L. Holt, the State Extension Specialist for Food Safety at the University of Missouri - Columbia, notes that no cases of potato-source solanine poisoning have been reported in the U.S. in the last 50 years and most cases involved eating green potatoes or drinking potato leaf tea.

Cultivation

Potato plants are low-growing and have white flowers with yellow stamens. They grow best in cool, moist climates such as Maine, Idaho, New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island, Germany, Russia, and Poland, though they are widely adaptable and are grown on a small scale in most temperate regions.

The tubers are covered with buds called "eyes". Common varieties of potatoes do not produce seeds; the flowers are sterile. Instead, they are propagated by planting pieces of existing tubers, cut to include at least one eye. Confusingly, these pieces are called "seed potatoes".

The 1881 Household Cyclopedia adds:

Ground Preparation

Seed Quantity

Raising Methods

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The earth should be dug twelve inches deep, if the soil will allow it; after this, a hole should be opened about six inches (150 mm) deep, and horse-dung or long litter should be put therein, about three inches (75 mm) thick; this hole should not be more than twelve inches (300 mm) in diameter. Upon this dung or litter a potato should be planted whole, upon which a little more dung should be shaken, and then the earth should be put thereon. In like manner the whole plot of ground must be planted, taking care that the potatoes be at least sixteen inches apart. When the young shoots make their appearance they should have fresh mould drawn around them with a hoe; and if the tender shoots are covered, it will prevent the frost from injuring them; they should again be earthed when the shoots make a second appearance, but not covered, as in all probability the season will be less severe.

A plentiful supply of mould should be given them, and the person who performs this business should never tread upon the plant, or the hillock that is raised round it, as the lighter the earth is the more room the potato will have to expand.

A gentleman obtained from a single root, thus planted, very nearly forty pounds weight of large potatoes, and from almost every other root upon the same plot of ground from fifteen to twenty pounds weight; and, except the soil be stony or gravelly, ten pounds or half a peck of potatoes may generally be obtained from each root by pursuing the foregoing method.

But note: cuttings or small sets will not do for this purpose.

Storing

Ireland Cultivation

General Observation

Recipes

• Potato and cabbage soup
• Potato salad
• Potatoes on the Half-Shell
• Bengal Potatoes
• Roast Potatoes
• Baked potato