95 Fun Facts About Potatoes

Where were potatoes first domesticated?

The potato was domesticated in the Andes Mountains of South America: genetic and archaeological evidence places its origin near Lake Titicaca, in southern Peru and northwestern Bolivia.

To which plant family do potatoes belong, a family that also includes tomatoes and eggplants?

Potatoes belong to Solanaceae, the nightshade family, alongside tomatoes, eggplants, peppers, tobacco and petunias; the family is named for its bitter alkaloid-bearing nightshades.

Botanically, what part of the potato plant is the edible potato itself?

Potatoes are underground stem tubers, which are thickened parts of the stem that store nutrients.

Which European country first introduced potatoes to Europe in the late 16th century?

Following the Spanish conquest of the Inca Empire, the Spanish introduced the potato to Europe in the second half of the 16th century as part of the Columbian exchange.

What plant disease caused Ireland's Great Famine in the 1840s?

The lack of genetic diversity in potatoes grown in Europe made the crop vulnerable to diseases, with late blight disease destroying potato crops in Ireland and leading to the Great Famine of the 1840s.

Which country grows more potatoes than any other?

China is the world's largest potato producer, harvesting roughly 90 million tonnes a year through the 2010s and 2020s, well ahead of India and Russia.

Potatoes contain more of which mineral than a medium banana?

Potassium: a medium potato has around 620 milligrams against a banana's 422, so the fruit's famous reputation is beaten by the humble spud.

Which chef is widely credited with inventing the potato chip in Saratoga Springs, New York?

The invention of the potato chip is widely attributed to George Crum, a chef at Moon's Lake House in Saratoga Springs, New York, in 1853.

Which high-starch, dry-fleshed potato is ideal for baking and french fries?

Russet potatoes are characterized by their high starch content and dry, mealy flesh, making them excellent for baking and frying into crispy french fries.

Which of these potato types is 'waxy' and best for potato salads because it holds its shape?

Waxy potatoes, such as Red Bliss, have low starch content and hold their shape well during cooking, making them ideal for boiling and use in salads or stews.

What natural toxin is found in all green parts of the potato plant?

Like the tomato and other nightshades, the aerial parts of the potato plant contain the toxin solanine, which can also develop in tubers if they are exposed to light and turn green.

Roughly how long ago were potatoes first domesticated?

Genetic studies suggest that cultivated potatoes have a single origin in southern Peru and northwestern Bolivia, where they were domesticated about 7,000–10,000 years ago.

What are the 'eyes' on a potato primarily used for in terms of plant reproduction?

Potatoes are vegetatively propagated, meaning a new plant can grow from a potato or a piece of potato (called a 'seed potato') that contains at least two 'eyes', which are buds that sprout into new plants.

To which botanical family does the sweet potato (Ipomoea batatas) belong?

While both are tubers, sweet potatoes belong to the morning glory family (Convolvulaceae), whereas regular potatoes are part of the nightshade family (Solanaceae).

Which year did the United Nations declare the International Year of the Potato?

The United Nations declared 2008 the International Year of the Potato; the FAO led the campaign to highlight the crop's role in food security and poverty reduction.

The potato is the third most important food crop in the world, following which two staple grains?

Rice and wheat: the International Potato Center ranks the potato third among food crops for human consumption, behind rice and wheat, with roughly 370 million tonnes harvested worldwide each year in the early 2020s.

Which classic French dish features thinly sliced potatoes baked in cream, often with garlic and cheese?

Gratin dauphinois, from the Dauphiné region around Grenoble, bakes thinly sliced potatoes in cream with garlic; the traditional version has no cheese, though many modern recipes add Gruyère.

Which German potato dish is traditionally dressed with vinegar, oil and hot broth?

Kartoffelsalat is German potato salad; the southern, Swabian style dresses sliced boiled potatoes with vinegar, oil, onion and hot meat broth instead of mayonnaise.

Who invented the first sealed wax paper potato chip bags in 1926?

In 1926, Laura Scudder revolutionized the potato chip industry by inventing the first sealed wax paper bags, which kept chips fresher and prevented crushing.

What is the scientific name for the common cultivated potato?

Solanum tuberosum is the cultivated potato, a perennial of the nightshade family Solanaceae named by Linnaeus in 1753 and grown for its underground tubers.

