A Ridiculous History of Potatoes, Part One: the Origin Story

Summary

Ridiculous History: A Ridiculous History of Potatoes, Part One – The Origin Story

Podcast: Ridiculous History (iHeartPodcasts)
Episode Date: April 30, 2026
Hosts: Ben Bowlin & Noel Brown
Summary by: Podcast Summarizer GPT

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Episode Overview

This episode marks the first in a two-part series exploring the surprisingly rich and complex history of potatoes. Hosts Ben Bowlin and Noel Brown dive into the potato’s journey from a humble Andean tuber to a global food staple, dispelling common myths, uncovering its vital role in world history, and celebrating the oddities, ingenuity, and drama that pepper the story of this “noble” crop.

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Main Themes & Key Discussion Points

1. The Importance and Ubiquity of the Potato

• Potatoes are one of the world’s most important crops, both nutritionally and historically ([03:02]).
• The hosts emphasize how nearly everyone—regardless of geography—recognizes and consumes potatoes in some form (fries, mash, etc.) ([01:36], [06:18]).

Quote:
"Everywhere you go in this wide world of ours, people will know what a potato is. It is as famous and as ubiquitous as perhaps Michael Jackson was in the 1980s." — Ben Bowlin ([06:18])

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2. Potato Origins: Not Irish!

• Myth-busting: Potatoes did NOT originate in Ireland, but in the Andes mountains of South America, mainly Peru and Bolivia ([08:54]).
• Early Andean civilizations cultivated potatoes about 8,000 years ago, developing thousands of varietals suited to different climates and soils ([08:54]).

Quote:
"Potatoes are not from Ireland. Sorry, everybody. They're from way further back and way farther away." — Ben Bowlin ([08:46])

• Ancient Andeans measured time using potatoes—by how long it took to cook or grow them ([09:31]).

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3. Potato Science & Botany

• The potato is Solanum tuberosum, technically a tuber (not a root vegetable, but within the root vegetable category of “geophytes”) ([03:02], [11:15]).
• Tuber propagation: Potatoes reproduce by vegetative propagation, meaning new plants grow from potato “eyes”—making all potatoes genetic clones ([13:50]).

Quote:
"All tubers fall under that umbrella term of root vegetables. However, not all root vegetables are tubers." — Noel Brown ([12:47])

• The monoculture problem: While resilient, potatoes’ genetic uniformity makes them susceptible to widespread disease (the theme of monoculture leading to disaster, later relevant for the Irish Potato Famine, to be covered in Part Two) ([13:50]).

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4. The Role of Potatoes in Ancient Andean Culture

• Potatoes were extremely central to Andean cultures (nutrition, timekeeping, social ritual) ([08:54], [09:56]).
• Early South American societies practiced freeze-drying potatoes (chunyo), essentially inventing “potato astronaut food” centuries before supermarkets ([19:38], [25:04]).

Quote:
"They created a potato product called chunyo, which was one of their main food items... It involved a process wherein raw potatoes would be frozen and then thawed outdoors over and over again before squeezing the remaining moisture out" — Noel Brown ([19:38])

• Archaeological evidence shows potato cultivation as far back as 4000 BCE, even featuring in early art and pottery ([17:14]).

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5. Travel to Europe: The Columbian Exchange

• Spanish conquistadors invaded the Inca Empire in 1532, bringing potatoes back to Europe during the “Columbian Exchange” ([28:16]).
• At first, European society was deeply suspicious of potatoes due to their resemblance to nightshades (associated with poison and witchcraft) and their ugly appearance ([29:38], [30:32], [38:31]).

Quote:
"At first, Europe overall was pretty skeptical, partially because they were super xenophobic... Not just tomatoes but also eggplant, peppers, and potatoes are botanically related to nightshade." — Ben Bowlin ([29:38])

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6. Adaptation in Europe and Rise to Popularity

• Potatoes initially struggled in most European climates but thrived in Ireland, becoming central to the Irish diet due to the favorable cool, frost-free autumn ([31:46]).

• Farmers rapidly began selectively breeding potatoes for earlier harvest and better adaptation ([31:46]).

• Potatoes offered high yield, caloric density, and resilience, helping solve historic problems around feeding large populations ([34:42]).

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7. The French Potato Revolution & Antoine-Augustin Parmentier

• Potatoes’ breakthrough in France is credited to Antoine-Augustin Parmentier, a pharmacist and PR genius ([40:31]).
• Parmentier ran “marketing stunts” to normalize and glamorize potatoes—stationing guards around his potato fields to make them seem valuable, and “allowing” locals to “steal” potatoes ([42:24]).
• He inspired elite acceptance: Influence reached the royal court, where potato flowers became fashionable. Marie Antoinette wore them; it became the "foodstuff of the French Revolution" ([44:47]).

Quote:
"He hires guards to stand watch over his potato field in the hopes that people would notice... What's so special about these potatoes?" — Noel Brown ([42:24])

• Parmentier also hosted extravagant potato feasts, attended by Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson; Jefferson later introduced “French fries” (pommes frites) to the United States ([46:56], [48:00]).

