During the Seven Years War of the mid-1700s , a French ground forces pharmacist named Antoine - Augustin Parmentier was entrance by Prussian soldiers . As a captive of warfare , he was thrust to live on rations of potatoes . In mid-18th one C France , this would much characterise as savage and strange punishment : potatoes were thought of as provender for livestock , and they were believed tocause leprosyin humans . The concern was so widespread that the French passed a police force against them in 1748 .
The story of mashed potatoes takes 10,000 years and traverses the slew of Peru and the Irish countryside ; it have cameos from Thomas Jefferson and a nutrient scientist who helped make up a ubiquitous collation food . Before we get to them , though , countenance ’s go back to the start .
The Origins of the Potato
tater are n’t aboriginal to Ireland — or anywhere in Europe , for that matter . They were most likely domesticated in the Andes mountains of Peru and northwesterly Bolivia , where they were being used for food at least as far back as8000 BCE .
These other potatoes were very dissimilar from the potatoes we live today . They came in a mixture ofshapes and sizesand had abitter tastethat no amount of cooking could get rid of . They were also slightly poisonous . To combat this toxicity , unfounded relative of the llama would lick clay before eating them . The toxins in the white potato would stick to the clay atom , allow for the animals to squander them safely . People in the Andes noticed this and start dunk their potatoes in a mixture of remains and water — not the most appetizing gravy , perhaps , but an ingenious root to their potato problem . Even today , when selective breeding has made most murphy varieties safe to eat , some vicious varieties can still be bought in Andean markets , where they ’re sold alongside digestion - aiding clay dust .
By the time Spanish explorers land the first potatoes to Europe from South America in the 16th century , they had been bred into a fully edible plant life . It took them a while to catch on overseas , though . By some write up , European Fannie Merritt Farmer were suspicious of plants that were n’t mentioned in the Bible ; others say it was the fact that potatoes spring up from genus Tuber , rather than seeds .
advanced white potato historiographer debate these points , though . cultivated cabbage ’s deletion from the Bible did n’t seem to hurt its popularity , and tulip cultivation , using bulbs instead of germ , was happening at the same meter . It may have just been a horticultural job . The South American climate potato thrive in were unlike those determine in Europe , especially in footing of hours of daylight in a day . In Europe , potatoes grew leaves and flowers , which phytologist readily canvass , but the Tuber they produce remain small even after months of develop . This especial trouble start to be remedied when the Spanish started grow potatoes on the Canary Islands , which functioned as a kind of middle ground between equatorial South America and more northerly European clime .
It ’s deserving point out , though , that there is some evidence for the cultural concern remark to begin with . There are clear references to citizenry in the Scottish Highlands disliking that potatoes were n’t mentioned in the Bible , and customs like planting potatoes on Good Friday and sometimes pitter-patter them with holy water system suggest some sort of fraught relationship to potato consumption . They were becoming increasingly common , but not without disceptation . As time hold up on , concern about potatoes cause leprosy severely damaged their repute .
Early Mashed Potato Recipes
A fistful of Solanum tuberosum advocates , let in Parmentier , were capable to turn the potato ’s image around . In her eighteenth - century formula bookThe Art of Cookery , English generator Hannah Glasse instructed readers to roil potatoes , skin them , put them into a saucepan , and butterfly them well with milk , butter , and a little salt . In the United States , Mary Randolph publish arecipefor crush potatoes in her book , The Virginia Housewife , that called for half an ounce of butter and a tablespoon of milk for a pound of potatoes .
But no commonwealth embraced the potato like Ireland . The hardy , nutrient - dense nutrient seemed seamster - made for the island ’s coarse wintertime . And wars between England and Ireland likely accelerated its adaptation there ; since the important part grows underground , it had a good hazard of surviving military action . Irish people also liked their Irish potato squelch , often with bread or kale in a dish known ascolcannon . white potato were more than just a staple food there ; they became part of the Irish identity .
But the miracle harvest came with a major fault : It’ssusceptible to disease , particularly potato later blight , orPhytophtora infestans . When the microorganism encroach upon Ireland in the 1840s , farmers misplace their keep and many family lost their primary food source . The Irish Potato Famine killed a million multitude , or an 8th of the country ’s population . The British government activity , for its part , offer little documentation to its Irish subject .
One unexpected legacy of the Potato Famine was an detonation inagricultural scientific discipline . Charles Darwin became connive by the problem of tater blight on a humanitarian and scientific level ; he even personallyfundeda potato breedingprogramin Ireland . His was just one of many endeavors . Using Irish potato that had live on the blight and novel South American stock , European agriculturalist were finally able to breed level-headed , resilient potato puree and rebuild the crop ’s identification number . This development spurred more enquiry into plant genetics , and was part of a broad scientific social movement that include Gregor Mendel ’s groundbreaking ceremony work withgarden peas .
Tools of the Mashed Potato Trade
Around the beginning of the twentieth one C , a tool forebode a ricer started appearing in home kitchens . It ’s a metal contraption that resembles an outsized garlic insistency , and it has nothing to do with build rice . When fudge potatoes get squeezed through the tiny holes in the bottom of the pressing , they ’re transformed into fine , rice - sizedpieces .
The operation is a lot less cumbersome than using an old - fashioned masher , and it give more appetising results . comminute your potatoes into obliviousness releasesgelatinized starchesfrom the plant life cell that glom together to form a paste - similar eubstance . If you ’ve ever tasted “ gluey ” mashed potatoes , over - mashing was likely the culprit . With a ricer , you do n’t need to clapperclaw your Solanum tuberosum to get a placid , lump - free texture . Some purists reason that mashed potatoes made this way are n’t really squeeze at all — they’re riced — but get ’s not let pedantry get in the way of delicious carbohydrates .
The Evolution of Instant Mashed Potatoes
If mash Solanum tuberosum pedants have sentiment about ricers , they ’ll definitely have something to say about this next growing . In the 1950s , researchersat what is today call the Eastern Regional Research Center , a United States Department of Agriculture facility alfresco of Philadelphia , develop a new method acting for dehydrating potatoes that led to potato flakes that could be quickly rehydrated at home . shortly after , modernistic exigent squelch Irish potato were brook .
It ’s worth pointing out that this was far from the first time Solanum tuberosum had been dehydrated . Dating back to at least the meter of the Incas , chuñois fundamentally a freeze - dried potato created through a combination of manual labour and environmental conditions . The Incas gave it tosoldiersand used it to guard against craw shortages .
experimentation with industrial drying were gearing up in the later 1700s , with one 1802 alphabetic character to Thomas Jefferson discussing a raw conception where you grind the potato and pressed all the juice out , and the resulting cake could be kept for years . When rehydrated it was “ like mashed Solanum tuberosum ” according to the letter . Sadly , the potatoes had a tendency to wrench into majestic , acerb - savour cake .
Interest in instant grind spud resumed during the Second World War stop , but those interpretation were a boggy cornmeal mush or rent forever . It was n’t until the ERRC ’s instauration in the 1950s that a toothsome dried mashed potato could be get . One of the key developments was determine a way to dry the cooked white potato much faster , minimizing the amount of cell rift and therefore the pastiness of the end - merchandise . These potato snowflake fit perfectly into the rise of so - call convenience solid food at the time , and help potato consumption recoil in the 1960s after a decline in prior years .
inst mash potatoes are a marvel of food for thought science , but they ’re not the only use scientists found for these new potato flakes . Miles Willard , one of the ERRC research worker , run on to figure out in the private sector , where his work help contribute to new types of snacks using reconstituted potato bit — including Pringles .
