PARIS (AFP) — Originally from the Andes where archeologists trace it 8,000 years back, the potato launched its conquest of the world after the colonisation of America, winning pride of place in kitchens across the globe and helping to fight famine in Europe.
First cultivated in the Andean mountains in 4,000 BC, the starchy plant tuber was a food staple across the Inca empire, with its own god and special ceremonies, though the "papa" never quite won the celebrity status of corn.
Like other native South American plants such as cocoa and the tomato, the potato came to transform European cuisine after an initially chilly reception.
"No other plant had to travel so far and so long before winning the popularity it has today," said Peruvian historian Sara Beatriz Guardia, author of a history of the potato titled "The Violet Flower of the Andes" (La flor morada de los Andes).
The "papa" began its journey as a botanical curiosity from the New World, brought to Spain by explorers after the discovery of America. From Spain it took root in then Spanish-ruled parts of Italy and Belgium. It is said potatoes were even a present to the pope from Spanish king Felipe II.
By the middle of the 16th century the spud had become common across Europe -- as feed in pig-sties.
It was said to have all sorts of qualities: some reckoned it caused disease, others such as English botanist William Salmon claimed it was an aphrodisiac. Some even opined that the plant, which produces tubers on underground runners, in fact was a truffle.
Botanist Charles de l'Ecluse began to study the potato in earnest, and in 1596 Pierre Bahuin of Switzerland listed it in his book "Phystioinax" under the Latin name Solanum tuberosum, still its scientific title.
Little by little it came to be seen as a remedy for famine, notably in the first half of the 17th century in the wake of catastrophic harvests caused by the Thirty Years' War.
Then in the 18th century, French pharmacist Antoine Augustin Parmentier (1737-1813) began to promote the potato as a source of nourishment for humans. He would host dinners where potato dishes featured prominently for VIPs and offer bouquets of potato blossoms to people with clout.
He even surrounded his potato patch with armed guards to suggest valuable goods were at stake.
Exported to European colonies in Asia in the 17th and 18th centuries, and to Africa during the 19th century, the potato took root globally, becoming a staple for the new European working class in the 19th century.
Its march to conquer farming land worldwide hit a snag in the 1840s when potato blight -- a disease causing dry brown rot in the tubers -- spread across Europe. Blight devastated Ireland in particular where the Great Irish Famine left around a million dead between 1846 to 1849, causing a huge exodus and impacting on the country's history for decades.
As the potato conquered kitchens, each country developed its own recipes.
After the French Revolution, it was declared "republican food". And in 1794 the first recipe book written by a woman, Madame Merigot's "La cuisiniere republicaine" (The Republican Cook), was dedicated exclusively to the potato.
In his classical late 19th-century cookbook, French novelist Alexandre Dumas (of "The Three Musketeers" and "The Count of Monte Cristo" fame) included 15 potato recipes.
"Papas" remain popular in South American cuisine today and in Europe are the stars of a series of iconic national dishes -- Italy's gnocchis, Spain's tortillas or France's "hachis parmentier" (Shepherd's Pie).
As for fried potato chips, it is believed they were first eaten as far back as the late 17th century. While the US name "French fries" implies they were invented by the French, Belgium lays a similar claim and historian Guardia says that perhaps Thomas Jefferson himself, who was in Paris as ambassador in the 1780s, brought the recipe back to the US.
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