Here are some fascination things you may not know about potatoes: * They gave a name to the long-ago “Potato War” in Europe, when Austrian and Prussian armies ate all the potatoes along the battle lines-and then stopped fighting. * They gave us two president of the United States. In the 1840s, when blight destroyed the potato crop and brought famine to Ireland, more than a million Irish came to this country. Among their descendants: John F. Kennedy and Ronald Reagan. * They can help you wrap a present. Cut a potato in half, carve out a design (remember how you did it in kindergarten?), and stamp out your pattern with paint on plain wrapping paper.
That’s just a little of the lore that surrounds this humble yet versatile vegetable. But potatoes are also one of the world’s most important food crops. Potatoes were first grown by Indians in the high sierras of the Andes in South America. they were carried to Europe by the Spanish explorers, and their use spread from there. Today, just one year’s potato harvest is worth more than all the gold and silver the Spanish took from the New World.
The Dieter’s Friend
A lot of people used to believe that potatoes were fattening. Now we’re discovering that just isn’t true. Most of the calories aren’t in the potatoes, but in what’s added to them – butter, sour cream, gravy, rich sauces, fat that’s absorbed in frying, mayonnaise coating the potato salad. Potatoes by themselves are a real …