These days potatoes are considered the world's favourite vegetable, and the fifth most important food crop in the world (after rice, wheat, soy beans and maize). It is hard to imagine a world without potatoes.
But that hasn't always been the case.
Potatoes were first brought to the Europe from the Americas in the 1550s. But in the United Kingdom they were viewed with suspicion for two centuries.
As a member of the nightshade family, they were also presumed to be poisonous, and were dismissed as only being suitable only to feed animals, as is revealed in the show Royal Gardens on a Plate (starting Thursday January 12 8.35pm on SBS, then catch it on SBS On Demand.).
"I love the idea of a vegetable as humble as the potato being at the heart of some of the world's greatest dishes. What a huge and important gastronomic history it has," writes Raymond Blanc in the book, Kew on a Plate with Raymond Blanc, which accompanies the show.
building a garden
Royal Gardens On A Plate
The potato was beloved by the Incas and had its own goddess
Potatoes were originally grown in the Andes between 7000 and 10,000 years ago, and it was in Peru that the Incas first developed farming of potatoes, using irrigation systems and fertilizing the soil with nutrient-rich anchovies.
They worshipped the goddess of potatoes, Axomama, daughter of the earth mother Pachamama.
The Incas used them as more than just a staple food. They placed raw slices on broken bones to promote healing, carried them to prevent rheumatism, and measured time by how long it took for potatoes to cook.
Pottery from the Moche culture of axomama, the goddess of the potato. Source: Wikipedia
The Spanish conquistadors, who sailed to Peru in search of gold, brought the potato back to Europe. But while the sailors accepted them as a staple food for long sea voyages, the wider population shunned the strange-looking tubers.
The first PR campaign for the potato
These days there's a whole lotta love for potatoes. Source: EyeEm/Getty Images
The government decided that the easy to grow and nutritious potato was the answer to their problem, so it launched a PR campaign in the old coffee houses of the time.
"The 18th Century coffee houses were very different to your average Starbucks in that you'd walk in to a smokey candlelit room and people would shout, 'what news have you'," explains historian Dr Matthew Green in Royal Gardens on a Plate. "This could be about anything from politics to philosophy."
"It was in places just like these in the 1790s that the government tried to sweeten public opinion in favour of the potato."
Pamphlets were distributed to the influential types who frequented the coffee houses, extolling the virtues of the potato. They provided detailed growing information and why they were good.
The campaign worked, transforming it from animal feed to a modern dinner staple.
Here's how to turn the humble spud into the ultimate super-crisp roasted potatoes.
These crispy-edged roast spuds are a potato lover's dream. Source: Norton
The triumph of the modern potato
Whether eaten mashed, roast, boiled or fried, as hot chips or a packet of chips, potatoes are one of the world's most popular ingredients.
They are also at the centre of numerous folk remedies, such as treating facial blemishes by washing with cool potato juice, healing frostbite or sunburn by applying raw grated potato to the affected area, helping a toothache by carrying a potato in your pocket, and easing a sore throat by putting a slice of baked potato in a stocking and tying it around your throat.
For Blanc, they are one of the most exciting ingredients he can cook with.
"I have spent most of my life cooking and growing many different varieties of potato," Black writes. "I am still as curious as a child to discover different, exciting varieties."
Get Raymond Blanc's recipe for New Potato and Chorizo Tortilla here.
Raymond Blanc's new potato and chorizo tortilla. Source: Kew on a Plate with Raymond Blanc
If you really love potato...
Some people really embrace the potato - Australian man Andrew Taylor decided to spend a year eating nothing but spuds. And there are Guinness World Records for everything from most mashed potato eaten in 30 seconds to the largest potato gratin.
But we think the best way to have world-class potato is to make it yourself. How about Heston Blumenthal's roast potatoes ("just the way I like them – with a crisp, glass-like crust and a fluffy interior" he says) or his triple-cooked chips. For mash fans, here's how to make perfect mash. Or spice things up with these spicy Lebanese potatoes (batata harra) or this recipe from Matthew Evans for five-spiced potatoes with egg and coriander (panch phoran aloo).
Find out how to grow and cook potatoes in Royal Gardens On A Plate; starts 8.35pm Thursday 12 January on SBS.
