99 Fun Facts About Hard Potato

The first written mention of the potato is a 1567 delivery receipt from the Canary Islands to which port?

The earliest known written record of the potato is a 1567 receipt for a shipment from Las Palmas de Gran Canaria to Antwerp; a 1574 shipment from Tenerife reached Rouen.

The Taíno word batata, source of the English word via Spanish patata, originally meant which crop?

The two crops are unrelated: the sweet potato belongs to the morning glory family, while the potato is a nightshade.

The cultivated potato Solanum tuberosum is a tetraploid with how many chromosomes?

Solanum tuberosum has 48 chromosomes, four sets of the base number 12; diploid relatives such as S. phureja have 24 and the pentaploid S. curtilobum has 60.

Potatoes were first domesticated in the highlands around which South American lake?

Potatoes were domesticated near Lake Titicaca on the Peru-Bolivia altiplano some 7,000 to 10,000 years ago, from wild species of the Solanum brevicaule complex.

Chuño, the Andean freeze-dried potato, is made by leaving potatoes out for three nights at what temperature?

Chuño is made at around minus 5 °C: June and July nights on the altiplano above 3,800 metres freeze the tubers, and the daytime sun then dries them over several days.

White chuño, made by washing the frozen potatoes for about a week, is known in Bolivia by what name?

White chuño is called tunta in Bolivia and moraya in Peru; the frozen tubers are soaked in river pools for about a week and then sun-dried, giving the pale product.

North America's earliest certain potato crop was planted in New Hampshire in 1719 by settlers from which town?

The settlers were Ulster Scots from Derry (Londonderry) who founded Londonderry, New Hampshire, in 1719; their planting is the earliest well-documented potato crop in North America, hence 'Irish potato'.

Which monarch's 1756 Potato Edict ordered peasants to grow the crop?

Frederick the Great of Prussia issued the Kartoffelbefehl on 24 March 1756 ordering the crop planted; legend says he posted guards on fields so peasants would covet the potatoes.

Where did Parmentier guard his potato patch by day and leave it open at night so people would steal from it?

Parmentier's 1786 field lay at Sablons, near Paris, on the Plaine des Sablons at Neuilly, granted by Louis XVI; guards by day and none at night tempted locals to steal the tubers.

Which two famous guests attended Parmentier's potato-themed dinners in Paris?

Benjamin Franklin and Antoine Lavoisier dined at Parmentier's 1780s potato dinners, where every course was built on the tuber; Franklin was then the American envoy in Paris.

In which year did the Paris Faculty of Medicine finally declare potatoes edible?

The Paris Faculty of Medicine declared potatoes edible in 1772, largely through Parmentier's advocacy; resistance persisted, and the religious order that owned the Invalides land later closed his test garden there.

By approximately what factor did France's annual potato crop grow between 1815 and 1840?

The crop grew roughly fivefold, from about 21 million hectolitres in 1815 to 117 million in 1840, as the potato moved from gardens into field rotations across France.

In early modern Europe, the potato yielded roughly how many times the calories per acre of grain?

Potatoes yielded roughly 3 times the calories per acre of grain crops and tolerated poorer soils and wetter climates, which is why the tuber displaced bread among Europe's rural poor.

A 2014 study concluded that the late-blight organism Phytophthora infestans originated in which country's highlands?

The A2 mating type stayed confined to Mexico's Toluca Valley until the 1970s. Only in Mexico and Scandinavia do the two mating types regularly form winter-hardy oospores.

Who discovered the A2 mating type of potato blight in the Toluca Valley in the 1950s?

John Niederhauser, working for the Rockefeller Foundation's Mexican Agricultural Program, found the A2 mating type in Mexico's Toluca Valley in the 1950s; he won the 1990 World Food Prize.

Which wild hexaploid potato species has been the main source of late-blight resistance in modern breeding?

Solanum demissum, a hexaploid wild potato of the Mexican highlands, supplied the R1 to R11 late-blight resistance genes that breeders crossed into cultivated potatoes through the twentieth century.

Which waxy Irish potato variety's vulnerability to blight is blamed for the scale of the 1840s famine?

The Lumper, a waxy, high-yielding but watery variety, dominated Irish smallholdings, so when Phytophthora infestans arrived in 1845 there was almost no genetic diversity to slow its spread.