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8. Potatoes and French Cuisine

• Potatoes became embedded in French cuisine, transforming from a food for the desperate to a culinary staple ([46:47], [47:42]).
• The hosts share a culinary tour describing classic dishes:
  • Potage Parmentier: Potato-leek soup ([48:53])
  • Pommes Parmentier: Diced, roasted, or fried potatoes ([48:53])
  • Pommes de Terre Farcie: Stuffed potatoes with bacon, onions, herbs ([49:37])
  • Dauphinois Potatoes: Thinly sliced, layered potatoes baked with cream and cheese ([50:31])
  • Fondant Potatoes: Browned and simmered in stock ([51:58])

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• Potato’s prominence:
  "The potato, I would argue, is one of the most recognizable foodstuffs across the planet. It's up there with rice ... with bread." — Ben Bowlin ([07:47])

• On ancient freeze-dried potatoes:
  "They created a potato product called chunyo ... the astronaut ice cream of potato." — Noel Brown ([19:39])

• Re: Potato PR in France:
  “He hires guards to stand watch ... nothing better than a guard or a fence to make people curious about what's going on on the other side.” — Noel Brown ([42:24])

• On potatoes as survival food:
  “Part of why I am here now, recording this podcast... is due to the fact that during the Great Depression, some of my family members survived entirely because they were able to dig up old potatoes from the frozen ground.” — Ben Bowlin ([15:55])

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Timeline of Important Segments

| Timestamp | Topic/Content | |------------|---------------------------------------------------| | 00:00-02:30| Show introduction, co-host banter, potato love | | 03:00 | Potato’s scientific classification and global impact| | 08:46 | Potato origins in the Andes; ancient cultivation | | 11:15 | Tubers vs. root vegetables; potato botany | | 13:50 | Monoculture, vegetative propagation, “eyes” | | 17:14 | Archaeological evidence in art/pottery | | 19:38 | Andean freeze-drying technology (chunyo) | | 25:46 | Nutritional info (potassium, vitamins, fiber) | | 28:16 | Spanish conquest, Columbian Exchange, to Europe | | 29:38 | European skepticism: nightshade family, xenophobia| | 31:46 | Potatoes take root in Ireland—adaption & selection| | 34:42 | Population booms, potatoes in Russia, Africa, Asia| | 40:31 | France: Parmentier and the PR rise of the potato | | 42:24 | Potato “marketing stunts” in France | | 44:47 | Potato at French royal court, cultural adoption | | 46:56 | Parmentier’s dinners, influence on Franklin/Jefferson| | 48:53 | Overview of classic French potato dishes | | 51:58 | Fondant potatoes and closing reflections | | 52:49-54:11| Teaser for Part Two (“more sociological aspects”) |

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Engaging and Fun Moments

• Playful banter about “potato clocks” and pop culture ("You're two potatoes late"—classic Ridiculous History tone) ([10:10]).
• References to pop culture, e.g., the Nazca lines, SNL sketches, and lovable chef Marco Pierre White ([13:43], [17:14], [36:16]).
• Frequent celebration of potato’s adaptability and cultural importance—even invoking "palate cleanser" jokes after cursing in prior episodes ([04:06]).

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Looking Ahead

Part Two will explore:

• The Irish Potato Famine
• The potato’s further entrenchment in modern world history and cuisine
• How the challenge of feeding civilizations continues to be solved (and not solved), even today

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With abundant wit, fascinating facts, and trademark tangents, this episode unearths the roots—literal and cultural—of the potato’s incredible journey.

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For more, listen to the next installment of Ridiculous History’s potato saga!

Transcript

[Ben Bolan]

Ridiculous History is a production of iHeartradio. Welcome back to the show, fellow ridiculous historians. Thank you as always, so much for tuning in. Let's hear it for the man, the myth, the legend, the guy I almost called super producer Max Taters Williams. Sorry, there's a guy from Daily Zeitgeist who goes by Taters o'.

[Noel Brown]

Brien.

[Unidentified Guest]

I don't know if you guys know this, but potatoes, I can have them with the condition.

[Ben Bolan]

The condition.

[Unidentified Guest]

One of the seven foods.

[Noel Brown]

One of the seven. Oh, my gosh, there's more than seven that it's one of.

[Ben Bolan]

There's a pantheon. We are joined by none other than not only my favorite co host, but also our research associate for today's episode, which will be part of a series, Mr. Noel Brown.

[Noel Brown]

Yeah, it's me. And Apollo the dog who lent a paw in this potato deep dive, which went a lot deeper than I thought it would. You're Ben, by the way.

[Ben Bolan]

Hi, Ben bolan. We've got Mr. Jackpots over here who has quieted down because jackpots can't wait to explore. Noel, what you and I agreed will be part of a continuum.

[Noel Brown]

Well, a series of two, likely, but, you know, who knows? I was kind of surprised at how deep the. What do you got? The potato hole went all the way down to the core of the earth. Potatoes run deep in this one and they're delicious, too. And, you know, sometimes humble. They're often referred to as a humble potato, which I think is selling them a little short, frankly. I guess maybe it comes from the fact that they're not exactly the prettiest things to look at, which entered into some of the suspicion that surrounded the early days of potatoes in the Western world. But you know, whether you've enjoyed a delicious French fry with ketchup or mayonnaise if you're wild and. Or from Europe, or maybe a little bit of mash with your bangers, probably you've had a potato cross your table and your palate and ultimately make its way into your heart.

[Ben Bolan]

Yeah, you know, this is fascinating, Noel. This is a great complement to our continuing series on sauces and condiments. There are so many varieties of tubers. There are so many different members of the pantheon of what we call the potato. But as you point out in your research, the potato is one of the world's most important crops. It is scientifically known as so Solanum tubersum.

[Noel Brown]

Yes, Solanum tuberosum. That is right. The potato is in fact one of the. To your point, Ben, world's most important crops with a fascinating history that isn't just the history of one humble. It's not a vegetable, one humble tuber, but also the history of cultivation of agriculture in many ways that stretches from the hilltops of the Andes all the way to the fictional world of J.R.R. tolkien's the Shire, where they like to boil a mash them, or perhaps stick them in a stew.

[Ben Bolan]

Yeah, you know, it's. It's something that can be called ridiculous. You might be asking us, guys, why are you dedicating so much time to the potato? Well, first off, it's because we love it. Secondly, we needed a palate cleanser after our third thoroughly curse word ridden exploration of one of our favorite words.

