Potatoes: South America's Gift to the World
ฝัง
- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 30 พ.ค. 2022
- Potatoes are a vegetable beloved by all. See how the potato emerged from obscurity into a vital food crop that feeds the world population and came to grace culinary traditions all over the world.
Patreon: / ancientamericas
Facebook: / ancientamericas
Sources and Bibliography:
docs.google.com/document/d/12...
The potato is so engrained in European cuisine that fantasy always has the potato as a crop despite other new world vegetables not being featured
Great observation. In my first draft of this script, I pointed out how when JRR Tolkien imagined his mythological Britain in Middle Earth, he included the potato as a crop even though in reality the potato is as British as a coconut (assuming the swallow can't carry it). I personally suspect that Tolkien, being a scholar and a highly educated guy must have been aware of this but could not imagine a beautiful world without the potato. I think that speaks to how deeply the potato has worked its way into the hearts of people.
I think only Dwarf Fortress has fantasy worlds with truly varied crops, as the game creator populated the world with lots of real life plants and animals according to their biomes.
In a light research using the game wiki and Wikipedia, I'm reminded of how many crops the modern agriculture models crushed: millets, amaranths, dozens types of wheat, all Left in favor of the "white wheat", soy and corn.
Some crops, like quinoa, are making a modest reappearance in the quest for heathier diets. The kind of thing you'll see your aunt buying to help her intestines.
@@arthurbarros5189 millet is still a big deal in Africa isn’t it?
As for amaranth isn’t that a vegetable?
@@AncientAmericas i seriously doubt Tolkien wouldve acknowledged the potato came from southamerica, back then and a lot of evidence was swept under the rug to keep the colonialist and imperialist discourse, especially in academic circles which were/are pretty eurocentric. I mean, i'm from Chile and a lot of people still think potatoes and other great inventions came from Europe
@@jonathanwilliams1065 no its an grain. Mostly grown as an ornamental because they are an gorgeous plant. But the seeds are an " cereal grain "
"The Potato doesn't care it just adapts" truly the food of humanity
Tell that to the irish lol
@@piesdescalzos27Induced by the British
Potatoes and humans are both great sources of food for microbes.
i went to the comment section for this
r/HFY moment
The food security enjoyed by the Inca was yet another mind-blowing paradigm shift for me. I'd simply assumed that, from the dawn of agriculture to Borlaugh's Green Revolution, famine was a constant in human life. Now I learn that that wasn't the case for some significant chunk of South American history. This channel is really amazing.
It wasn't only the Inca & their predecessors, other native peoples had domesticated plants that were stored for years as surplus in case of shortage. In mid-15th c. Mexico/Tenochtitlan there were foods stored for 7 yrs in case needed, for example.
I'm half Polish. There was a huge increase in the population of Eastern Europe after the potato and the food security it brought.
@@mdj.6179 and Ireland too, of course, before the blight caused mass starvation and exodus. The Irish population vastly expanded thanks to the potato. But clearly due to it being novel, they didn't have the varieties that would have allowed them to avoid the blight. Well, that and the fact that the English refused to give up enough of the wheat grown on English-owned Irish estates to maintain the population.
The Inca were devastated by Smallpox, had no steel, horses, gunpowder and where highly superstitious thinking the world was going to end anytime soon. But they were superior to Europeans in some regards. Agriculture and irrigation was one of them. They literally grew food in mountains.
You were that dumb?
Not just Potatoes we have to thank South America for there's Tomatoes, Peppers, Green Beans, Lima Beans, Pineapples, Strawberries, Pumpkins, Squash, Avocados and probably more that I'm missing.
Quinoa, Amaranth, and last but not at all least, Maize (corn), though that might be more from Central America vs South. Oh and Chocolate from Central America also!
@@kindofsimplereally the origin of the cacao tree is the amazon jungle.
Not strawberries, those were around in ancient Europe
@@esquilax5563it came from Chile
@@RonneWesley the Anglo-Saxons had them, their word for them was streáwbergean
Excellent video! In Peru, potatoes are still with a seven -year fallow period, a period which parasitic nematode worms' eggs cannot survive, a practice that dates backs millennia. Another tactic is the planting of "sacrificial perimeter crops" on the edge of the fields, which lured pests like moths away from where they could do damage. Yet another method, introduced following the Conquest, is to wrap seed potatoes in banana leaves when planting which also protects them from worms.
I always enjoy your comments because I always learn something.
Fascinating!
I've never seen a reason to grow bananas(I'm allergic and I don't find the tree attractive), but that comment just won me over.
@@xerk2945 i never heard of someone allergic to Bananas. There so mild and supple.
@@blenderbanana Many people with latex allergies are also allergic to bananas.
