The potato: humanity’s trusty friend

Potatoes have a fame of sturdiness, of being a reliable ingredient to take you through hard times. Why, then, can’t they seem to live one week in our pantry before starting to sprout? Let’s take this question and get to know potatoes a little closer.

This trusty vegetable is a tuber, which means that it does not grow as a plant’s fruit, but as its root. It was domesticated more than 4000 years ago in the Andean region, where its easy propagation and nutritional qualities became the backbone of many civilizations, not least of them, Incans.

Even today, the Andean region sustains more than 4000 potato species. Scientists have identified that an average family farm in central Peru can have an average of 10.6 landraces —traditional varieties—which is more than we ever get to know in a U.S. supermarket.  

Saving the poor worldwide

Known by scientists as Solanum tuberosum, potoatoes are a nutrient-dense starchy vegetable that provide energy mainly from carbohydrates along with valuable vitamins, minerals, and dietary fiber. Overall, their nutrient profile makes them a versatile and affordable source of key dietary components when prepared without excessive fat or salt.

They can grow at any altitude up to 15000 feet above sea level. Growing underground, they can withstand harsh conditions, and propagate easily from existing tubers, known also as seed potatoes. Their arrival in Europe was met with mixed reactions, just as it happened with the tomato and with pumpkins: some imagined it to be an aphrodisiac, but many more warned about every imaginable threat to the health.

In times when most of the rural population was constantly in the brink of starvation, potatoes started being grown as a safeguard. It was below ground, well hidden and less coveted than grain in case of plundering or military requisitioning. When accounted for planted acreage, potatoes could yield two to four times more than grain, and suddenly Europe had double the food supply. This facilitated the apparition of a newly industrialized society in Europe. With enough supplies to feed workers, Europe was free to become rich and dominate the world.

The reason while it didn't completely substitute grain was that grain was more lasting in storage, and thus lent itself more to tax collection and accumulation by the powerful. For the European poor, however, it became the main source of energy in the course of the nineteenth century, and now the cuisine of Belgium, Germany, Poland, and many other countries, is inextricably linked to it.

Long-lasting potatoes

So, it turns out that potatoes did change the ability of the poor everywhere to survive, but it was not due to them being lasting. However, it was only due to the easiness of planting and the fact that potatoes can linger underground and be dug out further down the season.

For actual preservation, one can rely on more elaborate methods. On the one hand, there is the traditional Andean process for making chuño, which made the best of the freezing nights in the Andes to invent freeze drying thousands of years before it became a normal industrial process.

Making chuño is a piece of artisanal mastery. After harvesting, families climb the mountains and lay out the potatoes to freeze during the night. The next morning, the sun will melt the water content inside them and the farmers then stomp on them to squeeze that moisture. The freeze-thaw cycle repeats over a few days, and at the end the farmers have a light, dry potato –some food writers say akin to a piece of styrofoam.

This is the black chuño, which can be further treated to become white. It is a foodstuff that can withstand even 20 years of storage without losing nutritional value. as such, it was a key element to the development of the Inca culture, and later powered the extractivism that made Spain rich.

To eat, chuño is added to stews and absorbs the flavor of the sauce. it can also be ground into a flour. You can see the whole process portrayed by the lens of Bolivian content creator Albertina Sacaca.

On a more modern note, you can keep your potatoes in a root cellar for about six months in cool and humid conditions as long as they are properly cured. Curing is the process of developing a thicker skin than that on a "new" potato. It involves having them convered in a dark, cool spot for 1 to 2 weeks, depending on the variety.

If, as is more likely these days, you don't have a root cellar at home, then our advice is to buy fewer potatoes, and make sure you'll eat them at their prime. Store them in the darkest, coolest place you can: light will make them produce chlorophyll and solanine (the latter is toxic and can make you sick), while keeping them in the fridge will help them keep longer, but can make them darken when cooked.

The next time you eat a potato, make sure to remember how many lives they saved, and how a humble vegetable from the Andes came to change the course of humanity.