[Noel Brown]

Yeah, we had to write our names on the blackboard a bunch of times because we were bad boys. All the teachers out there in the audience wrote to us individually and said that we had to do that to make amends for that swear laden episode. But I think it was worth it, Ben. I think it was worth it because it was educational. This is an I heart podcast. Guaranteed human. Ben, I think you know that our bags aren't quite packed yet, but our brains sure are because we've got this incredible trip planned to Baja Mar in Nassau.

[Ben Bolan]

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[Noel Brown]

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[Ben Bolan]

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[Noel Brown]

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[Ben Bolan]

Hey, and speaking of educational, Noel, this one I'm very excited about, and I can't thank you enough. Because what's funny about the potato is that everywhere you go in this wide world of ours, people will know what a potato is. It is as famous and as ubiquitous as perhaps Michael Jackson was in the 1980s.

[Noel Brown]

Yeah, and Michael Jackson's back, baby, in the form of a biopic from Antoine Fuqua called Michael in a Burst of Creativity. Dude, I know this is. We're gonna get to the potatoes in a second, but I. I think it's fascinating when a movie's critic score and audience score are so wildly out of whack. And that is very much the case for Michael. 38%, 38, 34, something like that. To 97 audiences and even some real snarky YouTubers that I like who do movie reviews, love it and find it to be a delight and a bit of a romp.

[Ben Bolan]

I don't love a sanitized or authorized biography.

[Noel Brown]

I don't love a biography, period. Especially about musicians. Most of this stuff. Not to be like, I'm the nerdy, nerdiest Michael Jackson aficionado on the planet, but a lot of this stuff is kind of obvious. And the fact that they're not digging into the nuance of some of the accusations and some of the. More to your point, Ben, unsanitary aspects of the story does give me pause. But I did think I would mention that out of whack, critic to audience score.

[Ben Bolan]

Isn't it crazy? Because the previous biopic, and we promise we'll move on, had the exact reverse. It was lauded by critics. It was a critic starling. But the fans did not care for it. The people did not care for it. The previous Michael Jackson exploration thing that went to film. Yeah, I gotta send this to you off air. It's a study in the division between the public and the holders of critical power. But the reason I'm bringing up this popularity here, Noel, is because the potato, I would argue, is one of the most recognizable foodstuffs across the planet. It's up there with rice. You know what I mean? It's up there with bread. But a lot of people are not aware of its strange origin story. It is so much older. We want to bust a myth right at the top. Potatoes are not from Ireland. Sorry, everybody. They're from way further back and way farther away.

[Noel Brown]

You're right, Ben. They do come from much farther afield than one might think. And they are a whole heck of a lot older than one might think. 8,000 years old by some estimations. But their place in Western cuisine is a good bit newer than folks might have thought. So it's kind of a interesting mixed bag. Potatoes were first cultivated, as we were saying, by some estimations close to 8,000 years ago by the Inca Indians in the Andes mountain region of Peru, southern Peru and northwestern Bolivia. They, to your point, Ben, developed thousands of different varietals of potato suited to the region's different climates, altitudes, and various soils. Various types of soils. Not only were they an important food to the Andean people, but the crop was incredibly central to their culture. For example, some of the ancient civilizations in this region actually measured time by how long it took a potato to cook or how long it took the potato to grow.

[Ben Bolan]

I love that. I love a different clock, man. You know I do. So it's.

[Noel Brown]

And actually isn't a potato clock a thing? Can't you like derive power from a potato by sticking like electrodes? Different kind of potato clock.

[Ben Bolan]

I love the idea that thousands of years ago someone would say, hey, you're two potatoes.

[Unidentified Guest]

Late to jump in here. I'm thinking of like the old Futurama episode where they go into the Death Star of old people. And there's make a joke about the Matrix about how everyone's like all the people are in the things being batteries. And Bender goes, wouldn't anything be a better battery like a potato or a battery.

[Ben Bolan]

Or a battery. Yeah. As we mentioned, this, this guy, not to anthropomorphize too much, but this little guy is what we call an herbaceous annual. So it grows about the plant itself grows about 40 inches tall in Freedom units or 100 cm tall for the rest of the world. And as it grows, its leaves, the stuff above ground manufacture starch that gets transferred to the ends of its underground stems. The fancy word there being Stolons S T O L O N S. Congratulations to everybody who just won a spelling bee.

[Noel Brown]

Yeah, and I learned some new words and some new cultivation techniques yesterday when I watched the first episode of Zach Galifianakis new gardening show.

[Ben Bolan]

Oh, it's great.

[Noel Brown]

Yeah, I dig it. I've only seen the first episode where he talks about apples. I really hope they get to potatoes, but I can't speak to that for certain. Cause I haven't really looked at apples are description. Apples are wild. The thing called grafting, like all of the stuff where you slice off it's not quite the same as propagating. It's its own thing. And they acknowledge in the episode that it is something that a lot of people are painfully unfamiliar with. So the stems that you were talking about, Ben, thicken underground to form just a few or as many as 20 tubers close to the soil and surface. And you know, we talk a lot about rutabagas on our sister show stuff they don't want you to know. Why, you may ask. You'll have to listen to find out. I'm not even sure exactly why, but it's become a theme and I think we all love it and are here for it. We had a little off mic discussion as to whether a potato was in fact a root vegetable like a rutabaga because we've been throwing around this term tuber, and we had a little bit of a debate but and did a little bit of googling and found out that both root vegetables and tubers are something known as geophytes, which is a botanical classification for plants that have that main the major part that is to be cultivated growing beneath the soil. And here's the kicker. All tubers fall under that umbrella term of root vegetables. However, not all root vegetables are tubers. So the method in which the rutabaga grows and propagates is different than or the, I guess, mechanic of it is different than what happens with a tuber. So I think that hopefully clears it up for everyone out there who maybe had a question about rutabagas versus potatoes because they do seem like they would be exactly the same, but they are similar enough but then have some distinct differences. So to continue on, the number of tubers that actually can reach maturity depends a lot on conditions, things like the nutrients in the soil and moisture that is available. Tubers can vary distinctly, as we all know, in shape and size and usually weigh roughly up to 300 grams. And this comes from a delightful site, the International Potato center, which I'm just glad a thing like that exists.