Hard to imagine the modern world being what it is without New World crops like potatoes, corn, and squash. We owe a lot to the people who spent the centuries domesticating these plants.
There are three other New World crops that have had huge impacts upon the rest of the world-- cacao, tomatoes, and tobacco.
Peppers too! The ancient food scientists of the Americas literally revolutionized our modern world
@@gregb6469 corn
@@juanfranciscolizarralde -- Corn is listed in the OP.
My tier list of new world fruit and veg mentioned:
S+: Potato
S: Tomato
A: Paprika, Cacao
B: Squash
C:
D: Corn
F: Tobacco
The adoption of the potato in Europe wasn't helped by the fact that they initially tried eating the leaves and not the tubers.
Yikes. That would have ended poorly.
Nothing like a dose of supercharged pseudonorovirus to brighten your day.. I'm reminded of a certain family guy scene just at both ends...
"I don't wanna, I don't wanna..." 🤮
Edit: Oh, and alkaloid poisoning, which might explain the hallucinations and tremors mentioned.
YIKES. Direct nightshade consumption.
I don't think it was leaves but rather the berries... oops, a really bad idea.
Thats remind me of weird story where someone uses the potato's leaves as substitutes because they unable to procure tobacco leaves.
Every taxi driver in Peru knows that there are (at least) 4,000 varieties of Peruvian potatoes. It's a huge part of Peru's national identity.
In Russian, the sweet potato is called батат (batat), which is from that Spanish term "batata." Potatoes though are called картошка (kartoshka) originally a diminutive of картофель (kartofyel') from German "Kartoffel," which is a corruption of "Tartuffel" from Italian "tartufolo" dim. of "tartufo," from Latin "terrae tūber." As you may guess "tuber" comes from the second of these two words, and the term "truffle" comes from this expression as well, from a path it took through French instead of Italian.
And in Czech we have "brambory", which supposedly comes from "(crop from) Brandenburg/Bramburg", for potatoes, and batát for sweet potatoes.
In Polish, sweet potato is "batat" as well. Ordinary taters are called "ziemniaki" (literally: "earthlings", which is, uh, weird).
@@michaireneuszjakubowski5289 It's "zemáky" or "zemčata" in certain dialects, as well, or "erteple" (from "Erdapfel").
The Quechua natives of Peru call the potato "Papa". That is the name used in the majority of the Americas. Today in Spain, they tend to call it "Patata". In the Caribbean, the Taino natives use to call the sweet potatoe "Batata". So the Spaniards not having a name for it took the Taino name "Batata" for the sweet potato. When they discovered the Andean potato the Spaniards knew what the native name was for the potato (Papa) but it seems some Spaniards either in the Americas or back in Spain decided to call it "Patata" since it resembled the "Batata" (sweet potato) which was decades first known to the Spaniards before the regular potato.
Woweee, that was an epic demonstration of etymological nerdery. I bow before thee.
Very cool! I sometimes think the New World doesn't get the credit they deserve from their agriculture and domestic vegetable technology. Truly one of the biggest impacts in existence
Agreed. It's unfortunate
They did some good developing potatoes and corn, cocoa but in comparison to what the western cultures brought to them with food, textiles, engineering, medicine and Christian law they definitely got the better end of the trade.
@@redstarling5171 What do you mean by christian law? I thought it is the Roman law. Christians brought the Inquisition to certain parts of South America too, besides it helped wipe out many Amerindian cultures due to forceful conversion of many tribes. Pedophilia is another crime well covered by christian churches.
@@redstarling5171 definitely not. Especially with how many people died.
@@redstarling5171 Christian law? Textiles?
We who were not native to Americas will never repay back the gift of potatoes and corn, which revived and healed our already diseased and corrupted worlds. Thank you all our America ancestors, we are grateful for your gifts!
I'm from India. One of the signature dishes of the ethnic community I belong to is a potato curry called 'Batatya Saung'. Potatoes came to India in the 16th-17th centuries with the Portuguese. Of course, other Indian communities have also enthusiastically adopted it, thus giving rise to iconic dishes like the Mutton Dum Biryani, and the Aloo Pyaaz gravy, not to mention breads like the Aloo Paratha. Believe it or not, potato dishes are even prepared on festival days, as well as fasting days!
For people who are interested in topics similar to this, there's an excellent book by Bill Laws called "Fifty Plants that Changed the Course of History". It's wonderfully written and illustrated, and tells a bunch of stories like (and including!) this one!
