During the Seven Years War of the mid-1700s, a French army pharmacist named Antoine-Augustin Parmentier was captured by Prussian soldiers. As a prisoner of war, he was forced to live on rations of potatoes. But as Parmentier what to eat with mashed potatoes and gravy in prison, potatoes weren’t deadly. In fact, they were pretty tasty.
Following his release at the end of the war, the pharmacist began to proselytize to his countrymen about the wonders of the tuber. One way he did this was by demonstrating all the delicious ways it could be served, including mashed. By 1772, France had lifted its potato ban. Thomas Jefferson and a food scientist who helped invent a ubiquitous snack food. Before we get to them, though, let’s go back to the beginning. The Origins of the Potato Potatoes aren’t native to Ireland—or anywhere in Europe, for that matter. These early potatoes were very different from the potatoes we know today.
They came in a variety of shapes and sizes and had a bitter taste that no amount of cooking could get rid of. By the time Spanish explorers brought the first potatoes to Europe from South America in the 16th century, they had been bred into a fully edible plant. It took them a while to catch on overseas, though. Modern potato historians debate these points, though.
