Best, Fast, Easy- Potatoes

“A European peasant food eaten for millenia…wait, what?  Not European?  Not millenia?  You’re joshin’ me? You’re serious?”

I am serious.  Potatoes are another Columbian Exchange food.  They didn’t exist outside of the Americas, most predominantly in the Andes, before 500ish years ago. 

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Europeans were skeptical of the potato.  It is a nightshade, a family of plants that are often poisonous.  They were thought to cause gas and leprosy.  They were ugly.  But they are calorie dense, nutritious and grow anywhere.  One thing to know about people, is that they don’t like to starve.  And, coincidently, people tended to starve in Europe.  So, after being force fed to Prussians during a famine and a bit of a PR coup by the French nobility, Europeans were eating potatoes.  Potatoes, in turn, fueled Europe’s rise to prominence.  Potatoes put a stop to the consistent famines that were endemic throughout Europe.   Potatoes led to a population boom.