I'm from California but my mom's Bolivian. Often times she tells me that one of the things she misses most from home is Chuño, because she would grow up eating it and my grandma would always make it for dinner. It was awesome finally hearing a video talking about this part of Bolivian culture. Makes me feel happy to see :) Thanks for making this video!
potatoes aren't bolivian 🙄
@@notyourbusiness8672 Potatoes are from the Andes and Bolivia is in the Andes
@@sanexpreso2944 humans are from the world, and the Marianas trench is in the world so... same logic 🤷♂️
@@notyourbusiness8672 he never said potatoes are from Bolivia.
@@notyourbusiness8672 🤦♂
You should definitely do a video on tomatoes and corn because I feel like those two also impacted the world in a huge way as well
Well lucky for you, I already have a corn video! Check out the maize episode.
My grandmother described what a blessing the potato was. The previous mainstay turnip generally was spoiled well before spring, but the potatoes were good all the way to next summer, if stored well. I personally have minimized my use of fries, maybe just twice per month, and potato chips never. But baked potatoes and mashed potatoes I could eat daily.
It blew my mind the first time I came across my first wild potato. It was in my backyard in Colorado and growing in a somewhat forested area. They were SUPER small. Push comes to shove after doing some research, it was a species of wild potato native to that area called a Four Corners Potato, or Solanum Jamesii (scientific name). It has ties that go way back and is a lesser known staple food of Native American's.
yeah those are toxic unless you cook them properly and leach out the bad stuff
Botanist here, I've been fascinated by all of the topics about the ancient American peoples that you have made videos on (plus more). This one on the potato was quite good. I had often wondered how people dealt with the cardiac glycosides in wild potatoes. My one quibble is that technically potatoe tubers are a kind of specialized stem. You can tell because of the "eyes" on the surface that are buds to produce new shoots. In contrast Sweet Potatoes are actually true fleshy roots, though they can produce adventitious buds on the roots to make new stems after storage. No new world crop remade the old world as much as the potato and you really brought that out. :)
Thank you! Looking at your channel, you definitely know your stuff. I've had a few people point out that the potato is actually the stem instead of the root. That's my mistake.
@@AncientAmericas I've had the good/misfortune to actually ride on a potato harvester (research scale) during graduate school. Very dirty and nasty when we got potatoes with Erwinia rot! I got to see the selection process from modern potato breeding and it is super exacting. Lots of not good enough potato varieties ended up at the food bank. :) My uncle, who is also a professor has been looking into another species of wild potato possibly utilized in the southwest by the ancient cultures there. Though I'm also a big fan of the American pseudograins, quinoa and Amaranth, super nutritive! Anyway I am enjoying your channel during my summer off, hope you can keep up the good work. :)
You should definitely do a video about medicine in the Americas. My aunt is our tribes medicine women and it’s interesting to hear about the different uses plants have
That does sound like a really cool topic!
so many medical answers found in nature. For tribes they were shamans; in the west it was alchemy.
Look into tocosh is a type of rotten potateo it is being study as not lactic antibiotic.
You should file patents on those medicines.
@@mrbaab5932 "medicine"
Ah yes, Potatoes.
They can be cooked and eaten now, or distilled and drank later. Truly, a wonder vegetable.
Free fuel
Thank you South America - I can’t say it enough - mashed potato and butter has always been behind my greatest inspirations - such as they are.
I always ask my mom to make mashed potatoes, no gravy needed!
No problem friend, the New Worlds crops are the gift of south america to the world
Thank you Peru* 🙂
@@entoropy ¿Gracias a un país criollo? Gracias a la zona andina.
@@L.P.1987 sigue la tradición de las papas y el Perú es el centro de miles de variedades de papas así que sí gracias al Perú por dar papas al mundo!
As a teenager, I was put on a medically mandated high-potassium diet. This led directly to my whole family learning a lot of potato and sweet potato recipes, and I have to thank the ancient people who domesticated those two wonderfully healthy crops.
Potatoes, Tomatoes, Cocoa, Pineapple, Cassava are from South America. Corn and vanilla is from Central/North America. Those are used around the world.
From a 1848 Czech botanical encyclopedia: "We have uncountable varieties as to their shape, colour and quality. This plant is the biggest boon of the discovery of America for the human kind. Thanks to it it is not possible anymore for general famine to pester human species which have ample descriptions in the chronicles when all our hope was spent on grain, so delicate to the climate and so failing; at such times the ground berries (potatoes) bring great harvests and cause that the unfortunate people from the clutches of famine is saved. (...) They are also used to make alcohol."
It is much more lovely in the archaic sounding 19th century Czech.
Hey, I love your channel. I graduated in 2020 with a degree in anthropology so watching all these videos brings back memories from North American and South American archaeology. Its honestly my favorite region to learn about.
Thank you!
