100 Fun Facts About Hard Potato

The first written mention of the potato is a 1567 delivery receipt from the Canary Islands to which port?

The Canaries were the first place outside Central and South America where potatoes were grown. Spain took up the crop around 1570 and the British Isles between 1588 and 1593.

The Taíno word batata, source of the English word via Spanish patata, originally meant which crop?

The two crops are unrelated: the sweet potato belongs to the morning glory family, while the potato is a nightshade.

The cultivated potato Solanum tuberosum is a tetraploid with how many chromosomes?

Diploid relatives such as S. phureja have 24, triploids 36 and the pentaploid S. curtilobum 60. A 2025 study grouped every domesticated potato under S. tuberosum.

Potatoes were first domesticated around which lake on the Peru-Bolivia border?

Domestication happened 7,000 to 10,000 years ago from a species in the S. brevicaule complex. Wild potatoes range from the southern US to southern Chile.

Chuño, the Andean freeze-dried potato, is made by leaving potatoes out for three nights at what temperature?

The June and July nights above 3,800 metres freeze the tubers and the daytime sun dries them. Carl Troll argued this natural freeze-drying helped the Inca Empire rise.

White chuño, made by washing the frozen potatoes for about a week, is known in Bolivia by what name?

In Peru the frozen potatoes are carried to a river and left in pools. Chuño was eaten by Inca soldiers on the march and described by José de Acosta in 1590.

Which Spanish chronicler wrote that his 1537 Colombian expedition found 'a type of truffle' in Chibcha homes?

Cieza de León mentioned seeing potatoes in Quito, Popayán and Pasto in his 1553 Crónica del Perú. Spaniards long regarded the tuber as food for natives.

North America's earliest certain potato crop was planted in New Hampshire in 1719 by settlers from which town?

Because the plants came from Ireland the crop became known as the 'Irish potato'. Jefferson insisted the plant was not native to North America.

Which monarch's 1756 Potato Edict ordered peasants to grow the crop and earned the nickname Kartoffelkönig?

The proclamation called the tuber 'a very nutritious food supplement'. Legend says he too posted guards on potato fields to make peasants covet them.

Where did Parmentier guard his potato patch by day and leave it open at night so people would steal from it?

He also gave potato blossoms to the king and queen and hosted potato dinners for Benjamin Franklin and Lavoisier. He is buried at Père Lachaise in a plot ringed by potato plants.

Which two famous guests attended Parmentier's potato-themed dinners in Paris?

The Paris Faculty of Medicine had recently declared potatoes edible, largely thanks to him. Napoleon later made him the first army pharmacist.

In which year did the Paris Faculty of Medicine finally declare potatoes edible?

Resistance continued: the religious community that owned the land stopped Parmentier using his test garden at the Invalides, and his post there was suppressed.

By approximately what factor did France's annual potato crop grow between 1815 and 1840?

It went from 21 million hectolitres to 117 million. The 1785 Bon Jardinier had sniffed that 'the poor should be quite content with this foodstuff'.

In early modern Europe, the potato yielded roughly how many times the calories per acre of grain?

It also grew in a wider range of soils and climates. Ireland was probably the first part of Europe to cultivate it on a wide scale, in the early 17th century.

A 2014 study concluded that the late-blight organism Phytophthora infestans originated in which country's highlands?

The A2 mating type stayed confined to Mexico's Toluca Valley until the 1970s. Only in Mexico and Scandinavia do the two mating types regularly form winter-hardy oospores.

Who discovered the A2 mating type of potato blight in the Toluca Valley in the 1950s?

He was working for the Rockefeller Foundation's Mexican Agriculture Program and published the find in 1956.

Which wild hexaploid potato species has been the main source of late-blight resistance in modern breeding?

S. fendleri, a wild North American species, is used against nematodes instead.

Which waxy Irish potato variety's vulnerability to blight is blamed for the scale of the 1840s famine?

By 1841 Ireland had just over eight million people, most of them tenant farmers forced into potato monoculture on tiny plots.

Which Native American nation sent $170 for Irish famine relief in 1847, honoured by the sculpture Kindred Spirits?

The gift came barely a decade after their own forced removal. Alex Pentek's steel sculpture of nine eagle feathers stands in Midleton.

Roughly what share of the Irish who sailed to Canada in 1847 died of disease and malnutrition?

Over 5,000 died at the Grosse Isle quarantine station in the St Lawrence. Ireland's National Famine Memorial in Mayo depicts a coffin ship with skeletons in the rigging.

Which Treasury official running Irish famine relief said small farmers leaving could bring a 'satisfactory settlement'?

He limited food aid on the theory that wages from public works would draw imports. The government abandoned non-interference in January 1847.

Which city gave the first large foreign donation to Irish famine relief in 1846, about £14,000?

