A History of the Potato - The Potato: Botany, Production and Uses - page 9

the recipients found tremendous nutrient bene-
fits, which satisfied a need in lives dominated by
high amounts of physical labor.
When the potato was adopted by the
Makah, Quillayute, Haida, and Tlingit native
peoples of North America and south-east Al-
aska, it was inserted into a diet that had no rich
carbohydrate source (Swan, 1868; Suttles, 1951;
McDonald, 1972; Cook, 1973). These peoples
spent much of each day gathering food from the
sea and actively traveling out in canoes to cap-
ture fish and mammals. The potato was the per-
fect food to fuel a full day of rowing in a canoe,
kept for months in storage, and could be used as
a trade item or commodity, as the Haida and
Tlingit did by growing potatoes to sell to the
Russian sea otter fleets.
In Europe, potato agriculture engendered
population growth and economic development

wherever it was feasible to grow productively
(Nunn and Qian, 2011). During the 20th cen-
tury, a scientific understanding of the origin
of the potato was developed slowly through
the work of many plant explorers and taxon-
omists. Further, the use of primitive cultivars
and wild species in breeding has become com-
monplace, and has resulted in disease and pest
resistances not found previously in long-day
adapted potato. The development of a draft of
the potato genome certainly will help in the
extraction of greater genetic treasure from
wild potato in the future.
Throughout the years, consumer prefer-
ences have changed with trends and food tech-
nology innovations; however, the antioxidant-
rich potato remains a global powerhouse of
valuable and important vitamins and minerals
(Brown, 2005).

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