Great video. Also, sweet potatoes found in the Pacific and Southeast Asia help theorize (with other ethnobotanical findings) there was contact or even an exchange complex between these cultures way before europeans arrived
I love this channel. Seeing my beautiful and beloved South America being shown to people is really nice
The extent of our debt to indigenous people is enormous. Potatoes, manioc/cassava: all poisonous in the beggining, becoming safe after domestication.
One other thing, potatoes went up the Pacific in a very interesting way. The Spanish that mapped the Pacific Northwest in the late 18th century had some Peruvian connections (Quimper expedition I think) even though they sailed from San Blas and introduced potatoes there accidentally when they made gardens for their fortifications, but then abandoned the gardens. The Haida, Makah, Nuuchahnulth etc. took over these gardens and enjoyed the tuber before Europeans were ready to embrace it. This actually resulted in one of the oldest heirloom varieties of potatoes in North America, one that never went across the Atlantic to Europe before being brought over to the eastern U.S. and prairies...
Also, I didn't know about potato having a large role in population growth in East Asia! I'll have to dig into this. Did you read about potatoes specifically in relation to this or was it in reference to general Dutch-introduced crops? I mean cassava/tapioca, sweet potato/kumara, maize seem to feature more readily in the Chinese regional cuisines that I'm familiar with, and I remember seeing this piece on how the contemporary Chinese government trying to get Chinese people to more readily embrace potato as a starch source. In my grandma's generation, people seemed to think of potato as more a vegetable than a starch, and you can see that in also the way potato is used in northern Chinese cuisine (often cooked al dente and stir fried or combined with vegetables...), which is where it is more commonly used.
Yes, I believe it's from the history of the potato book if you check the bibliography.
Charles C Mann has a chapter on the importance of the potato in China in his book *1493*. It was pretty important for people in the SE mountains, not just in the north.
The vegetable vs starch thing regarding potatoes is something that you see in a lot of China, and in Vietnam too. Some of my friends here tell Vietnamese folks, "Potatoes are Western people's rice," when they are offering us end of the meal rice to go with a set of dishes that already included a bunch of potatoes.
The potato is known as Gai-Imo “foreign tuber” in Japanese - The Japanese would have acquired along with tobacco by the Spanish by trading their silver (i have heard that much , if not the majority, of the world’s silver used as currency in middle ages was actually from Japan)
@UC520BcBVEICW_I8Z3j4cUKw They would not have to necessarily come directly from Peru. Much was done with collecting guano with blackbirded tribals from around the Pacfic Rim fir example.. or of transfer of cargo in Tahiti or Hawai’i then onto Puget or Alaska. Just saying. less likely but possible as well over time and successive trading from tribe to tribe up along the coast...
like the trade between shells, tobacco & corn on the east coast to Caribbean or MesoAmerica..
I dated a Peruvian person, and their grandmas recipes 🤤🤤🤤🤤🤤 oh my god
The bit where you explain the root of our word "jerky" elicited a spontaneous vocal cuss from me. Very cool!
You should do an episode strictly on this food preservation in South America
Potato monoculture was the doom of Ireland. Peruvian farmers knew this about the Potato for centuries. Multiple fields at various altit altitudes growing various types of potatoes made these people immune to any one crop disease.
true but the active role of the British empire in the famine also cannot be overstated. Forced exports were continued for a long time as it worsened
Starch rules everything around me... By the way, I've had white chuno too, but very simply prepared in a stew! Did you taste hay/funkiness in your dish? Very un-potato like in taste, was a bit of an acquired taste for me haha. Also, I didn't think to look into comparing how well potatoes store compared to other tubers! What's most interesting to me, however, is that potatoes, even if they can be stored longer than other tubers in terms of months, are stored/prepared to allow them to be stored at time lengths comparable to GRAIN, which are stored for years on end. Jerky aside, why isn't the process of making chuno done for any other tuber varieties, I wonder? Or maybe I need to do some digging...
That's a good question. I'm not sure. Let me know if you find an answer!
In ancient times, sweet potato and other crops like avocado were dried as a form of preservation, because their remains have been unearthed at archaeological sites like Pachacamac, Cueva Tres Ventanas and Ocucaje, to name a few. See the online pdf article "Archaeological Remains of Potato and Sweet Potato in Peru" - (Ugent & Petersen 1988)
@@GringoLoco Dried avocado! That's something I didn't know about. I'll have to look into this...
Also I'm guessing with this video, Ancient Americas must now do a video on kumara/sweet potato too. That's too juicy a topic to pass up, especially the linguistics element to it.
@@atlasaltera the linguistics connected to the sweet potato's voyage across the Pacific isnt restricted just to its name, a Peruvian historian called José Antonio del Busto wrote a book about a purported voyage by Inca ruler Tupac Yupanqui to Polynesia, where he documented dozens of Quechua words were still in use on one island.