[Ben Bolan]

I'm super happy that there is a international cabal of people very interested in potatoes.

[Noel Brown]

So another thing that this potato org had to say about the science of potatoes is that at the end of the season, the plant's leaves and stems die down to the soil level and then it creates new tubers. It's like thus the circle of potato continues. The tubers then serve as a nutrient store that allows the plant to survive and lay dormant during the cold months and then regrow later and reproduce. And this is gonna come into play in part, when we talk about a horrific potato related event in history known as the Irish Potato Famine. Potatoes are all actually clones of themselves. They do this through a process called vegetative propagation. So when a potato or a piece of one develops sprouts from those little things that we kind of look at to see if a potato's still good, the eyes, if it starts to form a bunch of those, you maybe know that the potato's a little long in the tooth. Once it's planted, it then can grow a new plant that is genetically identical to the parent. And as we've discussed in stuff that I want you to know, and surely on this show as well, this can create something called a monoculture, which is very susceptible to blight and certain other types of disease.

[Ben Bolan]

See also the gross Michelle Banana. Right. Which is a very different type of fauna. So the issue is, folks, if you are looking at your old bag of russet potatoes that you hid in the pantry away from the light and you see those eyes, you probably know that you can cut those sprouts out and still use the non discolored part of your potato.

[Noel Brown]

Yeah. Unless it's like got rot, actual grossness, or any kind of mildewy nastiness on it, they're utterly fine. And it's another reason that potatoes are so incredible as staple crops. Because that very reason, Ben, they are just really resilient. And if you store them in a cool, dry place, they can last months.

[Ben Bolan]

Part of why I am here now, recording this podcast with us, is due to the fact that during the Great Depression, some of my family members survived entirely because they were able to dig up old potatoes from the frozen ground. So thank you, potato. Thank you for making it the world round. You've migrated, noble potato. Instead of humble, you migrated in step with humanity. You know, we are aware that human populations arrived at the South American continent, current history says around 7,000 years ago.

[Noel Brown]

Yeah, 7,000 or 8,000, depending on the. What's a thousand years between friends?

[Ben Bolan]

Millennium between friends. Yeah. So this is where we begin to see. If you fast forward 7,000 years, you begin to see wild potato plants sprouting up around Lake Titicaca.

[Noel Brown]

Lake Titicaca.

[Ben Bolan]

Uh huh. Just so.

[Noel Brown]

And it's Butthead's favorite lake. No, Beavis's favorite Beavis, I think. Yeah.

[Ben Bolan]

It's funny, I recently rewatched that Saturday Night Live sketch. You know the one I'm talking.

[Noel Brown]

Ryan Gosling. Yeah. He's actually like, what if Beavis Butthead were real people?

[Ben Bolan]

Yeah, it was. It was fascinating. And the interesting thing for so many archaeologists here is that you can find, as you were saying earlier, Noel, you can find remains of potato cultivation from around 4000 BCE. You can see examples of potatoes getting praised in local art of the time in Nazca and Chimu pottery.

[Noel Brown]

Yeah, Nazca famous for those lines.

[Ben Bolan]

Yeah. I still wonder whether they built an early version of a hot air balloon. How else could you see the whole thing?

[Noel Brown]

That's the deal. If anyone's not familiar, the Nazca lines are a popular pet subject of conspiracy buffs. And we've certainly talked about it on the podcast. And it is sort of like, what, a giant array of lines that can really create some sort of pattern that can really only be seen from way high up.

[Ben Bolan]

Yeah, yeah. You'll see a big stake or you'll see a big dude doing something, and you have to wonder how they do that. How do they do that? Is the question. So the cool thing, the very clever thing about these farmers in the Andes, is that they understood you could grow potatoes not just at higher altitudes, but you could grow them more successfully at higher altitudes.

[Noel Brown]

That's right. The Cusco Valley was just such a place that existed at pretty high altitudes. It became occupied by the incas in around 1400 as a result of the collapse of the Huari civilization in the state of Tehuanaku. I'm doing my best here. I think that was fine in the years 1000 to 12,000. We're talking BCE here.

[Ben Bolan]

So this is, at this time, the largest settlement, the settlement that is expanding at the highest rate in what we call the Americas, north and south. These folks are becoming advanced in agricultural approaches that descend to them from their ancestors. And because they know how to interact with the soil, how to speak with the land, they see a tremendous boost in the production of not only the noble potato, but also maize, you know, corn.

[Noel Brown]

Yeah, yeah, exactly. And not only were they hugely successful in cultivating all of these things, they also figured out some pretty awesome, sciencey ways of preserving them that we more or less still use versions of to this day. The idea of freeze drying, which really blew my mind when I read this, they created a potato product. And by the way, this stuff's coming from another incredible organization, the Irish Potato Federation. This is a federation like a Star Trek. They created this potato product called chunyol, which was one of their main food items. Cause it just traveled so well. It involved a process wherein raw potatoes would be frozen and then thawed outdoors over and over again before the farmers or squeezed the remaining moisture out of them, creating this like astronaut ice cream of potato.

[Ben Bolan]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, man. You nailed it. Get out of my head. Because that's the best example this.

[Noel Brown]

And it's so tasty. And lately, dude, I don't know if you've seen there are like freeze dried Skittles you can get. Freeze dried snacks are back in a big way, especially at places like Trader Joe's.

[Ben Bolan]

Artemis too.

[Noel Brown]

Yeah, big time. Oh, I love a freeze dried snack because they're so crunchy and there's a little something, a little uncanny valley about them, but in a good way, you know?

