What do you think about when the cashier says “do you want fries with your burger”? Most of us will answer in concert with our level of hunger at the time. However, for a few historians it might lead to a long series of memories.
Some, who can claim Native American ancestry, might remember that the first known potatoes were discovered when the Spanish conquered Peru. They took them back to Spain, especially when that particular explorer didn’t find gold or silver. Europe back in those times did not have abundant food sources.
The potato got off to a rather bad start in Europe. They were banned from court for a while in Queen Elizabeth’s England because the cooks served boiled stems and leaves. That is the poisonous part. It is the roots that are edible. Any one who has grown potatoes can tell you to dig up the roots, wash them off and cook those lumpy brown things.
Even so, in France and other parts of Europe they were often considered food for hogs not people. We can thank the Prussians and the Seven Years War, European version, for our current use of potatoes. When a Frenchman named Parmentier was captured in that war by the Prussians, they forced him to eat potatoes. He grew to like them. Eventually, the war was over and he got to go home.
That was in a tumultuous time in France. They were having a Flour War and moving toward a revolution. The war was actually a series of riots about the high price of flour and bread.
Seems the folks who ate bread thought those who made and sold it charged way to much.. They rioted and took it, to their credit they often left what they considered a “fair price”.. We need more rioters like that.
Well Parmentier got the King to let him start PR campaign to make potatoes popular. One thing he did was convince Marie Antoinette of “let them eat cake” fame to wear potato blossoms in her hair. This took care of the cake eaters if the fashion was potato blossoms you needed to grow potatoes.
Next he put a guard around his potato garden making folks believe there was something of value there. Then ever so often he would give the guards the night off and the farmers the night on. They would sneak some so they could grow that valuable plant.. Potatoes slowly became popular food.
All that was left was for the Belgium’s to invent their way of frying them.. Some American soldiers discovered them in WWI. They did but thought they were French fries because that part of Belgium speaks French not Flemish. They brought them home and with a few more details the “Do you want fries with that?” question became ubiquitous.
That is just part of the history of the potato while it flashes through a historians mind before they say “Yes I do”.
