The Colombian Exchange: The Potato

For just under one-half of the year 1925, two Polish researchers ate no other food than cooked potatoes (mashed with butter; sliced and dressed in olive oil; lightly salted; and otherwise flavored, or merely plain). After all these tuberous three squares, they reported no weight gain (or loss), no health issues and, most surprisingly, “no craving for change in their diet.”

Such is the stalwart Solanum tuberosum, the potato, the world’s fifth most-planted food crop (after sugarcane, maize, rice, and wheat, in that order). Its humble beginnings thousands of years ago, in the high Andes of South America, told no tale to herald its now-global reach as a food. That story begins in 1588 when the conquistador Pizarro brought back to Spain and presented at the royal court this strange little food.

The russet potato, elevated

Hence, the potato is an important player in the Colombian Exchange, that vast interchange of foodstuffs between the New World and the Old World (in both directions) that began in 1492 and that changed each hemisphere’s diet massively and forever.

Scholars attribute to the potato alone major cultural shifts, such as the eradication of famine in Europe and, by feeding growing populations in the ascendancy of their economies, allowing Europeans to dominate the globe beginning in 1750 and into the 20th century. The historian William H. MacNeill writes, “Hunger’s end helped create the political stability that allowed European nations to take advantage of American silver. The potato fueled the rise of the West.”

Its influence in the formation of our own country is well-known. In 1839, the average Irish day laborer ate 12 pounds of the potato per day. When the crop failed, during the Great Hunger of 1845-49, one million Irish died, but one million also emigrated, many to help build the new United States.

I am intrigued by the chance power of the potato’s architecture. Unlike wheat and rice, which can only grow so tall before collapsing of their own weight and becoming inedible, the potato’s wealth quite stably lives and grows underground until it’s harvested. Furthermore, the plant is topped by comely flowers, which in time proudly adorned the button-holes of no less than Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette, in their day intentionally marketing the potato to a then-skeptical proletariat.

Louis was sage at selling Solanum tuberosum: He surrounded his potato field with a shallow moat and night guards, whom he instructed to be “merely watchful” at their stations for a couple of hours after dusk. The peasants who lived nearby, curious what valuable plants the king was guarding in his garden, swept in by dark after the guard’s departure and purloined the potato plants for their own plots.

More than 3,000 varieties of potato exist, all progeny of the original Andeans; only about 100 types now regularly grow and are eaten worldwide.

They generally fall into two camps for cooking, the “floury” sorts such as the Burbank Russet that bake well, mash well, and are good for chips—both our thin crisp-fried potato chips, and what the British name “chips” but that we call french fries. The other family of potato are the waxy sorts such as the so-called “baby new potatoes” that remain whole when boiled or steamed, but that do not generally mash well.

Some waxies, however, have been engineered to better serve as mashers or fryers; they’re of the overall “Finnish” family of potato, Yukon Gold being one of the more successful cultivars.

In your kitchen, keep in mind that the skin of the potato is of little nutritional use (though perhaps of higher aesthetic value), but that the layer immediately under the skin—too facilely peeled away—contains most of the tuber’s vitamin C. Watch that green-colored toxins do not grow in the same place on the potato by keeping it out of the light, and avoid buying the same so hued.

As with all of my columns devoted to the foods of the Colombian Exchange throughout this fall and winter, I choose recipes from that side of the interchange where the foodstuff landed. Hence, today’s recipe is an Irish preparation of the potato, that most useful food that originated in the Americas.

Colcannon (Mashed Potatoes and Green Cabbage)
6-8 servings

Ingredients
4 pounds potatoes, a 50/50 mix of “goldens” or “waxies” and Idaho russets, peeled or partially peeled, as you wish
2 sticks unsalted butter, 1 stick at room temperature set aside for the finish
1 medium-sized head green cabbage
1 cup heavy cream
Salt and pepper

Directions
Peel and cut up the potatoes into same-size chunks.

In a large pot, cover the potato pieces with 2 tablespoons salt and cold water and bring to a moderate boil. Cook for 15-20 minutes or until a knife easily pierces a chunk.

Peel off any dark green or wilting leaves from the head of cabbage, core it, and shred the cabbage (as if for coleslaw.) Cook the shreds over medium heat, in a very small amount of water, turning frequently, until the cabbage is cooked through but not mushy. Set aside and keep warm.

In a small pot or pan, mix together the cream and 1 stick of butter and slowly melt the butter, not allowing the liquid to boil or foam.

When cooked through, drain the potatoes in a colander or, if you can manage it, hold the top of the pot cracked just enough to let the water out. Return or keep the potatoes in the pot, without its cover. Place atop a slow fire (or in a heated oven) and let any residual moisture steam away.

Stir the cream and butter mix and add about half of it to the potatoes in their pot. Smash away, adding more of the cream and butter mix until the potatoes are smooth and fluffy but still have some lumps within. Fold in the cooked cabbage.

Season to taste with salt and pepper (you may use white pepper). Serve in a large warmed bowl, the colcannon indented deeply (use a ladle or the back of a large spoon), into which the second stick of butter is melting. As each serving is pulled from the bowl, a bit (well, maybe more) of the melted butter goes along.