Which Native American nation sent $170 for Irish famine relief in 1847, honoured by the sculpture Kindred Spirits?

The Choctaw sent $170 in 1847, only sixteen years after their own forced removal on the Trail of Tears; Alex Pentek's Kindred Spirits, nine steel eagle feathers, stands in Midleton, County Cork.

Roughly what share of the Irish who sailed to Canada in 1847 died of disease and malnutrition?

About one in five of the roughly 100,000 Irish who sailed to Canada in 1847 died at sea or soon after landing; more than 5,000 are buried at the Grosse Île quarantine station on the St Lawrence.

Which Treasury official running Irish famine relief said small farmers leaving could bring a 'satisfactory settlement'?

Charles Trevelyan, Assistant Secretary to the Treasury, ran relief on laissez-faire lines, limiting food aid so public-works wages would draw imports; the government abandoned that policy in January 1847 and opened soup kitchens.

Which city gave the first large foreign donation to Irish famine relief in 1846, about £14,000?

Calcutta's Irish Relief Fund raised about £14,000 in 1846, largely from Irish soldiers and East India Company employees; Queen Victoria personally gave £2,000 and Pope Pius IX also sent money.

Which South American potato did Chauncey Goodrich import, starting the Russet Burbank lineage?

Rough Purple Chili, obtained by Goodrich from Panama in 1851, gave rise to his Garnet Chili; Albert Bresee bred Early Rose from that, and Luther Burbank selected his seedling from Early Rose in the early 1870s.

At which Canadian institution was the Yukon Gold potato developed?

Gary Johnston bred Yukon Gold at the University of Guelph in Ontario, making the cross in 1966 with Agriculture Canada; the yellow-fleshed variety was released in 1980.

Maris Piper, released in 1966, was one of the first potatoes bred to resist which pest?

Maris Piper carries the H1 gene for resistance to the potato cyst nematode, found by Conrad Ellenby in an Andean potato; Harold Howard's Plant Breeding Institute team in Cambridge released the variety in 1966.

The King Edward potato of 1902 was originally bred by a Northumberland gardener under what name?

The variety was raised in Northumberland as Fellside Hero; Lincolnshire grower John Butler bought it and renamed it King Edward to mark Edward VII's 1902 coronation, reputedly with Buckingham Palace's permission.

Jersey Royals trace to about 1878, when Hugh de la Haye planted a large potato with how many eyes?

De la Haye cut a potato with 15 eyes into pieces and planted them; one plant yielded the kidney-shaped tubers dubbed the Jersey Royal Fluke, the International Kidney variety that holds a Protected Designation of Origin.

BASF's genetically modified Amflora potato was engineered to produce starch made almost entirely of what?

Amflora's starch is almost pure amylopectin: antisense RNA silences granule-bound starch synthase, the enzyme that makes amylose, yielding a starch prized for paper and adhesives; the EU approved it in 2010.

In which Oregon town near the Idaho border was Ore-Ida founded in 1949?

Brothers Nephi and Golden Grigg rented a frozen-food plant in Ontario, Oregon, in 1949 and turned it to potatoes; the Ore-Ida name joins Oregon and Idaho, whose border runs beside the town.

Solanine, the potato's natural toxin, was first isolated in 1820 from the berries of which plant?

Solanine was first isolated in 1820 by Desfosses from the berries of the European black nightshade, Solanum nigrum, and was named after the genus; toxic doses are about 2 to 5 mg per kilogram of body weight.

Which 1817 London bestseller has the earliest known recipe for potato chips?

William Kitchiner's The Cook's Oracle, published in London in 1817, gives the earliest known recipe, 'potatoes fried in slices or shavings', decades before the 1853 Saratoga Springs legend of George Crum.

Which Irish company produced the world's first seasoned crisps, cheese and onion, in 1954?

Tayto, founded in Dublin by Joe 'Spud' Murphy in 1954, developed cheese and onion with employee Seamus Burke; it is widely credited as the world's first seasoned crisp, and rival makers bought the technique.

Frank Smith's 1920s crisp company sold its product in greaseproof bags with what tucked inside?

Smith's Crisps, started by Frank Smith in Cricklewood in 1920, packed a twist of salt in blue paper inside each greaseproof bag so buyers could season the unflavoured crisps themselves.

