Cry Havoc and Let Slip the Spuds of War

Staple though it is today, the lowly potato had a hard time
reaching its preeminent status in Western cuisine. Perhaps its
lengthy purgatory has something to do with the tale that when Sir
Walter Raleigh gave some potatoes to Queen Elizabeth, her cooks
tossed aside the roots and served up the boiled greens instead,
causing a court-wide case of indigestion. Whether that's the case
or not—and there's no evidence that Raleigh ever so much as set
eyes on a potato—for decades Europeans would have nothing to do
with the tuber. At best, it was found useful to feed the cattle. At
worst, it was considered a leprosy-inducing invention of the devil.
This belief was particularly pernicious in the fair fields of
France, a country at the time holding a quarter of Europe's
inhabitants despite its periodic decimation by epidemic and famine.
By the beginning of the 17th century France's population reached
had twenty million and continued to rise. Clearly, a cheap,
plentiful, and resilient crop was just what the nutritionist
ordered, yet even in the face of the brutal demographic crises that
popped up every ten to fifteen years over the next two centuries,
each time lopping two or three million inhabitants off the
non-existent voting rolls, the potato remained unpondered,
unprized, and unplanted. Clearly, the potato needed a champion.
What it got was a pharmacist.