[Ben Bolan]

Yeah. And also Max will keep it in, but I accidentally had a Freudian slip and said shart out instead of shout out to Artemis 2. That is a joke about their problems with bathrooms on the spacecraft.

[Noel Brown]

They got that sharded.

[Ben Bolan]

Yeah, perfect, dude. So shout out to you guys. Guys. We live in the beautiful southeastern part of the United States. And every time spring comes, we get a lot of pollen, we get a lot of flowers, we get a lot of bugs.

[Noel Brown]

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[Ben Bolan]

This is a perfect comparison to astronaut food because far before the invention of what we call supermarkets, we have a shelf stable foodstuff. This is your insurance for any failed harvest. Right? And it doesn't necessarily kind of like tofu. It doesn't necessarily have a big, bold, forward flavor on its own, but it does have a lot of nutritional value. And so you could cook it perhaps in a very spicy stew. You could make something similar to dumplings in central Italy. This is before, by the way. Europe finds out about the potato.

[Noel Brown]

That's the thing. We're gonna get to that real soon. But since you mentioned the nutritious value, the nutrient rich nature of the potato, I just thought we'd rattle off a few of those stats. It contains more potassium than a banana. About 30% of one's daily allotment of vitamin C and vitamin B6.

[Ben Bolan]

Always eat the skin, folks.

[Noel Brown]

That's right. That's right, Ben. That's exactly right. Cause that is what is contained in the skin is those nutrients are very rich in the skin. And they also provide about 3 grams of protein and 2 to 4 grams of fiber, also mostly in the skin. And they can act as an incredible source of energy and nutrients in one's diet. And I know we're sort of in an era where potatoes are getting slammed a little bit for being like too starchy or carby or whatever. But let's just remember, remember that civilizations have risen and fallen based on the ability to cultivate this noble tuber.

[Unidentified Guest]

And to jump in here real quick. I was actually watching something recently talking about how if you're trying to lose weight, potatoes are actually a very good food to eat because they're super satiable. You can eat a lot of them. You can feel very full, but not actually ingest a lot of calories.

[Ben Bolan]

Yeah, yeah. They'll fill you up. Another cheat code would be a lot of green vegetables, leafy greens, and course celery.

[Noel Brown]

Because it's mainly water, right?

[Ben Bolan]

It's mainly crunchy water with an opinion about itself. Great. Let's keep that. Noel, riddle us this. We're talking a lot about the fundamental role the potato played in these ancient Mesoamerican empires. But how did potatoes make it to the wider world for sure?

[Noel Brown]

Well, it has a lot to do with the fact that once again, they traveled well. You know, they really did. Those freeze dried chuno, I believe is what they were called. They were actually used to feed the Incan armies. If it already has such shelf stability. As we know, it takes quite a while for a potato to truly go bad. And even if it goes bad, you could kind of just cut the bad part off of it and plenty of it'll be still fine. I know that's gross. I wouldn't do that unless it were in a pinch.

[Ben Bolan]

But I know you well. We do the same thing with some types of cheese. I'm just laughing, Noel, because I'm imagining you and I separately looking at some potatoes in the pantry with a lot of eyes and saying, I can fix

[Noel Brown]

her, I can fix it. Eh, it's fine. But they literally traveled well in ships, Spanish ships from imperialist Spaniards who raped and pillaged and did horrible things to the Incas and their culture. We're not here to litigate all that. We've done it plenty. But in 1532, the Spanish invaded the Incan empire and brought a. An end to all of that incredible culture. And with it, they brought back a lot of plunder, as well as certain types of crops that they had not seen before. And the potato was one of them. They brought these tubers back across the Atlantic, as well as things like avocados. They're probably a little more popular real quick. And corn, as you mentioned, Ben, and tomatoes. Historians call this the great Colombian exchange, which we have certainly talked about as well on ridiculous history and stuff they don't want you to know. And so, for the first time, the potato made its way outside of what was, you know, we would now refer to as the Americas. These Spaniards, by the way, are of course, conquistadors. They were conquerors. And they brought back all of these spoils to present to their overlords and to show that they had done a good job at conquistadoring.

[Ben Bolan]

And we've gotta tell you the truth here, folks, at first, Europe overall was pretty skeptical, partially because they were super xenophobic. Right?

[Noel Brown]

Same way with tomatoes. We talked about that.

[Ben Bolan]

Yes, because they're getting these unfamiliar things, right? And people are saying, no, seriously, we survived for months across the Atlantic Ocean eating this weird stuff, right? And the issue is that nightshade is recognizable to Europeans. But get this, folks, not just tomatoes, but also eggplant peppers and potatoes are botanically related to nightshade. And nightshade at this time had a bad rep. It was associated with disease. It was associated with witchcraft.

[Noel Brown]

It was associated with poisoning.

[Ben Bolan]

Poisoning and social stigma in general.

[Noel Brown]

So typically it was referred to as deadly nightshade.

[Ben Bolan]

Right. It was a hard sell. And also they had to figure out how to cultivate it. How do we take this thing that was most popular in the highlands of the Andes and most successful in those very high altitude regions. How do we convince the noble potato to take root in Europe half a world away?

[Noel Brown]

It's a good question, Ben, because as we mentioned, the potato is pretty resilient, but it also likes certain types of altitudes and climates. Right. High ones, specifically in terms of altitude. And also, it being a shady plant, it also kind of liked cooler weather. So European long summer days kind of freaked the potato plant out a little bit. And they didn't grow very well during the warmer months. Instead, they would grow a bit better in the autumn, which was, of course, too close to the early days of winter for them to survive. They weren't really on a very good cycle.