What type of organism caused the potato blight behind Ireland's Great Famine?

Phytophthora infestans is an oomycete, or water mould: it looks and behaves like a fungus but belongs to a separate lineage, and it thrives in cool, wet weather.

Which Irish dish mashes potatoes with cooked kale or cabbage?

Colcannon is Irish mashed potato beaten with cooked kale or cabbage, butter and milk; it was traditionally eaten at Halloween, when charms such as a ring were hidden inside.

Which Swiss dish is a pan-fried cake of coarsely grated potato?

Rösti is a Swiss cake of coarsely grated potato fried in butter until golden; originally a Bernese farmers' breakfast, it lent its name to the 'Röstigraben', the German-French language divide.

Which US vice president corrected a schoolboy's 'potato' to 'potatoe' at a 1992 spelling bee?

Dan Quayle, George H. W. Bush's vice president, told a Trenton, New Jersey pupil to add an 'e' to 'potato' at a June 1992 spelling bee, a gaffe that dogged the campaign.

The earliest known potato chip recipe appeared in 1817 in William Kitchiner's The Cook's Oracle, published in which city?

London had the recipe more than three decades before the Saratoga Springs legend of 1853, and The Cook's Oracle was a bestseller on both sides of the Atlantic.

In which year did the potato blight behind Ireland's Great Famine first appear in Irish fields?

1845 was announced in print: The Gardeners' Chronicle stopped its presses on 13 September to report that the potato murrain had 'unequivocally declared itself in Ireland'.

Which New Brunswick town, home of frozen-fry giant McCain Foods, calls itself 'the French fry capital of the world'?

Florenceville-Bristol also hosts a museum called Potato World; McCain, founded there in 1957, is the world's largest maker of frozen fries.

An early mashed potato recipe using milk, salt and butter appears in whose 1747 cookbook?

Hannah Glasse's The Art of Cookery Made Plain and Easy (1747) boils and peels the potatoes, then mashes them in a saucepan with milk, salt and butter.

Which railroad's dining cars made the 'Great Big Baked Potato' famous from 1909?

Northern Pacific served oversized Yakima Valley potatoes as its 'Great Big Baked Potato' from 1909; its 1914 Seattle commissary was topped by a 40-foot electric baked potato whose eyes winked.

The English word 'potato' comes via Spanish patata from a word in which language?

The Taíno word batata actually meant the sweet potato; Europeans simply transferred the name to the Andean tuber.

The nickname 'spud' originally referred to what kind of object?

A 'spud' was first a short, stout knife in the 15th century, then a narrow spade for digging weeds; the name passed to the potato itself by the 1840s.

What are the small breathing holes on the surface of a potato tuber called?

Lenticels are the small circular pores through which a tuber exchanges gases; their number varies with tuber size, and they swell into white spots when potatoes sit in waterlogged soil.

After flowering, a potato plant produces small green fruits that look like which other food?

Cherry tomatoes is the right comparison because both plants are nightshades; each little potato fruit holds about 300 seeds and, like the leaves, is toxic.

The long-day Chilean potato subspecies is native to which archipelago?

Chiloé, the archipelago off southern Chile, is home to the long-day Chilotanum potatoes; island farmers grow hundreds of native varieties, and most modern European cultivars descend from this Chilean stock.

The earliest verified potato remains, found at Ancón in Peru, date to roughly when?

About 2500 BC: the oldest securely dated potato tubers come from Ancón on Peru's central coast; tubers rot quickly, so the record almost certainly understates how long people have grown them.

The International Potato Center, keeper of thousands of potato types, is based where?

Lima: the International Potato Center (CIP, from its Spanish name) was founded there by decree of the Peruvian government in 1971 and keeps the world's largest potato genebank.

In the UK, which famous new potato takes its name from a Channel Island?

Jersey Royals are new potatoes from Jersey, the largest Channel Island, grown on steep south-facing côtils and fertilised with seaweed called vraic; the name is a protected designation of origin.

Monsanto's 'New Leaf' GM potato carried Bt genes for resistance to which pest?

NewLeaf potatoes, sold from 1995, carried a Bt gene (Cry3A) toxic to the Colorado beetle; McDonald's, Burger King and Frito-Lay refused them, and Monsanto dropped the line in 2001.

