Potatoes

Even with the plethora of gorgeous vegetables in all colors, shapes and sizes, Rick and I tend to fall back on meat and potatoes or fast food rather than California cuisine.  By fast, I mean I call in an order at Mary’s Pizza Shack (who delivers) or our favorite Chinese restaurant (to which I must drive and pick up).  I can cook, but usually wait for inspiration to hit me.  As with writing, cooking involves 10% inspiration, 90% perspiration. Rick waits for me to get inspired.  When in desperation, bake potatoes.

Potatoes deserve respect.  God created and planted an original potato wild in the Andes Mountains where enterprising Incas domesticated and developed varieties in numerous colors, sizes, and textures, each able to grow in a different, often difficult environment.  Think high altitude and rocky soil!  Some potatoes were bitter, some sweet, some starchy, some buttery. 

An unknown Spaniard tossed a bag of potatoes in the hull of his ship and crossed the Atlantic.  The English were unimpressed with this relative of the nightshade plant.  It might be poisonous. Rumors spread that it would cause leprosy and immorality. Ignoring the rumors, the Irish planted the potato and thrived on it.  We now know God packed potatoes with protein, vitamins B and C. 

When grain crops failed, monarchs took another look at the lowly potato.  Germany’s King Fredrick the Great forced his peasants to plant them, and Catherine the Great of Russia ordered her people to plant the spud, too.  Wiley King Louis XVI planted them in the Versailles garden and put guards around them, convincing his subjects that if the king had posted guards, these tubers must be worth their weight in gold!  Burglars snuck in by night to steal them and soon the masses were growing and eating them throughout the country.

Then along came an airborne fungus, phytophthorn infestans (probably in the belly of another ship) and made the potatoes turn black and slimy.  Famine spread, and the Irish were hardest hit because the potato was their main source of food.  Within three years, Ireland was decimated, over a million dead and thousands blind or insane because of the lack of vitamins necessary for mental health.  Within ten years, half of Ireland’s population was gone; most died, many emigrated to America.  There are now more Irish descendants in America than Irishmen in Ireland.

How was the fungus problem solved?  Scientists went back to the Andes Mountains of South America;  they went back to the source:  God’s original design, a disease-resistant tuber packed with nutrients to keep body and mind healthy that could grow almost anywhere and can feed the multitudes.