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How the potato found its way from the South American highlands into those little sacks of McDonald’s fries is a long， adventurous tale. Millionaires have been made and millions more have died from dependence on that simple， innocent potato. Here， then， is the story of the spud1.
First Discovered by the Incas
The potato seems to us today to be such a staple food2 that it is hard to believe that it has only been accepted as edible by most of the Western world for the past 200 years. Our story begins thousands of years ago， in South America—Peru， Ecuador， and the Northern part of Chile， to be exact——where the Andean Incas first discovered potatoes growing wild in the highlands， and were cultivating them as early as 750 BC. While taking potatoes as their staple source of food， the Incas also used potatoes for telling time， treating illness and injury， and divination3. Their most popular potato dish involved laying them out in the sun for a period of weeks， then trampling4 on them with their bare feet to get all of the liquids out. Yummy.
No Longer an Incan Secret
Potatoes were a well-kept Incan secret for thousands of years， as were the Incas themselves， until， in the early decades of the 16th century， the Spanish conquered the Incan empire and brought some of the strange little tubers5 back to Spain with them. The Spaniards， however， were not too keen on6 consuming what they called an “edible stone”. Nevertheless， the invading soldiers in South America used the vegetable as emergency provisions7， and it was there that the English were introduced to the charming spud. In 1596， Englishman Sir Francis Drake， setting sail for England after having successfully battled the Spanish in the Caribbean， grabbed up some potatoes for the trip， and made a stopover in Virginia to pick up some homesick British colonialists. One of these passengers took a sample of this intriguing8 plant to his horticulturist9 friend， John Gerard. Gerard mistakenly believed the potatoes to have come from Virginia， and， described them to the world in his 1597 The Herbal as Virginia potatoes.
Misunderstood by the English
In fact， nobody but the Irish were willing to actually eat this hearty10little vegetable. Sir Walter Raleigh was cultivating potatoes on the Emerald Isles11 as early as 1576， but when he presented them to Queen Elizabeth， it was a disaster： the cook served the greens to the Queen and threw away the tubers. She was not pleased， and rejected the disgusting meal. Although this was bad news for the struggling staple， it was not the only negative publicity12 it was to receive in Europe. The Scots found no mention of the potato in the Bible and deemed13 the vegetable unholy； horticulturists discovered it to be in the same family as such plants as belladonna14 and feared that it was poisonous； the innocent potato was even thought to be a cause of leprosy15 when it was found that a substance in the tuber （solanine16） could result in a skin-rash17. The Irish， however， could not afford to be so cautious. They were suffering from inadequate18 food supplies， and the tuber grew fabulously19 in their climate. In 1733， the English seedsman Stephen Switzer summed up20 popular opinion of the potato as "that which was heretofore reckoned a food fit only for Irishmen and clowns21.