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99 free Potato trivia questions with answers — food & drink quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
12 free Potato trivia questions with answers. Potato trivia lives in two places on BrainPickle. This page is the shorter set; the main quiz is Potatoes trivia, with our deepest question pool on the topic and a source behind every answer.
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Q 01In which continent were potatoes first domesticated?
South America
South America: Andean farmers around Lake Titicaca, in today's southern Peru and northwestern Bolivia, domesticated the potato between 7,000 and 10,000 years ago.
Q 02What is the scientific name for the common cultivated potato?
Solanum tuberosum
The scientific name for the cultivated potato is Solanum tuberosum. It is a perennial plant grown for its starchy tubers.
Q 03Potatoes belong to which plant family, which also includes tomatoes and eggplants?
Solanaceae
Solanaceae is the nightshade family: potatoes, tomatoes, peppers and eggplants share it with deadly nightshade and tobacco, which is why green potatoes carry a toxin.
Q 04Which country grows about a quarter of the world's potatoes?
China
China grows about a quarter of the world's potatoes — roughly 95 million of some 375 million tonnes in 2022 — with India the clear second-largest producer.
Q 05The potato blight behind Ireland's Great Famine was caused by what type of organism?
Water mould
A water mould, Phytophthora infestans, is an oomycete: it looks and behaves like a fungus but belongs to a separate lineage, and it thrives in cool, wet weather.
Q 06Who is traditionally credited with inventing the potato chip in Saratoga Springs, New York?
George Crum
The story has Crum, a cook at Moon's Lake House, slicing potatoes paper-thin in 1853 to spite a fussy diner, but printed recipes for fried potato slices predate it by decades.
Q 07Boiled potatoes supply about 14% of the daily value of which nutrient?
Vitamin C
Vitamin C at 14% of the daily value makes a boiled potato a decent supplier, alongside useful amounts of vitamin B6 and pantothenic acid.
Q 08Which part of the potato plant contains solanine, a toxic compound, and should not be consumed?
The sprouts and greened parts
The sprouts and greened parts carry solanine, the plant's natural defence: light turns tuber skins green while raising the toxin, and leaves and stems carry it too.
Q 09Which type of potato has the higher starch content, around 20–22%, that suits baking and fluffy mash?
Floury potatoes
Floury potatoes such as Russets cook up dry and light at 20–22% starch, while waxy boiling potatoes hold their shape thanks to a lower starch content of 16–18%.
Q 10When did the Spanish first bring potatoes from the Americas to Europe?
Late 1500s
They crossed from the Americas in the second half of the 16th century, in the wake of the conquest of the Inca Empire.
Q 11In which city was the earliest known recipe for potato chips published, in 1817?
London
London: William Kitchiner's The Cook's Oracle, published there in 1817, gave a recipe for potatoes fried in slices or shavings, more than three decades before the Saratoga Springs legend.
Q 12In what year did potato blight first strike Ireland, setting off the Great Famine?
1845
The Gardeners' Chronicle stopped its presses on 13 September 1845 to announce that the potato murrain had 'unequivocally declared itself in Ireland'; a million died.
Q 13Botanically, a potato tuber is a swollen part of which plant structure?
Stem
Stem: the tuber is the thickened tip of an underground stem called a stolon, which is why it carries 'eyes' — buds that sprout into new shoots.
Q 21Which holy figure did Frietmuseum curator Paul Ilegems credit with cooking the first French fries?
Saint Teresa of Ávila
Saint Teresa of Ávila: Ilegems argued the 16th-century Spanish nun fried the first potato pieces, pointing to Spain being the first European country to receive the potato.
Q 22A Saratoga Springs cook reputedly invented potato chips in 1853 to spite a customer complaining his fries were what?
Too thick and soggy
Too thick and soggy: the legend has a diner sending back Crum's fries as too thick, so he sliced them wafer-thin — yet printed recipes for fried potato slices predate 1853 by decades.