Belgian frites are traditionally cooked twice in which fat?

Belgian frites are traditionally fried twice in beef tallow, sold as blanc de boeuf or ossewit: a first fry at a lower temperature cooks them through, then a hotter second fry crisps them.

Jo Gérard claimed a 1781 manuscript proved Meuse valley locals fried potatoes before 1680 as a substitute for what?

Gérard said the 1781 manuscript showed villagers of Namur and Dinant fried potatoes cut like small fish, when the rivers froze over and fishing stopped; he never produced the document, and the claim is widely doubted.

Why did Hasbro start including a plastic potato body with Mr. Potato Head in 1964?

Complaints about rotting vegetables and new safety rules drove the 1964 change: the original 1952 kit was only pins and plastic parts to push into a real potato, so Hasbro added a plastic body.

Which accessory did Mr. Potato Head carry from 1952 until 1987?

Mr. Potato Head carried a pipe from 1952 until 1987, when Hasbro retired it at a ceremony with Surgeon General C. Everett Koop as part of the Great American Smokeout anti-smoking campaign.

Why did tater tots sell slowly when Ore-Ida first offered them in stores in 1956?

They were priced too low to seem worth buying: shoppers saw no value in a cheap bag of potato scraps, and sales rose after Ore-Ida raised the price; the Griggs had made tots from fry offcuts.

Which P&G chemist designed the Pringles chip and can, only to be pulled off the project?

Baur could not make them taste good; Alexander Liepa fixed the flavour and got the patent. Pringles launched in 1968 as 'Newfangled Potato Chips'.

In which state were Pringles first sold in 1968?

Pringles were test-marketed in Evansville, Indiana, where a newspaper advertised them as 'New at Kroger' in October 1968; they reached most of the US by 1975 and went international in 1991.

Where did Herman Lay open the snack operation in 1932 that grew into Lay's?

Herman Lay started in Nashville, Tennessee, in 1932 as a snack distributor, selling from his car across the South; he bought Atlanta's Barrett Food Company in 1938, and the Frito merger came in 1961.

Van Gogh painted The Potato Eaters in 1885 while living with his parents in which Dutch town?

Van Gogh painted The Potato Eaters in April 1885 in Nuenen, North Brabant, where he lived at his father's parsonage; the finished canvas hangs in the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam.

What does Graben mean in Röstigraben, the Swiss German-French cultural divide?

Graben means ditch or trench, so Röstigraben is the 'rösti ditch' dividing German-speaking Switzerland, where the fried potato cake was a Bernese farmers' breakfast, from the French-speaking Romandie.

Hasselback potatoes take their name from a Stockholm restaurant whose name means what?

Hasselbacken means hazel slope (hassel, hazel; backe, slope), the Stockholm restaurant where trainee chef Leif Elison served the fanned potatoes in 1953; Jenny Åkerström's 1929 cookbook had a similar recipe.

The word latke traces back through Yiddish and East Slavic to an Ancient Greek word meaning what?

That fits Hanukkah, when the potato pancakes are fried in oil. In Hebrew they are levivot, 'little hearts'.

The International Potato Center in Lima is known by which acronym, taken from its Spanish name?

CIP stands for Centro Internacional de la Papa, founded in Lima by Peruvian decree in 1971 with Richard Sawyer as founding director; it is one of the CGIAR research centres.

The earliest verified potato tuber remains, from about 2500 BC, were found at which coastal Peruvian site?

Tuber remains from about 2500 BC at Ancon, on the central Peruvian coast north of Lima, are the earliest verified potato finds, far from the altiplano where the crop was domesticated.

The most widely cultivated potato subspecies is native to which archipelago in southern Chile?

Solanum tuberosum subsp. tuberosum, the type grown worldwide, is native to the Chiloé Archipelago; unlike Andean subspecies it forms tubers under the long summer days of high latitudes, which suited European farms.

The 2011 potato reference genome came from a doubled monoploid of which cultivar group?

The Potato Genome Sequencing Consortium sequenced DM1-3 516 R44, a doubled monoploid of Solanum tuberosum Group Phureja, chosen because its fully homozygous genome avoided the assembly problems of a heterozygous tetraploid.

Roughly what share of the world's 390 million tonnes of potatoes did China grow in 2024?

