Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
Fig. 1.1.
Pastoral hunter-gatherers took interest in a plant that yielded edible starchy underground stems
about 7000 years ago. (Reprinted with permission from CIP International Potato Center, Lima, Peru.)
translations:
http://www.kb.dk/permalink/2006/
Although this remarkable tract documented
the major role that potato played in the Andean
environment, application of this knowledge to the
newly introduced potato in Europe did not occur.
Introducing the potato to Europe
The earliest introductions of the potato in Europe
were to the Canary Islands in 1567 and Seville,
Spain, in 1570 (Hawkes and Francisco-Ortega,
1992). Sister Teresa de Avila, founder of the Order
of the Barefoot Carmelites, eschewed material
wealth and took a vow of poverty. Such behavior
was considered challenging and embarrassing to
the church hierarchy, and she was punished by
home imprisonment. While under imprisonment
in 1578 in Seville, and having been taken ill, she
remarked in a letter that she was fed potatoes and
recovered her strength (Oliemans, 1988).
It was also recorded that potato was fed to
patients in the Carmelite hospital in Seville, with
remarkably curative results. From these references,
it can be surmised that potato was grown in some
fashion and recognized as a health-restoring
Fig. 1.2.
A drawing by Felipe Guamán Poma de
Ayala depicting the potato harvest, from his historical
documentation of Andean society under Spanish
rule,
Nueva Crónica y Buen Gobierno
, 1616.