Q 23Which copper sulphate and lime spray, first used on vines, became the standard blight treatment?
Q 14After centuries of breeding, roughly how many potato varieties had been bred by 2025?
Over 5,000
Over 5,000: millennia of selection since Andean domestication produced more than 5,000 named varieties, from commercial staples such as Russet Burbank to thousands of native Andean landraces.
Q 15The oldest verified potato remains, dated to 2500 BC, were found at which coastal Peruvian site?
Ancón
Ancón, on Peru's central coast, yielded tuber remains dated to about 2500 BC; tubers rot fast, so cultivation almost certainly goes back far longer than the physical evidence.
Q 16In 1748, France banned the cultivation of potatoes on the grounds that they were thought to cause what?
Leprosy
Leprosy: a 1748 decree banned the crop as a suspected cause of the disease, and it stayed on the books until 1772, when Parmentier's campaign got potatoes declared edible.
Q 17How did Antoine-Augustin Parmentier first come to eat potatoes?
As a prisoner of the Prussians in the Seven Years' War
As a prisoner of the Prussians: captured during the Seven Years' War, Parmentier lived on potatoes in captivity, a crop Frederick II had forced his peasants to grow.
Q 18Which French potato dish was reputedly invented in 1837 for a railway line's opening near Paris?
Pommes soufflées
Pommes soufflées: chef Collinet is said to have re-fried cooled potato slices when the inaugural Paris–Saint-Germain-en-Laye train ran late in 1837, and they puffed into hollow pillows.
Q 19Which US president served 'potatoes in the French manner' at a White House dinner in 1802?
Thomas Jefferson
Thomas Jefferson, who acquired a taste for French cooking as minister to France, served 'potatoes in the French manner' at a White House dinner in 1802.
Q 20Until 1990, McDonald's fried its French fries in a mixture that was 93% what?
Beef tallow
Beef tallow: McDonald's cooked its fries in 93% beef tallow and 7% cottonseed oil until 1990, then switched to vegetable oil with added beef flavouring.
Bordeaux mixture
Bordeaux mixture: Pierre Millardet found the copper sulphate and lime spray protected Bordeaux vines from mildew in 1885, and growers soon adopted it against potato blight.
Q 24What name did the crisps popularised at Moon's Lake House go by into the mid-20th century?
Saratoga Chips
Saratoga Chips: named for Saratoga Springs, where Moon's Lake House popularised them; Herman Lay's Nashville distribution business later helped turn them into a national snack.
Q 25The worst year of Ireland's Great Famine became known by what nickname?
Black '47
Black '47: 1847 was the famine's deadliest year as fever followed starvation; about a million died and more than a million emigrated between 1845 and 1852.
Q 26What was Ireland's population on the eve of the famine?
About 8.5 million
About 8.5 million: the 1841 census counted 8.2 million and growth continued to 1845; by 1901 the population had fallen to 4.4 million.
Q 27Which political doctrine, adopted by a new Whig government in London, curtailed famine relief in Ireland?
Laissez-faire economics
Laissez-faire economics: Lord John Russell's Whig ministry, in office from 1846, wound down Peel's relief measures on the principle that markets should not be interfered with, even as food exports continued.
Q 28Mr. Potato Head holds what distinction in advertising history?
The first toy advertised on television
The first toy advertised on television: a 1952 commercial pitched directly at children; kids originally stuck the plastic parts into a real potato, and the plastic body arrived in 1964.
Q 29Who invented Mr. Potato Head in 1949, before Hasbro began distributing it in 1952?
George Lerner
George Lerner, a Brooklyn inventor, devised the push-in face parts in 1949; Hasbro launched the toy in 1952 and dropped the pipe accessory in 1987 amid anti-smoking campaigns.
Q 30To which plant group does the sweet potato belong?
The morning glories
The morning glories: sweet potato is Ipomoea batatas in the family Convolvulaceae, only distantly related to the nightshade-family potato and more distant yet from true yams.