Food Matters

The potato is indigenous to Chile and the Andes. Everyone thought the potato came from Virginia, and that was because when Sir Francis Drake stopped in Virginia to pick up English settlers, he had potatoes from Cartagena in Columbia on board and introduced them to England. It had reached Spain around 1570.

Rumour says that the vegetable found its way into Ireland by virtue of the looting of a ship’s store from a wrecked Armada vessel around 1588. Alternatively, the Irish claim Sir Walter Raleigh brought it.

The potato was initially not widely used in England, but the Irish took to them whole heartedly. They were easier to grow than oats or barley and easier to hide in an underground store when soldiers prowled the land. 

By the 17^th century potatoes were grown in Lancashire and by the 18^th their use was spreading through the rest of the UK, at first as a garden and later as a field crop, even reaching the highlands of Scotland.

At first they were used as a delicacy and if they were of the sweet potato variety, almost a sweetmeat, but it was not long before they became the traditional boil, roast or fried vegetable we all know. By that time the use of pottage had declined, or the potato would undoubtedly have become the main pottage ingredient.