Absolutely AMAZING. The best video on your channels. All I can say is, "More, Please..."
Thank you!
Always a joy to see a new upload from this channel
Always a joy to see such appreciation!
There's a dark side to it all too: the World Wars would probably not be possible without potatoes. In the Old World before the potato there were no effective war-time supply lines of food for the armies. Armies instead had to plunder the granaries of occupied enemy land, which lead to widespread starvation, often among the occupiers themselves as they ran out of food.
After the adaption of potatoes however the armies of Europe got their food steadily supplied from the home country, and thus making armies more effective which prolonged and made wars much worse. Which you can see as early as in the Napoleonic wars. Maybe the potatoes lead to the agressive warring European empires of the 19th and 20 centuries, as well as they lead to the war-prone Inca state. The Inca state also featured the same planned economy such as 20th century empires. So this is maybe the kind of world the potato gives us!
Intresting thought
Very true armies march on their stomachs.
wow nice perspective
damn you potato!!
... Why exatcly is that.
Potato is not the only vegetable suitable for armies
Great video. Here in Brasil, especially in Northeast, we have CHARQUE (jerkey) meat. The word too derive from the quechua word for dried meat. But here we use a ton of salt too.
And adding another fact. The word CHARQUE,used in Northeast of Brasil, actually came from the south, where the native people already called the dried meat, CHARQUE. And this people, like the charruas, learned this word, probably by the Andean people's.
@@rodrigochiberio5472 there was trade up and down the Amazon, the Inca would eat fruit and fish from the Amazon basin and shellfish from the Brazilian coast have been found in burials , so I’d say your right I’d also say the cultural exchange was probably two way
Charque is the southern counterpart, the northeastern one is Sun meat, carne de sol
@@EddieRF_33 oi Eddie. Existe charque, existe carne de sol e carne seca. São três produtos com três formas diferentes de se fazer. Embora claro, similares.
@@angryatheist absolutely right 💪🏽
"What is a potato?"
DUDE how you gonna just start the video with a philosophical bombshell like that?
Whoops. Looks like I did.
Eagerly awaiting your next video, AA. I really enjoy them.
Thank you! There will be a new one this week so stay tuned!
Love the content. This reminds me of Jack Rutherford's book "Indian Givers." It talks about a lot of common staples that were original to the Americas. Not only different foods, but medicines, forms of government...the list goes on. Well done!
Thank you!
I remember reading that a study showed that most varieties of potatoes cultivated nowadays come from the Chilean island of Chiloé.
Love this episode thank you so very much for sharing so now I’m subscribing to you
Thank you!
what a fantastic channel. thank you
Thank you!
this is a terrible thing to watch half hour before lunch, as I'm now terribly hungry for potatoes.
My apologies.
I never get tired of videos like this one. I've watched so many videos about the food that came from the Americas. and I'm about to enjoy another!
You should look into making a video on sunflowers I've seen a few videos on them but rarely any really well put together ones. There's one from a woman who was outside for the most part and while informative I wish she had done the audio inside as I could hear the wind constantly cover her voice. There's so many cool videos online but I really enjoy this channel covering all the cool historical lore of the Americas. 😊
Thank you. I don't think I'd do an entire episode to the sunflower because I'd probably lump it into a video about the entire Eastern Agricultural Complex.
@@AncientAmericas That sounds awesome! I'd totally watch it! There's probably so much more even I don't know about the entire eastern agricultural system.
Thank you! What a fascinating episode :)
Thank you!
Excellently put together video which I use in my online English courses. Thank you!
Thank you!
2:57 “The Botany of Desire” writer spoke about potatoes being packed with almost all the nutrients needed to survive… it’s just missing vitamin D; making mashed potatoes (with milk) is the ultimate comfort and survival food.
They also don't have vitamin B12 (unsurprising, as the only natural sources of vitamin B12 are animal-source foods), and only have negligible amounts of some other nutrients like calcium. Still, a remarkably healthy tuber.
Do you ever plan on doing a video on the Cassava plant? It's a incredibly important plant here in Brazil, and it was spread by the Portuguese to Africa and Asia. It's a extremely important crop in many tropical country
It's on my list so hopefully I'll get to it someday.
Oh man, south and central americam food culture and archeology is my favorite niche history topic! I could give an hour long ted talk on potatoes, tomatoes, corn, and pepers without any prep!
Another grear video by Ancient Amaricas ! We also love potatoes, what a remarkable background 😮
Thank you!
Yes! I love the history of all the food indigenous to North and South America. Potatoes, corn, tomatoes, chocolate, etc
How about an episode on one of the continents less universally loved exports, tobacco, coca or psychedelics?
Love the channel BTW, keep up the good work!