Irish soldiers and East India Company employees contributed. Tsar Alexander II sent funds and Queen Victoria gave £2,000.

Which South American potato did Chauncey Goodrich import in 1853, starting the Russet Burbank lineage?

Goodrich bred Garnet Chili from it, Albert Bresee bred Early Rose from that, and Luther Burbank selected his seedling from Early Rose in 1873.

At which Canadian institution was the Yukon Gold potato developed?

Gary Johnston made the official cross in 1966 and the variety reached market in 1980, nearly 30 years after work began.

Maris Piper, Britain's most-grown potato, was one of the first varieties bred to resist which pest?

Conrad Ellenby had screened over 60 wild species from 1941 to find resistance; H. W. Howard's Cambridge team made the final cross in 1956 and released it in 1966.

The King Edward potato of 1902 was originally bred by a Northumberland gardener under what name?

Lincolnshire grower John Butler renamed it to mark Edward VII's coronation, reputedly with permission from Buckingham Palace.

Jersey Royals trace to about 1878, when Hugh de la Haye planted a large potato with how many eyes?

One plant gave kidney-shaped, thin-skinned tubers dubbed the Jersey Royal Fluke. The variety is really International Kidney and holds an EU Protected Designation of Origin.

BASF's genetically modified Amflora potato was engineered to produce starch made almost entirely of what?

Antisense RNA switches off the enzyme that builds amylose, giving an industrially useful starch. Waxy varieties do something similar naturally.

In which Oregon town near the Idaho border was Ore-Ida founded in 1949?

The Grigg brothers rented a frozen-food plant there and turned it to potato processing, buying it outright around 1952 after a foreclosure.

Solanine, the potato's natural toxin, was first isolated in 1820 from the berries of which plant?

One study puts toxic doses at 2 to 5 mg per kilo of body weight and fatal doses at 3 to 6 mg. Symptoms range from nausea to hallucinations.

Which 1817 London bestseller has the earliest known recipe for potato chips?

William Kitchiner's book instructed cooks to peel the potato round and round like a lemon. The Saratoga Springs story of 1853 is now known to be untrue.

Which Irish company produced the world's first seasoned crisps, cheese and onion, in 1954?

Owner Joe 'Spud' Murphy and employee Seamus Burke cracked it after trial and error, and companies worldwide sought to buy the technique.

Frank Smith's 1920s crisp company sold its product in greaseproof bags with what tucked inside?

The chips otherwise stayed unseasoned until the 1950s. In California, Laura Scudder's workers ironed wax paper into bags at home to keep chips fresh.

Which animal fat was traditionally used to fry chips in northern France and Belgium?

The phrase 'French fried potatoes' first appeared in print in 1856 in Eliza Warren's Cookery for Maids of All Work, describing thin shallow-fried slices.

Jo Gérard claimed a 1781 manuscript proved Meuse valley locals fried potatoes before 1680 as a substitute for what?

He never produced the manuscript. Belgians blame 'French gastronomic hegemony' for the dish's name.

Why did Hasbro start including a plastic potato body with Mr. Potato Head in 1964?

The original 1952 kit was just pins and parts to stick into a real vegetable. Its April 1952 commercial was the first TV ad aimed directly at children.

Which accessory did Mr. Potato Head carry from 1952 until 1987?

The marketing concept the toy pioneered, getting children to pester their parents, became known as the 'nag factor'.

Why did tater tots sell slowly when Ore-Ida first offered them in stores in 1956?

Sales picked up once the price was raised, and by 1960 Ore-Ida held a quarter of the frozen potato market.

Which P&G chemist designed the Pringles chip and can, only to be pulled off the project?

Baur could not make them taste good; Alexander Liepa fixed the flavour and got the patent. Pringles launched in 1968 as 'Newfangled Potato Chips'.

In which state were Pringles first sold in 1968?

An Evansville newspaper advertised them as 'New at Kroger' in October 1968. They reached most of the US by 1975 and went international by 1991.

Where did Herman Lay open the snack operation in 1932 that grew into Lay's?

He bought Atlanta's Barrett Food Company in 1938 and sold chips from his car boot across the South. The Frito merger came in 1961.

Van Gogh painted The Potato Eaters in 1885 while living with his parents in which Dutch town?

He later told his sister it was still the best thing he had done. The oil sketch is at the Kröller-Müller Museum and the painting at the Van Gogh Museum.

What does Graben mean in Röstigraben, the Swiss German-French cultural divide?

Rösti began as a farmers' breakfast in the canton of Bern, hence the French name röstis bernois.

Hasselback potatoes take their name from a Stockholm restaurant whose name means what?

Student chef Leif Elison served the fanned potatoes in 1953, though a 1929 cookbook by Jenny Åkerström already had a similar recipe.

The word latke traces back through Yiddish and East Slavic to an Ancient Greek word meaning what?