[Ben Bolan]

Yeah. And we're getting a lot of this from our friends across the pond, our British cousins at the BBC shout out to Diego Arguedas Ortiz, how the humble potato changed the world. So at first, like you were saying, Noel, this thing is a stranger in a strange land, right? But luckily, we did find a better place for the potato. That would be Ireland. Ireland has better conditions for the tuber because this is a cool but frost free autumn. This gives our potato crop enough time to mature after its introduction from Spain in the 1580s. And now we see another thing that farmers are brilliant at. They're practicing vegetable eugenics, right? They're selecting the tubers, the potato crops that work best in this time. And so they start selecting for potatoes that work better earlier in the summer. And now the potato becomes irreplaceable. It's also less work than grain, to be quite honest. Right. Put it in the ground, set it and forget it.

[Noel Brown]

Yeah. And I mean, I don't know that they'd figure this out quite yet, but as we know today, you can do a lot of the same things with potatoes that you can do with grain. You can make potato flour, you can ferment potatoes to make alcohol. You can, you know, make vodka, potato vodka and various other ferments.

[Ben Bolan]

You're welcome, Russian.

[Noel Brown]

Yeah, exactly. It's pretty incredible. All of the things that you can do with a potato, you can, you know, shoot it out of a cannon. Apparently people like to do that. Potato guns don't try that at home. Apparently. Quite dangerous.

[Ben Bolan]

Okay, who are we to judge?

[Noel Brown]

Well, you know, just live your life, but just don't hurt anybody. So by the 18th and 19th century, the potato had truly become integral to many European diets, particularly in Ireland. As we mentioned, we're gonna jump around in history a little bit because there's something really horrible that's gonna happen, as we probably all know, in Ireland, the great Irish potato famine. But we're gonna devote much more of an episode to that. It is wor its own half, if not a giant chunk of an episode. So we're gonna save that for part two. Parts of Russia also were relying on potatoes. European colonial trade networks carried them beyond Europe to Africa and Asia and parts of Oceania, where they would then be integrated into new culinary traditions and agricultural systems. So the potato really started to create a bit of a population boost boom, which is kind of wild to consider is because people were starving, food was scarce, and this really was a pretty significant boost to people's ability to nourish themselves and their offspring.

[Ben Bolan]

Yeah, it's got a high yield. It's, as we said, Quite nutritious, especially if you're not fancy and you eat the skin the way we do today. It's calorie dense. It's also a very tolerating type of plant. So it's similar to anybody growing an herb garden. You may know that mint is a real go getter. It's actually kind of hard to kill mint and it's actually kind of hard to kill a potato. So it makes sense that this specific type of foodstuff could transmit across cultures and across regions across the planet. It also solves for a very difficult problem that a lot of civilizations and empires face, which is how do we feed everybody cheaply? If food is expensive in terms of time or in terms of labor, then the population of a given civilization or empire will meet a hard glass ceiling. It's very difficult to break. However, the fact that this has utility does not really explain how the potato reached ubiquity. And for that, for the widespread popularity of the potato in European climes and later, thanks to colonialism, the world. Noel. I believe we have to thank the French.

[Noel Brown]

The French.

[Ben Bolan]

Merci beaucoup.

[Noel Brown]

We love the French. Indeed. Ben. I have really lately been enjoying videos by this incredible Englishman who studied in the French tradition of cuisine. His name is Marco Pierre White and he is. He had like three Michelin stars, like I think in the maybe the 80s. And he kind of gave up the restaurateur life to just sort of be like Kane from Kung Fu. But like the culinary version. He just sort of like traipses around the woods of the countryside of England and hunts wild game. And lately he's been doing these maestro series of videos on BBC. He has the most Zen, absolutely philosophical. He says something like, to earn three stars in Michelin, you don't have to be a great cook. You just have to know how the system works. It's like that kind of stuff. But he also says, like, I don't love to cook, I love to feed people. It's just like these incredible little moments and you can just watch like, you know, compilations of this dude just talking about French cuisine until the cows come home. And there's a ton of it out there and it'll help you fall asleep. So I highly recommend it. But he is the one who's truly gotten me in the zone of how important potatoes are and were to French cuisine. We obviously know about French fries, of course, which I think there's even some debate as to whether.

[Ben Bolan]

Don't say that in Belgium.

[Noel Brown]

That's exactly right.

[Ben Bolan]

Yeah.

[Noel Brown]

Thank you very much pommflete. But we do know that the potato ended up occupying an incredibly important place in French culinary tradition, which is obviously very fancy. It's not, you know, the people's potato anymore, but it comes from a background of being the people's potato. So the potato was brought to France from Peru before the French Revolution, and at first, they just weren't accepted at all. And this kind of mirrors what was going on in most of Europe. People were so suspicious of them. They barely would give them to their pigs, to their livestock to eat. They were that suspicious of them. And that was because they found them to be hideous, misshapen abominations because of their kind of lumpy, sort of misshapen look.

[Ben Bolan]

They look like a tumor.

[Noel Brown]

They look like a tumor. They associated them with leprosy. They associated them with the kind of tumors and buboes that would form on the skin of folks afflicted with that condition, which was a big problem at the time because it was contagious. People would get sent off to these colonies to live out their lives away from the general population. It was a scary time.

[Ben Bolan]

How do you say the devil's apple in French?

[Noel Brown]

It's a good question, Ben. Let's see. It would be la pomme de diable.

[Ben Bolan]

Ah, makes sense. Yes.

[Noel Brown]

Pomme de diable. So apple is pomme. That makes sense. So pommes frite is like.

[Ben Bolan]

Like fried apple?

[Noel Brown]

Kind of. Yeah. Cause, you know, it is funny because an apple and a potato are both this white, kind of crunchy thing on the inside. And a big problem, too, was when folks in Europe initially got their hands on the potato, they would just take a big old chunk out of it without boiling it, mashing it, or sticking it in a stew. And let me tell you, as I'm sure you know, Ben, that's gross.

[Ben Bolan]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Noel Brown]

It doesn't taste good. There's no. It needs seasoning. It needs some tender loving care.

