Over the years, potatoes have become a main feature in many of my dishes, in particular the soft and creamy mashed potato, every Briton’s favourite. In fact, potatoes are one of our staple foods in Great Britain, and they are much loved. But it may surprise you to know that they have been around in the West for only about 400 years.
Native to South America, the potato was discovered by the conquering Spanish in Peru, and brought to Europe in about 1536. Sir Francis Drake is thought by many to have been responsible for the potato’s introduction to Britain, but Sir Walter Raleigh was probably the more likely, as it was he who first cultivated this new root vegetable at his Irish estate, Youghal (County Cork), in about 1590. Another theory maintains that potato tubers were washed ashore in western Ireland from the wrecked Armada, and began to enjoy their new home. The first recorded mention of the potato – and an illustration – was in John Gerard’s Herbal of 1597, where it was wrongly described as being ‘of Virginia, the American state’. This mistaken attribution remained in use for some time, mainly to distinguish it from batatas or the sweet potato (oddly enough, an earlier introduction). It wasn’t until about 1710 that the potato became known as the ‘common’, ‘English’ or, more significantly, the ‘Irish’ potato.