China grew about 24% of the world's potatoes in 2024, more than 90 million tonnes, with India second; Asia's output growth this century shifted production away from Europe.

Which entomologist formally described the Colorado potato beetle in 1824?

Thomas Say described the beetle in 1824 from specimens collected in the Rocky Mountains, after Thomas Nuttall had first noted it in 1811 feeding on buffalo bur; it took to potatoes only decades later.

In 1859 the Colorado beetle first destroyed potato crops west of which city?

The first crop damage was recorded in 1859 about 100 miles west of Omaha, Nebraska; the beetle then spread east at roughly 140 km a year and reached the Atlantic coast by 1874.

Which 1877 Act of Parliament was Britain's response to the Colorado beetle?

The Destructive Insects Act 1877 was passed after the beetle reached Europe that year, giving the Privy Council powers to ban imports and destroy infested crops to keep it out of Britain.

Which Drummondville drive-in holds a copyright certificate alluding to inventing poutine?

Le Roy Jucep's owner Jean-Paul Roy says he served fries, cheese curds and gravy as 'fromage-patate-sauce' in 1964; the restaurant holds an official certificate naming it the inventor of poutine.

In 2001 Montreal chef Martin Picard began serving poutine topped with what?

Martin Picard's Au Pied de Cochon put foie gras on poutine in 2001, with a sauce enriched by the liver too; the dish helped move poutine onto upscale menus across Canada.

Which fast-food chain added poutine to its menu in 1983?

Burger King added poutine to its Quebec menus in 1983, and McDonald's followed in 1990; for years the dish was dismissed as backwoods junk food before chefs and chains carried it nationwide.

On which day of each month do Argentines and Uruguayans traditionally eat gnocchi?

Gnocchi on the 29th dates to the lean days before month-end pay, when cheap potato dumplings stretched the budget; diners put money under the plate for luck, hence ñoquis del 29.

In Argentine slang, what is a ñoqui?

A ñoqui is an employee who only turns up on payday, typically a no-show public servant; the term plays on the tradition of eating gnocchi on the 29th, when salaries were paid.

For how much did Luther Burbank sell the rights to his Burbank potato?

Burbank sold the rights to Massachusetts seedsman James Gregory for $150 in 1875; the money paid his way to Santa Rosa, California, where he went on to develop more than 800 plant varieties.

Burbank developed his potato on a 17-acre plot near which Massachusetts town?

Burbank bought the 17-acre plot near Lunenburg, Massachusetts, with his inheritance in 1870 and raised the Burbank potato there from an Early Rose seed ball; a russet-skinned sport later became the Russet Burbank.

During the 1846-47 Highland famine, the government ran meal depots at Portree and which other port?

The Treasury's depots at Portree on Skye and Tobermory on Mull sold oatmeal at market prices only, since subsidised food offended the laissez-faire economics of the day.

Highland landlords paid to emigrate more than how many tenants during the potato famine?

Landlords paid passage for more than 16,000 tenants, chiefly to Canada and Australia, in the decade after 1846; roughly a third of the western Highlands' population left between 1841 and 1861.

Under 2008 EU rules, what must vodka not made from grain or potatoes do?

Under Regulation 110/2008, vodka from anything other than cereals or potatoes must state its raw materials on the label, as in 'vodka produced from grapes'; the Vodka Belt states had wanted a grain-and-potato-only definition.

What in a potato acts as the electrolyte in a homemade 'potato clock'?

Phosphoric acid in the potato's juice is the electrolyte between the zinc and copper electrodes; boiling the potato for about eight minutes cuts its internal resistance and boosts the power output.

McCain Foods was founded in 1957 in Florenceville, in which Canadian province?

Harrison and Wallace McCain opened their first plant in Florenceville, New Brunswick, on the Saint John River, in 1957; the company grew into one of the world's largest producers of frozen fries.

Whose food-service business did McCain buy for $500 million in 1997?

McCain bought Ore-Ida's food-service business from H. J. Heinz for $500 million in 1997; three years earlier a succession feud had ousted co-founder Wallace McCain, who bought Maple Leaf Foods in 1995.

Which chain's founder sealed a 1967 handshake deal with J. R. Simplot for frozen fries?