[Ben Bolan]

It's kind of like. Like how we always laughed for years about prisoners in early America complaining about having to eat lobster all the time. It was all due to the preparation. They didn't take the shell out. They weren't thinking of the shell. The potato needs a little bit of tlc, right? It's hardy. It's hardy when it grows, so it can grow on its own throughout the wide world. But you got to get it a little bit of love if you want it to be delectable.

[Noel Brown]

And that's another thing that Marco Pierre White says. He says that all things when it comes to cooking time. And if it doesn't take time, if it doesn't take effort and love, then you're not doing it right.

[Ben Bolan]

So, Noel, introduce us to this French

[Noel Brown]

pharmacist, this champion of the potato, Antoine Augustin d'. Parmentiere. He was, as you said, Ben, a pharmacist in Paris who was so fond of the potato and saw so much promise in it and usefulness in it utility, much like George Washington Carver and the peanut, that he was on a mission. Because at this point, besides just the general suspicion surrounding the potato and people thinking it was gross and misshapen, you pointed out Ben calling it the devil's apple because of belief that it maybe was used by witches in some sort of black magic rituals. It was actually forbidden to cultivate the potato in France because there was a belief that it would poison the soil.

[Ben Bolan]

Yeah, poison the soil. Poison the livestock, the cattle or the sheep or the pigs that might eat it. So our buddy Antoine manages to convince the Paris Faculty of Medicine, as we were saying, to de revilify the potato and say in 1772, grow it if you want, eat it if you can. However, this highfalutin policy change does not convince the public. People are still saying I might be starving because there was a lot of famine in France at this point, leading to some great unrest. There were a lot of people who would desperately be hungry. They had not eaten for days. They would be offered a potato and they would say, ah, forget you, I still have standards. So just like our story about the guy in the United States with a tomato, our champion of the potato, Antoine, has to start doing some Bernays level PR and he tries to popularize the potato through marketing stunts.

[Noel Brown]

Yeah, he's growing the potato in his own personal fields and does this sort of psyop, I guess you could call it, where he hires guards to stand watch over his potato field in the hopes that people would notice and be like, what are they like? You always like to say, Ben, that Tom Waits song, what's he building in there? Yeah, that's nothing better than a guard or a fence to make people curious about what's going on on the other side. And hey, if the potatoes. Oh, there's potatoes, you say, well, they're so horrible, as we've thought, as is popularly believed. Why has he got to hire these guards? What's so special about these potatoes?

[Ben Bolan]

It's so brilliant. Especially because Antoine tells his guards in secret, okay, lets the word get out that they are guarding this high value garden of Potatoes. And in private, he tells his hired mercenaries, his guards, he said, he says, look, if literally anybody comes up to you and they offer you literally anything, I need you to act like a crooked cop and tell them you're going to let them steal some potatoes. And you tell them not to tell anybody. And they're like, but obviously, sir, they're going to blab on us. And he goes, I know, perfect. 4D chess. This guy. Guy.

[Noel Brown]

Oh, gosh, 5D. Maybe that's what our president's playing, apparently. Or is it checkers or is it dominoes?

[Ben Bolan]

It always comes back around this guy. This guy's plan works, right? As we know, thanks to cooking with Class.com he gets an award in 1772, the same year he writes the Reputation of the Potato. He gets this award for making them palatable to the rest of France in case of a bad harvest. But Noel, as you point out, it's not until 1785 that Louis XV, at a dinner hosted by Antoine, declares, one day France will thank you for discovering, get this, the bread of the poor people.

[Noel Brown]

Oh dear, oh dear. How'd that age?

[Ben Bolan]

I don't know. He was trumping all over the place.

[Noel Brown]

Yeah, we're not gonna dig, dig deep into the French Revolution right now. But needless to say, little tone deaf, little tone death didn't go well. Marie Antoinette didn't say let them eat cake, but the vibes were there. The vibes were there. And the funny thing about it is this was also the king. Louis XIV and Marie Antoinette are the ones who really popularized the potato to the bougie class. You know, they would wear these purple potato flowers, which are actually quite beautiful. They grow out of the top parts, the above ground parts of the potato. He would wear them as lapels and she would like have them woven into her fancy hats. And in 1886, they financed a plot of land to grow potatoes in Sablon, which was on the western edge of Paris. But to the French Revolution side of things, it did ultimately become the official foodstuff of the French Revolution, while also becoming this hot, hot cuisine thing. It's such an interesting. It just really speaks to its versatility. It went from the devil's apple to the apples of the earth, or pommes de terre, which is what potatoes are referred to as a cornerstone of French cuisine. They were transformed from this famine food, and very suspect even before that, to a comfort food staple that is largely due to the efforts of Antoine Augustin Parmentier. And he finally even got his potato flowers in the form of several potato dishes that bear his name forever solidifying his place in the history of the humble. And what did you say? Ben?

[Ben Bolan]

Noble.

[Noel Brown]

Noble. And also fancy potato.

[Ben Bolan]

And we have to mention a weird circuitous path toward potato popularity in what is called the United States today because this guy is such a champion of the potato and such a great PR dude that he is appealing to the American cousins as well.

[Noel Brown]

We know Jefferson, right?

[Ben Bolan]

Franklin. We know that Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson went to like this guy didn't just do one potato fun time dinner, he did multiple potato centric dinners. He invited folks like the famous libertine Benjamin Franklin, who has never been convicted of being a serial killer. And Thomas Jefferson, who will never answer for his slavery crimes. He had these guys who were over at dinners centering the potato and chopped it up in all these different ways. I don't want to sound too Bubba Gump, but you could do so much with a potato. As we're about to get to, he had a 20 course meal for these guys. A feast with potatoes. His fancy work on potato parmentiers found its way to Jefferson's famous library at Monticello. And this, this is probably where Thomas Jefferson becomes inspired to bring what we call the French fry to the United States and serve it at the White House.