That fits Hanukkah, when the potato pancakes are fried in oil. In Hebrew they are levivot, 'little hearts'.

The International Potato Center in Lima is known by which acronym, taken from its Spanish name?

Centro Internacional de la Papa was established by Peruvian government decree in 1971; Richard Sawyer was founding director until 1991.

The earliest verified potato tuber remains, from about 2500 BC, were found at which coastal Peruvian site?

The find sits far from the Lake Titicaca highlands where the crop was first domesticated.

The most widely cultivated potato subspecies is native to which archipelago in southern Chile?

Unlike Andean types, it is adapted to the long summer days of high southern latitudes.

How many types of potato germplasm does the International Potato Center in Lima hold?

Most of the collection consists of traditional landrace cultivars rather than commercial varieties.

Roughly what share of the world's 390 million tonnes of potatoes did China grow in 2024?

India is the second-largest producer, and Asia saw the fastest growth in output this century.

Which entomologist formally described the Colorado potato beetle in 1824?

Nuttall had spotted the beetle first, in 1811, feeding on buffalo bur in the Rockies; it did not touch a potato plant until decades later.

Around 1859 the Colorado beetle began destroying potato crops near which city?

From there it marched east at about 140 km a year and reached the Atlantic coast by 1874.

How many times has the Colorado beetle been eradicated from the United Kingdom?

It was first recorded at Liverpool docks in 1877; a Kent outbreak in 2023 was declared eradicated in January 2026.

Which Drummondville drive-in holds a copyright certificate alluding to inventing poutine?

Owner Jean-Paul Roy listed the dish in 1964 as 'fromage-patate-sauce' before the shorter name stuck.

In 2001 Montreal chef Martin Picard began serving poutine topped with what?

The Au Pied de Cochon dish pushed poutine onto upscale menus in Toronto and Vancouver within a decade.

Which fast-food chain added poutine to its menu in 1983?

Imitators using inferior cheese followed, and for years poutine was dismissed as backwoods junk food.

On which day of each month do Argentines and Uruguayans traditionally eat gnocchi?

Some diners slip money under the plate for prosperity, a habit tied to pay arriving at month's end.

In Argentine slang, what is a ñoqui?

The joke links to the month-end gnocchi tradition: the phantom worker appears, like the dish, on the 29th.

For how much did Luther Burbank sell the rights to his Burbank potato?

The money paid his way to Santa Rosa, California, in 1875, where he bred more than 800 plant varieties.

Burbank developed his potato on a 17-acre plot near which Massachusetts town?

He bought the land with his inheritance at 18; a russet-skinned sport of that potato became the Russet Burbank.

During the 1846-47 Highland famine, the government ran meal depots at Portree and which Mull port?

The depots sold meal only at market prices, since any hint of subsidy offended the economics of the day.

Highland landlords paid to emigrate more than how many tenants during the potato famine?

Roughly a third of the western Highlands' population left between 1841 and 1861, mostly for Canada and Australia.

Under 2008 EU rules, what must vodka not made from grain or potatoes do?

The Vodka Belt countries had pushed for a grain-and-potato-only definition after grape vodkas took off in the US.

What in a potato acts as the electrolyte in a homemade 'potato clock'?

Boiling the potato for eight minutes boosts its output, which is why potato LED lamps have been proposed for off-grid villages.

McCain Foods was founded in 1957 in Florenceville, in which Canadian province?

The McCain brothers' first plant sat on the Saint John River; the firm now claims one in four of the world's fries.

Whose food-service business did McCain buy for $500 million in 1997?

Three years earlier a succession feud had pushed co-founder Wallace McCain out; he bought Maple Leaf Foods instead.

Which chain's founder sealed a 1967 handshake deal with J. R. Simplot for frozen fries?

Fresh russets vanished for three summer months each year; frozen ones solved it, and by 1972 every fry was frozen.

Dan Quayle's 1992 'potatoe' spelling-bee gaffe happened in which city?

Quayle said he distrusted his own judgment and followed a flash card supplied by the school, which carried the extra e.

The first International Potato Day, on 30 May, was held in which year?

Its theme was 'Harvesting diversity, feeding hope'; 2008 had been the UN's International Year of the Potato.

The Bintje potato, bred by a Frisian schoolmaster in 1904, was named after whom?

Kornelis Lieuwes de Vries raised about 150 varieties over 25 years; Bintje was the only success.

Penn State bred the ill-fated Lenape potato of 1967 with which chip company?

Its high dry matter made perfect chips, but wild Peruvian genes gave it toxic glycoalkaloid levels and it was pulled in 1970.

What does colcannon's Irish name, cál ceannann, mean?

The same 'white-head' word names the coot in Irish, cearc cheannan.

A spoonful of champ is traditionally left for the fairies at the foot of which tree?

Champ is the scallion-and-milk cousin of colcannon, which swaps the scallions for cabbage.