Ray Kroc of McDonald's shook hands with Simplot in 1967; fresh russets were unavailable for about three summer months each year, and frozen fries from Simplot's Idaho plants solved the supply gap.

Dan Quayle's 1992 'potatoe' spelling-bee gaffe happened in which city?

The gaffe came on 15 June 1992 at Muñoz Rivera Elementary School in Trenton, New Jersey, where Quayle, following a school-supplied flash card that carried the extra e, corrected pupil William Figueroa.

The first International Potato Day, on 30 May, was held in which year?

The UN General Assembly designated 30 May the International Day of Potato in December 2023, and the first observance came in 2024 under the FAO theme 'Harvesting diversity, feeding hope'.

The Bintje potato, bred by a Frisian schoolmaster in 1904, was named after whom?

De Vries named it after one of his former pupils, Bintje Jansma, having run out of family names for his seedlings; of roughly 150 varieties he raised, Bintje was the lasting success.

Penn State bred the ill-fated Lenape potato of 1967 with which chip company?

Wise Potato Chip Company and Penn State released Lenape in 1967 for its high dry matter, but glycoalkaloids inherited from the wild species Solanum chacoense reached toxic levels, and it was withdrawn in 1970.

What does colcannon's Irish name, cál ceannann, mean?

Cál ceannann means white-headed cabbage: cál is cabbage or kale and ceannann, 'white-headed', is the same word that gives the coot its Irish name, cearc cheannann.

A spoonful of champ is traditionally left for the fairies at the foot of which tree?

The hawthorn is Ireland's fairy tree, so a spoonful of champ was left at its foot for the fairies; champ is mashed potato with scallions and hot milk, colcannon's cousin.

Tartiflette's 1980s ski-resort boom was driven by the trade body for which cheese?

The Syndicat Interprofessionnel du Reblochon promoted tartiflette in the 1980s to lift Reblochon sales; the dish adapts the older Savoyard péla of potatoes, onions and bacon baked under the cheese.

Gratin dauphinois was first recorded in 1788 at a dinner for officials of which town?

On 12 July 1788 the Duke of Clermont-Tonnerre, lieutenant-general of the Dauphiné, served the gratin with ortolans to the municipal officers of Gap; by tradition it uses cream and no cheese.

Lithuania's national potato dumplings take their name from what?

Cepelinai, Lithuania's large oval potato dumplings stuffed with minced meat, are named for their resemblance to zeppelin airships; an older name for them was didžkukuliai.

In Norway, the small potato lefse called lompe often replaces what?

Lompe wraps a sausage in place of a hot dog bun: pølse med lompe is a Constitution Day staple on 17 May, topped with ketchup, mustard and crispy onions.

Potato starch was a key ingredient in which early colour photography process?

The Lumière brothers' Autochrome, marketed from 1907, used potato starch grains dyed orange-red, green and blue-violet as a mosaic colour filter on the plate; it was made until the mid-1930s.

Who discovered the potato spindle tuber viroid, the first viroid ever identified, in 1971?

Theodor Diener of the US Department of Agriculture identified the potato spindle tuber viroid in 1971 and coined the word viroid for its naked circular RNA, about one-eightieth the size of the smallest virus.

Canarian papas arrugadas were originally boiled in what?

Papas arrugadas were boiled in seawater because fresh water was scarce on the Canaries; the potatoes are cooked unpeeled in very salty water and dried in the pot, leaving wrinkled, salt-crusted skins.

Basketball's Spud Webb got his nickname as a newborn because his head resembled what?

'Sputnik' was shortened to 'Spud' before he left the hospital; at 5 ft 7 in he later won the 1986 NBA Slam Dunk Contest.

Prussia's 1778-79 'Potato War' was nicknamed in Austria after which fruit?

Austrians called the War of the Bavarian Succession the Zwetschgenrummel, 'plum fuss', after the plums soldiers foraged; Prussians called it the Kartoffelkrieg, and disease killed thousands though few battles were fought.

Leidens Ontzet, when Leiden eats hutspot to mark the end of its 1574 siege, is on which date?

Leiden was relieved on 3 October 1574 when the Sea Beggars broke the Spanish siege; legend says fleeing troops left a pot of stew behind, though the 1574 version was likely parsnip and carrot, not potato.

