Potatoes: The Glorious Tuber
If you ask a gourmand which is the most important tuber
of all, the reply may be, "Truffles?" They are good,
no getting around it. However, if they were to vanish tomorrow there would be
(considerable) regret, but it wouldn't be a calamity. Think, on the other hand,
about the potato. Few vegetables are quite as versatile or adaptable as the
"lowly" spud, which does well everywhere from the fertile lowlands through the
high mountains where little else will grow. What's more, potatoes are
nutritious; as one might expect, they're an excellent source of carbohydrates,
but they also have high-quality proteins that contain all the essential amino
acids, as well as vitamins C and B1, thiamin, and potassium. Moreover, an
unseasoned potato has about the same amount of calories as a similarly sized
apple, and when they're served plain they're helpful in controlling obesity
because they're filling.
It's no wonder then that potatoes are among the most popular vegetables going. They haven't always been, however. Though the Incas cultivated them on terraced mountain slopes and presumably used them as food, when the Spaniards introduced them to Europe in the 1530s they were regarded primarily as botanical curiosities. For that matter, many Europeans thought that they were North American, from Virginia, because English who had raided in South America planted potatoes in Virginia and subsequently introduced them to England.
It wasn't until the famines of the early 1600s that agrarian reformers began to suggest that they might help feed the masses, but these suggestions were initially ignored. Some say because the ignorant peasants thought things that grew in the ground were tainted by the devil, but the primary reason for the limited success of the potato is that people attempted to use it as a grain surrogate in baking bread. It wasn't until Parmentier, a French noble imprisoned by the Austrians, and a number of Italians including Occhialini and Corrado, began to devise recipes especially for the potato that its popularity exploded. And since then there has been no turning back.
Potatoes come in many varieties. For gnocchi, mashed potatoes (which are very common in Italy), fries (another very common fixture of the Italian table, despite they're being called French Fries in English), and dishes in which the potatoes are riced and then used as an ingredient you'll need mealy potatoes, which are high in starch and are also known as bakers; if you are instead planning on boiling them, putting them in a stew, or using them in salads and such, you will want waxy potatoes with a low starch content, which are also known as boilers.
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