Piling extra soil around the base of growing potato plants is known as what?

Hilling, called 'earthing up' in Britain, mounds soil around the stems so tubers forming near the surface stay covered and do not turn green.

Freeze-dried chuño is traditionally made by the Quechua and which other Andean people?

The Aymara of the Bolivian and Peruvian altiplano, like the Quechua, make chuño by leaving potatoes to freeze overnight and thaw by day, then treading them to squeeze out the water.

Cepelinai, meat-stuffed grated-potato dumplings, are the national dish of which country?

Cepelinai are Lithuania's national dish: the name means 'zeppelins' after the dumplings' airship shape, and they are served with sour cream and fried bacon bits.

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

She was credited with keeping the soil fertile and the tubers growing.

Which 1885 canvas, painted in Nuenen, is regarded as Van Gogh's first major work?

The Potato Eaters (1885), painted in Nuenen, shows the de Groot family at their lamplit table; Van Gogh deliberately chose coarse models to show peasants as they really were.

Millet's The Potato Harvest shows peasants on the plains near which French village?

Barbizon: Millet settled in the village on the edge of the Forest of Fontainebleau in 1849, and The Potato Harvest (1855) shows peasants on the nearby plain of Chailly, built up with thick, paste-like pigment.

In The Martian (2015), stranded astronaut Mark Watney grows potatoes in Martian soil fertilised with what?

Frozen feces: Watney thaws the crew's bagged waste, mixes it with his own and Martian soil, and raises potatoes inside the Hab until a breach freezes the crop.

In Iroquois myth, the first potatoes grew from which part of the dead Earth Woman?

She died giving birth to her twin sons, Sapling and Flint.

In what year did Spanish conquistadors become the first Europeans to encounter the potato?

1537: Gonzalo Jiménez de Quesada's expedition into Muisca (Chibcha) country in present-day Colombia described finding 'a type of truffle' in abandoned homes, the first European record of the potato.

Which monarch issued the 1756 'Potato Edict' and was nicknamed the Kartoffelkönig?

Frederick the Great of Prussia issued the Kartoffelbefehl on 24 March 1756, ordering the tuber planted and calling it 'a very nutritious food supplement'; visitors leave potatoes on his grave at Sanssouci.

Marie Antoinette is said to have worn potato flowers as what?

A headdress: Marie Antoinette is said to have worn potato blossoms in her hair after a bouquet was presented to Louis XVI in 1785, making the flower a court fashion.

Which bland, high-yielding variety did Irish labourers rely on before the Great Famine?

The Lumper, a watery but heavy-cropping variety, was the staple of Ireland's poor by the 1840s; its genetic uniformity let the blight sweep through the whole crop.

The earliest certain potato crop in North America was planted in 1719 in which colony?

New Hampshire: Scots-Irish settlers planted potatoes at Londonderry in 1719; the plants came from Ireland, which is why Americans called the crop the 'Irish potato'.

Potatoes were first planted in Idaho as early as which year?

By 1900 the state was already producing more than a million bushels a year.

In 1812 the Russian-American Company grew the West Coast’s first potatoes at which outpost?

It may have been a second, independent introduction of the potato to the continent.

Friedrich Engels ranked the potato with which material for its 'revolutionary role'?

Iron: Engels wrote that the potato was the equal of iron for its 'historically revolutionary role', since cheap calories from small plots helped feed the workers of Britain's Industrial Revolution.

Basque fishermen are said to have brought the potato to Ireland while drying which fish?

Cod: one tradition holds that Basque fishermen, who dried their Newfoundland cod on Ireland's west coast, brought the first potatoes; Ireland was growing them widely by the early 1600s.

Which botanist painted a potato specimen he called 'Papas Peruanorum' in 1588?

Carolus Clusius, the Flemish botanist, received tubers from Philippe de Sivry in 1588 and painted them as 'Papas Peruanorum'; in 1601 he reported potatoes common in northern Italy as fodder and food.

Suspicious early Europeans gave the underground-growing potato which nickname?

'The devil's apples': the potato grew underground, went unmentioned in the Bible and belonged to the nightshade family, so some Europeans suspected it was the work of witches or devils.

A 1567 receipt, the earliest record of potatoes in Europe, covers a shipment to which port?