Legend says a Carlist general invented the Spanish omelette during the 1835 siege of which city?

The tale credits General Tomás de Zumalacárregui with improvising the dish to feed troops during the 1835 siege of Bilbao; an 1817 Navarrese document already describes eggs stretched with potatoes.

Monsanto's 1995 NewLeaf potato carried a beetle-killing gene from which bacterium?

NewLeaf carried the Cry3A gene from Bacillus thuringiensis, whose protein kills Colorado potato beetle larvae; approved in 1995, it sold poorly after fast-food buyers shunned GM potatoes, and Monsanto dropped it in 2001.

The Inca baked potatoes in what kind of underground cooking pit?

A huatia is an Andean earth oven: a dome of clods is heated by a fire inside, then collapsed over the potatoes, which bake under the hot earth; the practice dates to the Inca.

Jansson's temptation is often said to contain anchovies, but the Swedish fish is really what?

Spiced pickled sprats have been sold in Sweden as 'ansjovis' since the mid-1800s, hence the mistranslation.

Solanum watneyi, named after The Martian's potato-farming botanist, is native to which country?

Solanum watneyi is a bush tomato from Australia's Northern Territory, described in 2016 and named after Mark Watney; the film's potatoes were really grown on a Hungarian sound stage.

Hasbro licensed Mr. Potato Head for Toy Story but refused to license which other toy?

Hasbro refused G.I. Joe because Sid was scripted to blow the figure up, so Pixar invented Combat Carl for the scene; Mr. Potato Head was licensed and became a series regular.

Golden Wonder began in 1947 when an Edinburgh baker used fryers normally reserved for what?

Edinburgh baker William Alexander began frying crisps in 1947 in the fryers his bakery used for doughnuts, naming the brand after the Golden Wonder potato he thought made the best crisps.

Russia's 1840s potato riots were fuelled by rumours linking potato planting to service to whom?

Rumours among state peasants, many of them Old Believers, cast the potato as the devil's apple and its planting as service to the Antichrist; more than 500,000 rioted in the Urals and Volga regions in 1840-44 before troops fired.

Which Orkney dish mashes potatoes together with swede or turnip?

Clapshot is an Orkney dish of potatoes and swede (neeps) mashed together with butter and chives or onion, traditionally served alongside haggis.

The OED's earliest use of 'chips' for fried potato comes from which Dickens novel?

A Tale of Two Cities (1859) describes 'husky chips of potato, fried with some reluctant drops of oil'; Oliver Twist had mentioned a 'fried fish warehouse' in 1838, and the trades merged into chip shops in the 1860s.

In Inca mythology, which daughter of Pachamama is the goddess of potatoes?

Axomamma, a daughter of Pachamama in Inca mythology, was the goddess of potatoes, just as her sister Sara Mama presided over maize; the crop's Quechua name is papa.

Mr. Potato Head, sold by Hasbro from 1952, was the first toy to be what?

Mr. Potato Head was the first toy advertised on television, in a commercial aired on 30 April 1952 aimed at children rather than parents; the kit then held only face parts for a real potato.

Potato Pete races in a giant pierogi costume at which MLB team's home games?

The Great Pierogi Race at the Pittsburgh Pirates' PNC Park sends costumed pierogies, among them purple-capped Potato Pete, sprinting along the warning track in the middle innings; it began in 1999.

Which German weapon of both world wars was nicknamed the 'potato masher'?

The Stielhandgranate, a stick hand grenade with an explosive head on a wooden throwing handle, looked like a kitchen masher to Allied soldiers; the Model 24 served through the Second World War.

The spiral-cut, skewered tornado potato is a signature street food of which country?

The tornado potato, hoeori gamja, is a street-food snack from South Korea: a whole potato spiral-cut on a skewer, deep-fried and dusted with cheese or seasoning; it spread to fairs worldwide.

In western Norway, potato dumplings are traditionally the dish of the day on which weekday?

Thursday is dumpling day in western Norway: cafes advertise komle-torsdag, and the potato dumplings are known as raspeball, komle, klubb or kompe depending on the region.

Pommes duchesse are mashed potatoes enriched with what before being piped and baked?

Pommes duchesse are mashed potatoes beaten with butter and egg yolks, piped into rosettes and baked until golden; the yolks set the shape and give the rich colour.