I got plenty of plants on the list so don't you worry. And thank you!
@@AncientAmericas Did you read the book
"Lost Crops of the Incas: Little-Known Plants of the Andes with Promise for Worldwide Cultivation" from 1989?
Also, are any videos on agriculture systems of pre-Columbian america, like on waffle gardens or Chinampa
psychedelics as you say we're not used recreationally, they were used medicinally. Also none of these were exported, they were exploited by the colonial powers.
I'm excited for the Americas and food series
Just being transparent here but the next food episode probably isn't coming for awhile.
Thanks again. Great episode.
Thank you!
I love potatoes. I write haikus about them. Here's a couple:
Hammurusset:
An eye for an eye
Isn’t a valid justice at all
When you have many
Platato:
Object of my dreams
Perfectly round potato
Only a figment
A poet you are!
The potato along with the development of the rule of law and property rights are thought to be major reasons why the Industrial Revolution happened in Europe and the US first. The potato as a highly nutritious plant supplementing diets saw the European population balloon in the 1700 and 1800s which caused rapid urbanization. Urbanization is the most dynamic force in industrialization as people interact and collaborate allowing ideas and innovation to flourish. We always remember individual inventors but forgot how much they learned and collaborated with other innovators and geniuses of their time.
The term you're looking for is "nicked other peoples ideas".
Keep the specifics of your inventions close to the chest. Then patent them, which is the “property rights” that incentivized the Industrial Revolution.
The closing off of land to common people, stripping them of their ancient rights to access land for grazing and growing crops is the reason rapid urbanisation occurred, because people were starving in the country due to the fact they had no way to get their own food anymore and we have been dependent on the teats of elites ever since
@@rosiehawtrey spiteful mutant detected
Potatoes make us horny?
I guess.... I haven't said it as.....as often as I should have, and, uh, well.....thanks South America. You gave me some pretty awesome meals over the years with that spud. Especially with the garlic, and the sour cream 'n' dill. You're pretty amazing South America.
i love your channel so much. You’re a great resource for english speakers who are trying to learn.
Thank you!
You could have shown me that picture of Alta Plano and told me it was Idaho. No wonder they're famous for potatoes, it's like being home for them. Lol
Normally I don't consider genetic heritage as a worthwhile category for non-medical purposes, favoring cultural and societal identity and status, however I make an exception now (A joking exception of course):
My grandmother's family is quechua (an Andean cultural-linguistic-ethno group,) and I feel that I deserve praise for my people's hand in the domestication and proliferation of potatoes. Cue the applause!
Today, all the applause is yours!
Thanking your ancestors for potato, both the vegetable and the funny word for them.
I live in Ecuador..our potatoes are fabulous !!!! My favorite is the small Chaucha
awesome stuff like always!
Thanks portal!
Boil 'em, smash 'em, stick 'em in a stew
I literally just sat down to eat French fries because I have had a craving! skal!!
Niiice video!
You should also make one about Tomato and Cacao 👍👍👍
Thank you!
Great video
Thank you!
You can even make pasta with potatoes, that's so cool
Gnocchi anyone?
@@AncientAmericas exatly
Here, in Peru, when going to the local market choosing the correct variety of potatoe is difficult. I have to ask my mom which is the appropriate; for example, yesterday my girlfriend and I prepared causa and my mom said we could use whether papa amarilla or papa wayro. When in the market I didn't know which were wayro and amarilla
La papa amarilla normalente es mas redonda que la "comun", igual le preguntas a tu casera por papa amarilla y altoque sabe cual es
Great channel
Thank you!
Thank you for your potatoe knowledge.
You're welcome!
I didn’t expect someone not socialized to chuños to like them. Most people unfamiliar with the flavor don’t like it once they taste it.
Fun fact: we call ‘sweet potatoes’ ‘camote’ in Bolivia. I don’t know exactly where that name comes from, but ‘batata’ sounds so weird to me, and I think in all of Spanish-speaking America we call ‘potatoes’ ‘papa’ and it’s only called ‘patata’ in Spain :P
Camote is a Nahuatl word but in Quechua and Aymara it was called kumara or misk’y papa
@@waytakaq qué locura que el nombre camote llegara hasta el centro de Sudamérica y sea su nombre más común. Gracias por la información
What does chuño taste like? I'm really curious, and don't know of any way to get hold of some to try.
@@slwrabbits sadly, it’s difficult to describe, as it has a really particular taste. I could say that it kind of has the texture of a soft carrot, and a taste that maybe some people could classify as closer to the taste of some medicine than to that of any food they have ever eaten(?)
When I was writing my BA thesis on the rise of Prussia , I came across some economic studies that had some very interesting data on the impact potato farming had. It was very suited to the harsh weather and the marshy land of especially Pomerania and in general the whole of the Baltic coast.