Antwerp: a receipt dated 1567 records potatoes shipped from Las Palmas in the Canaries to Antwerp, the earliest documented potatoes in Europe; the Canaries had grown them from about 1562.

Before 1994, which African nation ate more potatoes per head than any in Western Europe?

Consumption in its highlands reached 153 to 200 kg per person a year.

Which Canadian city hosts Agriculture Canada's potato research station, founded in 1912?

Fredericton, New Brunswick: the federal research station there, founded in 1912, shifted in the 1950s toward breeding varieties for the French fry industry and was later named the Potato Research Centre.

The saddle shape of a Pringles chip is known mathematically as what?

A hyperbolic paraboloid, the saddle curve that is concave one way and convex the other, gives each Pringle its strength and stackability; chemist Fredric Baur spent two years perfecting the shape and its tube.

Pringles were first test-marketed in 1968 in which US state?

Indiana: Pringles were first test-marketed in Evansville in October 1968, advertised as 'Pringle's Newfangled Potato Chips' at Kroger stores before the national rollout.

After a 1975 US FDA ruling on the word 'chip', what did Pringles call its product instead?

Potato crisps: the 1975 FDA ruling allowed 'chip' only inside the phrase 'potato chips made from dried potatoes', so Pringles relabelled its product 'potato crisps' in the United States.

Which science-fiction author helped develop the machine that cooks Pringles?

Wolfe was a mechanical engineer at P&G long before The Book of the New Sun.

Which Irish company produced the world's first seasoned crisps in 1954?

Tayto, founded by Joe 'Spud' Murphy in Dublin in 1954, produced the first flavoured crisps, cheese and onion; British makers such as Golden Wonder copied the idea in the early 1960s.

Smith's 1920s London crisps came in greaseproof bags with a twist of what?

Salt: Frank Smith's Cricklewood firm sold plain crisps from 1920 with a twist of blue greaseproof paper holding salt; the Salt 'n' Shake brand later revived the idea with a sachet in the bag.

Cape Cod Potato Chips (1980) were inspired by batch-cooked chips from which island?

Maui: founder Steve Bernard modelled his 1980 Hyannis, Massachusetts chips on the thick, batch-kettle-cooked 'Maui-style' chips of Hawaii, which skip the starch rinse for a harder bite.

Ketchup-flavoured potato chips are a regional favourite in which country?

All-dressed and dill pickle round out the distinctly Canadian flavour line-up.

Which Dayton, Ohio firm, founded 1910, long billed itself as America's oldest potato chip maker?

Mikesell's of Dayton, Ohio, founded in 1910, called itself the oldest US potato chip company until it closed in 2023; New Hampshire's Granite State Potato Chip Factory (1905) was older but shut in 2007.

Mr. Potato Head made history on 30 April 1952 as the first toy to be what?

Advertised on television: the 30 April 1952 commercial was the first TV ad for a toy and the first aimed directly at children; more than a million kits sold in the first year.

Until 1964, Mr. Potato Head kits were designed to have children push the parts into what?

A real vegetable: the original kit was only a set of push-in parts for a real potato or other vegetable; complaints about rotting produce and new safety rules brought the plastic body in 1964.

Which toymaker invented Mr. Potato Head in 1949?

George Lerner, a Brooklyn toy designer, created the push-in face parts in 1949 and first sold them to Post Cereals as premiums; Hassenfeld Brothers (Hasbro) bought the rights in 1951 and launched the toy.

In 1985 Mr. Potato Head received four write-in votes for mayor of which city?

Boise, Idaho: in the 1985 mayoral election Mr. Potato Head picked up four write-in votes, which Guinness World Records listed as the most votes for Mr. Potato Head in a political campaign.

Mr. Potato Head surrendered which accessory to the US Surgeon General in 1987?

His pipe: in 1987 Mr. Potato Head handed his pipe to Surgeon General C. Everett Koop and became 'Spokespud' for the American Cancer Society's Great American Smokeout.

Who voiced Mr. Potato Head in the original Toy Story (1995)?

Pixar used archival recordings of Rickles for Toy Story 4 after his death in 2017.

Poutine emerged in the late 1950s in which region of Quebec?

Restaurants in Warwick, Drummondville and Princeville all claim to have invented it.

Classic poutine tops French fries and gravy with what?