Tartiflette's 1980s ski-resort boom was driven by the trade body for which cheese?

The dish itself is older: a 1705 cookbook by François Massialot mentions it.

Gratin dauphinois was first recorded in 1788 at a dinner for officials of which town?

The Duke of Clermont-Tonnerre served it alongside ortolans; by tradition the dish contains cream but no cheese.

Lithuania's cepelinai dumplings were renamed in 1900 in honour of which aviation pioneer?

Before that they were didžkukuliai, 'dumb-bells'; the western counties still make them bigger than the east.

In Norway, the small potato lefse called lompe often replaces what?

Pølse med lompe is a Constitution Day staple on 17 May, topped with ketchup, mustard and crispy onions.

Potato starch was a key ingredient in which early colour photography process?

The Lumière brothers dyed starch grains red, green and blue as a colour filter; the process lasted until the mid-1930s.

Who discovered the potato spindle tuber viroid, the first viroid ever identified, in 1971?

He coined 'viroid' because the naked RNA circle was about one-eightieth the size of a virus.

Canarian papas arrugadas were originally boiled in what?

Fresh water was scarce on the islands; today heavily salted tap water leaves the same wrinkled, salt-crusted skins.

Basketball's Spud Webb got his nickname as a newborn because his head resembled what?

'Sputnik' was shortened to 'Spud' before he left the hospital; at 5 ft 7 in he later won the 1986 NBA Slam Dunk Contest.

Prussia's 1778-79 'Potato War' was nicknamed in Austria after which fruit?

Almost nobody fought in the War of the Bavarian Succession; thousands still died of disease and hunger while foraging.

Leidens Ontzet, when Leiden eats hutspot to mark the end of its 1574 siege, is on which date?

The legend says fleeing Spanish troops left cooking pots behind, though in 1574 the stew was probably parsnip, not potato.

Legend says a Carlist general invented the Spanish omelette during the 1835 siege of which city?

The earliest written reference is older, a Navarrese complaint of 1817 about farmers stretching eggs with potatoes.

Monsanto's 1995 NewLeaf potato carried a beetle-killing gene from which bacterium?

It was Monsanto's first genetically modified crop, but the market stayed small and seed sales ended in 2001.

The Inca baked potatoes in what kind of underground cooking pit?

Modern jacket potatoes need one to two hours at 200 °C, and are done at an internal 99 °C.

Jansson's temptation is often said to contain anchovies, but the Swedish fish is really what?

Spiced pickled sprats have been sold in Sweden as 'ansjovis' since the mid-1800s, hence the mistranslation.

Solanum watneyi, named for The Martian's potato-farming botanist, is a bush tomato from where?

It shares its genus with the potato; the film's own potatoes were grown for real on a Hungarian sound stage.

Hasbro licensed Mr. Potato Head for Toy Story but refused to license which other toy?

Sid was scripted to blow one up, so Pixar invented Combat Carl instead.

Golden Wonder began in 1947 when an Edinburgh baker used fryers normally reserved for what?

William Alexander named the brand after the Golden Wonder potato, which he thought made the best crisps.

Russia's 1840s potato riots were fuelled by rumours linking potato planting to service to whom?

More than 500,000 state peasants in the Urals and lower Volga tore up potato plantings before troops opened fire.

'Banger' is said to come from World War I sausages so watery they tended to do what when cooked?

Bangers and mash topped a 2009 survey of Britain's favourite comfort foods.

The OED's earliest use of 'chips' for fried potato comes from which 1859 Dickens novel?

Oliver Twist had already mentioned a 'fried fish warehouse' in 1838; the two trades merged into chip shops in the 1860s.

In Inca mythology, which daughter of Pachamama is the goddess of potatoes?

Iroquois myth instead has the first potatoes sprouting from Earth Woman's feet after she died in childbirth.

Mr. Potato Head, sold by Hasbro from 1952, was the first toy to be what?

The original kit supplied only the face parts; children had to raid the kitchen for the potato.

Potato Pete races in a giant pierogi costume at which MLB team's home games?

He was one of the original four racers in 1999 and was later dropped for Oliver Onion, returning only for cameos.

Which German weapon of both world wars was nicknamed the 'potato masher'?

The Germans themselves called it the Kartoffelstampfer; British troops in 1914 also knew it as the jam-pot.

The spiral-cut, skewered tornado potato is a signature street food of which country?

Australians call them chips on a stick; a Guadalajara vendor claims to have made the first 'espiropapas' in 1997.

In western Norway, potato dumplings are traditionally the dish of the day on which weekday?

Cafes advertise komle-torsdag; the dumplings go by raspeball, komle, klubb or kompe depending on the region.

What is shepherd's pie called in French cuisine?

In 1806 Maria Rundell published the same mince-under-mash idea in England under the name 'Sanders'.