[Noel Brown]

This guy's killing it 100%. And I always forget what a francophile both Jefferson and especially Franklin were. So yes, is also the reason that we love potatoes so well over here in the US So we didn't want to close out without mentioning a handful of. Of some delicious and varied fancy French potato dishes. The first two of which bear the name of our hero, Mr. Parmentier. This one is called Potage Parmentier. I thought we could round robin this one, Ben. This is a classic rustic French potato and leek soup. Oh boy, do I love a potato and leek soup with a little cream. Traditionally made by simmering the potatoes, leeks and onions and stock before pureeing it into a smooth and comforting soup, often enriched with a bit of butter or cream.

[Ben Bolan]

And then our second champion here is Palme Pommentier. These are picture your classic diced potatoes. You roast them, you pan fry them homestyle with garlic and herbs. Typically gonna be rosemary or thyme to home fry. Yeah, until they're crispy on the outside, they're soft inside and you'll usually look, these might not be great for you every day, all the time, but it's not Christmas if it's every day. You want to put these in A high heat with oil and butter. But wait, folks, it gets fancier.

[Noel Brown]

Yep. We got one more before, I think the one that is both of our favorites. This one is called Pommes d' Terre Farcy, which already sounds about as fancy as potatoes get.

[Ben Bolan]

I've seen Judy and the Beast. Yeah, yeah.

[Noel Brown]

It's a traditional potato based dish from France, of course, and there are a lot of different regional versions, but it's typically made from a combination of potatoes, bacon, onions, garlic, parsley, eggs, milk, oil, butter, salt, and pepper. The tops are cut off of the potatoes, and the flesh is then dug out with a spoon, creating, like, a potato skin thing, which is then stuffed with a mixture of onions, garlic, parsley, salt, pepper, bacon, flour, and milk. Once stuffed, the lids are put back on the potato. This is like a stuffed potato, but a very fancier version of it. They're then browned in a mixture of olive oil. But over high heat, Pammes de terre farseas are then sprinkled with salt and baked in the oven at low heat until everything is fully cooked and tender. It's kind of like a twice baked potato.

[Ben Bolan]

It's a little cup.

[Noel Brown]

It's a little cup. Kind of like a twice baked potato. But, Ben, I leave this one to you. I think we're both big fans of this dish.

[Ben Bolan]

Ooh. This one might not be my number one. No. But it is very close. This one is potato dauphinois. This is where you thinly slice your potatoes.

[Noel Brown]

So thinly.

[Ben Bolan]

Yeah, yeah, very thin. Like mandolin style or, you know, OCD style.

[Noel Brown]

Watch those fingies on the mandolin. Watch your fingies.

[Ben Bolan]

Get your. Get your chainmail Michael Jackson glove for that one.

[Noel Brown]

Or as Marco says, just use your palm. Don't use your fingers, just use the palm.

[Ben Bolan]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Make a. Make a blood pack with that knife. So you infuse this cream with garlic. You often want a nice gruyere cheese or a meltable cheese. And then you layer the them. You bake them until tender, and you season it with thyme. Nutmeg, garlic cream. Go nuts. Speak your truth. This is pretty cool. I've actually thrown some sage in those with great results.

[Noel Brown]

Wonderful, wonderful. The nutmeg really is the kicker. What makes it special. But, yeah, the thinner the better. And there's lots of different ways to do it, layering it in different ways. Some people don't use cheese. Some people just add the cheese at the end. But the kicker is that after you've baked it and you've got it all infused with the cream and the garlic, you then, then broil it, uncover and

[Ben Bolan]

you get that crisp.

[Noel Brown]

It's like a casserole, a hash brown casserole, but with this creamy. My mom used to make it and it's really, truly one of my favorites. And it's a pain in the butt. Cause you do. It takes love, it takes care, and it takes time.

[Ben Bolan]

Yeah. Now here's something I'm going to cook for you guys when we all get together for a potluck. Pomme fondaz or fondant potatoes. You've seen these at steakhouses.

[Noel Brown]

It's similar to this but they're individual layered.

[Ben Bolan]

Right. They're similar to our potato cup. They're similar to the kind of scalloping thing we're talking about. But what I like to do is you cut them. You cut the top and bottom off, right? You brown them, you gotta simmer them in a nice, you know, you go chicken stock, you can go beef stock and you brown the ends with the butter. I'm so excited to cook for you guys. And Noel, thank you so much for cooking for us with what we are calling ridiculous history of the Potato. One potato, two potato.

[Noel Brown]

Yeah, this one was one potato and two potato. We will have for you on our next episode where we're gonna dig into some of the more, I don't know, sociological, sociological aspects of the potato like the potato famine and the French French Revolution and then kind of bring into the modern day. And one thing I was thinking about, Ben, when you were talking about how it's been a constant struggle of civilization to figure out how to feed everybody. It's not one we fully figured out yet, despite all of our best intentions and advancements. So we're going to get into that as well. But man, what a fun talk.

[Ben Bolan]

This is great and we hope you enjoyed it as well, fellow ridiculous historians. Big, big thanks to Our super producer, Mr. Max the condition Williams. Big thanks to my faithful co host and research associate for this series, Mr. Noel Brown. Noel, who else do we need to thank here?

[Noel Brown]

Well, Eve's Jeff Coats and Christopher Odas here in spirit, of course, Jonathan strickland the quizzer. AJ Bahamas Jacobs, the puzzler.

[Ben Bolan]

Big, big thanks to Dr. Rachel Big Spinach Lance as well as the rude dudes at Ridiculous Crime. If you dig us, you will. If you dig us like a potato, keep it in Max, then you will love them. And one more time folks for Noel. Thank you so much, man. I'm looking forward to the next chapter in our exploration of the potato.

[Noel Brown]

And with you as well, my friend. We'll see you next time, folks. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite show shows. This is an iHeart podcast. Guaranteed Human.