Cheese curds have to be fresh: they stay soft and squeaky for only a day or so after cheesemaking, and that squeak is the whole point of poutine.

In 2001 chef Martin Picard's Au Pied de Cochon famously topped poutine with what?

Foie gras: Martin Picard's poutine au foie gras at Au Pied de Cochon in Montreal, opened in 2001, pushed the dish onto upscale menus in Toronto and Vancouver.

Tater Tots were developed in 1953 by the founders of which frozen food company?

Ore-Ida founders F. Nephi and Golden Grigg created Tater Tots in 1953 to use up leftover potato slivers from fry cutting; the Tater Tots name was registered as an Ore-Ida trademark.

Tater Tots sold slowly at first until Ore-Ida did what?

Raised the price: Tater Tots were first priced so cheaply that shoppers ignored them; once Ore-Ida raised the price, sales took off and the product became a school-cafeteria staple.

In Australia, Tater Tots are commonly known as what?

Potato gems is the usual Australian name for the grated-potato cylinders, while New Zealanders call them potato pom-poms.

In 2015 the International Potato Center and NASA tried growing potatoes in simulated what?

A Martian environment: the International Potato Center, working with NASA, sealed potatoes in a CubeSat that mimicked Mars's thin, cold atmosphere in desert soil; preliminary results announced in 2017 were positive.

Which breeder selected the 1873 seedling behind North America's most-grown potato?

Luther Burbank selected the Burbank seedling in 1873 from an Early Rose seed ball; it was never patented, since US law then gave no patents to tuber-propagated plants, and its russet sport became the Russet Burbank.

Under what name was the Russet Burbank potato first released in 1902?

Netted Gem: Colorado grower Lou Sweet found the russet-skinned sport of Burbank's potato in 1902 and sold it under that name; Idaho irrigation and frozen fries later made the Russet Burbank king.

Hasselback potatoes are named after a restaurant in which city?

Stockholm: the dish was created in 1953 at Hasselbacken, a restaurant on Djurgården whose name means 'hazel slope' after the hazel thicket beside it.

Latkes are traditionally eaten to celebrate which holiday?

Hanukkah: latkes are fried in oil to recall the Temple oil that, in the Hanukkah story, burned for eight days after the Maccabees rededicated the sanctuary.

Before the potato reached Eastern Europe, Ashkenazi latkes were mostly made from what?

They were fried in poppyseed oil or butter and served with fruit preserves.

Tartiflette, potatoes baked with lardons and a whole Reblochon, comes from which Alpine region?

Savoy: tartiflette bakes sliced potatoes with lardons, onions and a whole Reblochon, the Savoyard cheese; the dish was popularised in the 1980s to boost Reblochon sales.

The violet-fleshed French 'Vitelotte' potato is said to smell of which nut?

Chestnuts: the Vitelotte, a violet-fleshed French heirloom, is said to carry a faint chestnut aroma; its colour comes from anthocyanins and survives cooking.

The Idaho Potato Museum is located in which town?

Blackfoot, the self-styled 'Potato Capital of the World', houses the Idaho Potato Museum in a 1913 Oregon Short Line railroad depot donated by Union Pacific.

In 1748 France banned potato cultivation partly over fears it caused which disease?

Leprosy: the Parlement of Paris banned potato growing in 1748, partly because the knobbly tuber was blamed for leprosy; the Paris Faculty of Medicine declared potatoes edible in 1772.

Parmentier guarded his potato patch by day and left it open at night so people would what?

Steal the crop: Parmentier's guarded plot at Sablons, outside Paris, made potatoes look valuable, and the guards withdrew at night so peasants would steal the plants and grow them.

The striped beetle that ravages potato crops first struck in 1859 near which US city?

Omaha: the striped beetle first devastated potato fields about 100 miles west of Omaha, Nebraska, in 1859, then marched east at about 140 km a year, reaching the Atlantic coast by 1874.

Cubed home fries with bell peppers added are known as what?

Potatoes O'Brien are diced fried potatoes with green and red bell peppers and onion; Potatoes Lyonnaise, by contrast, are sliced and fried with onions only.

Potatoes entered Italian gnocchi in the late 1800s as farmers dodged the cost of what?

Gnocchi predate the potato by centuries; Roman versions used semolina.