POTATO and Sweet potato introduced to Europe and Asia
The Inca Indians in Peru were the first to cultivate potatoes around 8,000 BC to 5,000 B.C. Potato History: The ancient civilizations of the Incas used the time it took to cook a potato as a measurement of time. While they spread throughout the northern colonies in limited quantities, potatoes did not become widely accepted until they received an aristocratic seal of approval from Thomas Jefferson, who served them to guests at the White House. Thereafter, the potato steadily gained in popularity, this popularity being strengthened by a steady stream of Irish immigrants to the new nation
Archaeologists have found prehistoric remnants of sweet potato in Polynesia (Samoa and other islands) from about A.D. 1000 to A.D. 1100, according to radiocarbon dating. It is thought that those ancient samples came from area areas of Peru and Chile. Among the clues: One Polynesian word for sweet potato — “kuumala” — resembles “kumara,” or “cumal,” the words for the vegetable in Quechua, a language spoken by Andean natives.
Researcher Rouiller based this theory of origin by using dried sweet potato remains kept in a London museum. Capt. James Cook’s crew picked up the vegetables in Polynesia back in 1769, before all the European sweet potato interbreeding occurred. Examining the genetic blueprint of Cook’s sweet potatoes allowed Rouiller and her colleagues to trace the root’s evolution all the way back to Ecuador and Peru
The potato was brought to Japan from Jagatara (Java) in 1601 by Dutch ships, and came to be called “jaga-imo (potato)”. The sweet potato came to Ryukyu island (Modern day Okinawa ) from the Philippines by way of China in 1605. The Spanish introduced the sweet potato after 1521 to the Philippines.
The sweet potato was found by the Spanish in the late 1490’s already growing in the Caribbean and neighboring lands of present-day Columbia and Venezuela. The Potato however was brought from Chile and Peru after the sweet potato’s introduction to Spain. By 1580-1590s the Potato had reached Ireland and Germany and much of Europe. Who first brought the potato to Europe is contested.
As a result of the potato’s introduction into Ireland in the 1580’s, the Irish population exploded from less than one million people to more than 8 million by 1840. As a result of the Irish potato famine, Ireland’s population fell from 8 million in 1844 to 6.6 million by 1851. A million people had died of starvation as England’s Queen Victoria did nothing to help the people. Nearly a half a million Irish left for Australia and America.
The article entitled historyireland.com/the-introduction-of-the-potato-into-ireland/, describes the many possible people and ways the potato eventually made it to the Americas and Europe.
It wasn’t until Prussia’s King Fredrick planted potatoes during wartime hoping that peasants would start eating them. Potatoes arrived in the colonies in the 1620s when the Governor of the Bahamas sent a gift box containing potatoes to the governor of the colony of Virginia.
Potatoes belong to the same family as tobacco. Potatoes and sweet potatoes are not in the same family despite both being tubers that grow underground. One of the differences is that while potatoes are tubers, sweet potatoes are the enlarged roots of the sweet potato plant, known as root tubers. Sweet potatoes belong to Convolvulaceae, the same family as morning glory