Fantastic episode.
Thank you!
Amazing. I was equally fascinated when I learned that the seemingly iconic Italian tomato sauce was not a classical recipe because it came from the new world. Absolutely never would have guessed that the potato too was a new world crop.
As a vegan I am incredibly grateful that potatos exist lol. It became my meat replacement haha. They're amazing.
You can take color photos with them too.. Technology connections.
As a microbe I am upset that you murder my kin in your acidic gut. See a video of a microbe fleeing a white blood cell. They don't want to die.
Yeah they dont have protein boss
@@anon-iraq2655 They most definitely do have protein.
@@gg3675 negligeble amounts
The popular belief is that the Incas domesticated potatoes but it was not so, the Incas were only the culmination of the Andean civilizations, before the Incas there were many civilizations and cultures that domesticated and improved the use of all types of potatoes such as the Chavin, the Moche, the Nazca, the Wari etc ...
Very interesting content. Thank you:) new subscriber
Thank you!
wonderful video dude ; thanks =]
Thank you!
The issue is at least in modern times the “domestic potato” is not really grown in Peru :: In some portuguese/spanish texts the domestic potato came from island/tribe in southern Chile, this island was also known/used for much hardwood lumber to repair the ships and galleons thus also acquiring the potato .... As for geophagy this is very commonly employed by far eastern asian tribes like Ainu or Nivkh using various clays and and/or ashes. Also in modern japan some wild foods are first parboiled in water with lime or baking soda before properly boiling/cooking with normal water, etc (various bracken ferns for example)...
That is true. Potatoes are from Chile and domesticated in Chile, then the Incas took them to Cuzco.
The books I had pointed to Peru but people in Chile were definitely enjoying it early on as well.
@@ernesttorres4059 “The Incas” appeared in South America in the XII/XIII century … Potatoes have been cultivated in Peru thousands of years B.C. … conclusion: The Incas were not the people that first cultivated potatoes in Peru, let alone “took them” from Chile to be cultivated somewhere else …
@@ernesttorres4059 no existía chile en ese tiempo, ni peru
It's also apparently practiced in America:
th-cam.com/video/hQD9-FBs2qQ/w-d-xo.html
I hosted a guest.. who explained that.. "The potato is not in the bible and therefore is not food." He claims that.. "Since the potato is not food, then consuming it leads to corruption and failure like in Ireland."
But who am I to judge? I like mine baked and loaded ..with pulled pork barbecue.
That's a pretty bizarre way to approach food but whatever floats the proverbial boat I suppose.
The best way to deal with that kind of person involves a Gatling cannon in 37x95mm Hotchkiss ranged and zeroed to 300yds. Its also the approved method for Christian Missionaries, Jehovahs Witnesses and Prohibitionists..
Alternatively you could send him to Belfast and tell him they all want to hear his manifesto down the local pub that doesn't have carpets .. He'd have the life expectancy of a chocolate fireguard...
There are a ton of foods not mentioned in the Bible. If you ate only foods found in the bible you are limited to pretty much pork, beef, mutton, venison, bread, milk, honey, fish and misc grains. Those grains don't include rice or maize either because those aren't mentioned in the Bible either. If you are REALLY going biblical then pork should be off the menu as well and you would keep kosher. Yes I know later on it was decided that Christians didn't have to keep kosher. But if you a fanatic enough to base your diet only to what is found in the bible then might as well keep kosher as it is the ONLY dietary restrictions found in the Bible.
@@maiqtheliar789 I dont.
Yeah I know. I was talking about your guest. Just seems like an odd thing to base a diet on.
I remember visiting parque de la papa in Peru and seeing so many different types of potatoes that I didn’t know existed. Like the potatoes were all sorts of colors and some were even purple in the inside. Most importantly they were delicious I ate so many types of potatoes that day until I could no longer eat. I think I ate a 11 1/2 whole potatoes. If any of you visit or are from Peru I recommend trying all the potatoes
Great info on the potato…now, I’m going to bake me one for lunch 😋
Thank you! Enjoy your lunch!
Great video. As exciting as it is to find hidden artifacts and treasure, the real important contribution of the new world to the old world is foodstuffs like potatoes, tomatoes, peanuts, beans, yams, peanuts and maize.
...and avocado, pumpkin, chocolate, and vanilla.
@@ernesttorres4059 I knew about Avocado, pumpkin and chocolate-but Vanilla as well?? I did not know that, Thanks!
@@pimpompoom93726 chilis also
@@davidjoelsson4929 Don't forget the chili beans.
@@ernesttorres4059 Yeah, we can't forget the chili peppers and chili beans! European food was bland until they started importing Mesoamerican spices. I can't imagine life without my salsa! The Spanish concentrated mainly on precious metals, but the impact of all these foodstuffs on European history post-Columbian is infinitely greater than all the gold/silver wealth brought back in the Galleons. Man always focuses on the wrong things, throughout our history.
Interestingly, the French peasantry really took to the potato as well because they discovered it to be an excellent food source during times of invasion. Since the edible part grew underground, potato crops were difficult to trample and no invading army in their right mind would dare stop to dig them up and risk leaving themselves vulnerable to attack.
The nightshade leaves hid them from thieves and scavengers too, folks wouldn’t dare touch the poison plant when there’s onions and carrots to pinch.
I'm from Peru and here we have over 3000 differents types of potatoes. They're used in different preparations from Papa Rellena to Papa con Queso.
Any type of Andean potatoes and variations are great. Interesting fact is the the Inka Thupaq Yupanqi brought potatoes to Polynesia.
Thank you Chile for giving potatoes to the world.
Peru is your motherland
Excellent video! How did I know the country that you were going to mention was China haha. When I was there potatoes and corn were always present in all vegetable soups I had. I got a kick out of the pun you made 😂
Thank you! Who doesn't love potatoes?
@@AncientAmericas Monsanto. Potatoes are their kryptonite
This is my favorite video ever
wonderful video, please talk about kuhikugu civilization.
They are on my list but I have no clue when I'll get to it.
Amazing! I love this kind of video! Avocado, tomato or pawpaw (might be to obscure) would be cool in the future. Someone probably said this but the intro reminded me of Bubba from forest gump talking about shrimp. Also it's great to see stuff about Andean agriculture and a video about Inca food storage and maybe terrraced farming would be awesome.
Thank you! There will definitely be other food/plant topics in the future so fear not.
The Finnish work for potato is “Peruna”, as they recognized potatoes originated from Peru. Carapulcra is another Incan/Peruvian Creole dish made from reconstituted dried potatoes and meat.
That dish sounds good.
Que rico la carapulcra
Loved it! Thank you
You're welcome!
I just love you so much man. Whenever your videos come in I'm just so excited. The quality is always amazing, but I just really admire the type of subjects you choose to cover. Thank you so much for lifting my day up
Thank you for the lovely comment and for lifting my day up!
Peruvian Potatos, love my country, i hate the politicans of my country, i love my potatos 🇵🇪❤️
Y las palomas?
@@msergio0293 Tambien mano, con su papas, uff aun mas rico
Tu país fue creado por y para esos políticos que odias. ¿Crees que realmente las poblaciones que hoy son Perú se habrían unido para formar un país voluntariamente?
@@L.P.1987 Es culpa de la gente y la incapacidad del pueblo y los gobernantes por lo que este pais esta asi, al igual que media Hispanoamerica, lo de los pueblos originarios es la historia que se repite en varias de las actuales naciones en el mundo
@@krov. Es culpa del país en sí, ya que fue diseñado con ciertos intereses, motivo por el cual le cuesta tanto "cambiar" no solo a nivel económico, sino también social, cultural y claro, político.
La mayoría de peruanos actuales tienen abuelos o padres inmigrantes andinos que ni siquiera eran tan patriotas del Perú, debido a que fue un país que se diseño sin ellos y que encima les afectó negativamente.
Si ahora las zonas populosas abrazan con más pasión al Perú no es porque los ricos sean pecho-fríos, sino es una consecuencia subconsciente del clientelismo político propio del periodo de la "cholificación" contra las clases populares: tú me brindas tu apoyo para mi proyecto político y yo te permito ocupar (a.k.a. invadir) estos territorios circundantes de la ciudad.
Y mejor ni hablemos de los selváticos que ninguno de los símbolos patrios los representa realmente o siquiera los visibiliza, a pesar de que su territorio conforma la mayoría territorial e incluso sufrieron DOS genocidios: el del Putumayo y el matsé.
A mi me gusta mucho la cultura andina y considero como complemento enriquecedor todo lo demás: lo afrodescendiente, asiático, europeo y de la Luna también si quieres, pero no soy patriota de una farsa. Mucho le echan la culpa a los españoles o a los ingleses, pero con el mero hecho de conocer que los quechuas pasaron del 60% de la población al 15% entre los siglos XX y XXI ya te hace suponer que la culpa está en manos de otros...
Potatoes are hands down my favorite food
damn bro great vid I subscribed
Thank you!
Hey Ancient Americas I think you would really like the channels Robert Sepehr and Universe Inside You. They talk about a lot of things but Ancient Civz in the Americas is a big one. Really enjoy your videos btw, keep up the great work!
Thank you!