The Potato: How the Humble Spud Rescued the Western World | Larry Zuckerman

The Potato: How the Humble Spud Rescued the Western World | Larry Zuckerman | The Humble Spud in History

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The Potato: How th...

	The Potato: How the Humble Spud Rescued the Western World Larry Zuckerman North Point Press, 1999 - 320 pages average customer review:based on 12 reviews view larger image
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The Potato tells the story of how a humble vegetable, once regarded as trash food, had as revolutionary an impact on Western history as the railroad or the automobile. Using Ireland, England, France, and the United States as examples, Larry Zuckerman shows how daily life from the 1770s until World War I would have been unrecognizable-perhaps impossible-without the potato, which functioned as fast food, famine insurance, fuel and labor saver, budget stretcher, and bank loan, as well as delicacy. Drawing on personal diaries, contemporaneous newspaper accounts, and other primary sources, this is popular social history at its liveliest and most illuminating.

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You Say Po-tay-to, And I Say Po-tah-to.............

Don't let the corny (ouch!) title put you off: this is a serious look at the historical place of the potato in England, Ireland, France and the United States. And if you are concerned that 271 pages on the "humble spud" might put you into a stupor, you might breathe easier when you know that Mr. Zuckerman uses the potato as a starting point to examine lots of other stuff: class distinctions; agricultural landlords and tenant farmers; urbanization; women and domestic drudgery; the role of bread (ouch again!) vs. the role of the potato, etc. Mr. Zuckerman even finds the time, near the end of the book, to incorporate some philosophical musings on the positive and negative aspects of "fast-food" and its relationship to our "hurry-up society." To me, one of the best things about the book was the multi-cultural approach: it was interesting to see how much more quickly the potato caught-on in the United States than it did in France, England and Ireland (where the centuries-old custom of strict reliance on bread had to be overcome). Another interesting thing to read about was the amazement of foreign visitors concerning the variety of the American diet. We tend to forget that in Europe, in the period this book primarily deals with (1700-1900), the average person lived on bread, porridge, and soup. (One of the many interesting facts presented in this book is that up until almost 1900 most French peasants had a morning bowl of soup rather than a cup of coffee.) You were indeed fortunate if you had meat, milk, butter, eggs, coffee, etc. Even if a peasant farmer owned a cow, pig, or chicken, quite often the food products the animals supplied had to be sold, to provide some much-needed cash. The book provides a very nice combination of scholarly data(economic and sociological information) and anecdotal material. To be honest, the book was a "heavier" read than I anticipated, but the interesting "factoids" helped to lighten and liven things up. Some examples: soup was so prevalent in 19th century France that in one district it is documented that some people had wooden tables with rounded depressions carved into them. As Mr. Zuckerman writes, this "removed the need for plates and [also] any doubt about the menu."; soup was also used as a "bread-softener." Due to poor quality grain and inefficient ovens, the crust of bread was often as hard as a rock. Some people couldn't cut the bread with a knife- they had to use a saw; finally, in 19th century London a common sight was the "baked 'tato man," who sold his product from a cart on the sidewalk- similar to today's hot dog, pretzel, and chestnut vendors. But the interesting thing about the "baked 'tato man" was that, in the cold weather, he would suggest to the gentleman-half of a passing couple that he buy a baked potato to keep his sweetheart warm. The author writes, "This advice was often taken, and the potato placed inside her muff." Food for warmth, and this fine book provides much food for thought, as well.

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The Humble Spud in History

With a lively literary style, journalist Larry Zuckerman explains the history and importance of the lowly tuber, from its thirteen-thousand-year origin on the high Andean plateaus to its sixteenth-century discovery by Spaniards down to the beginning of World War I. Zuckerman chronicles just four countries in his treatise about the spud, but these countries: France, England, Ireland, and the United States are, he says, representative of the Western world.

Despite the potato's vital nutrients, it soon became known as the food of the poor and remained out of favor among the gentry. Even the peasants did not appreciate the strange plant that formed odd tubers which sprouted, which they declared to be of the Devil. But by the end of the seventeenth century, the potato as a staple food for Ireland's poor had become widely known. At the same time in England, the potato had yet to become a table food. Farmers fed them to their livestock. Within a hundred years, the potato had "nosed its way into English life." In France, where the fear of nightshades was even greater than in England, the potato caught on because the wet summers did not affect this hardy plant as they did grain.

Zuckerman traces the tuber's history from its beginnings through the horrific Potato Famine of Ireland to farm staple in a post-Civil War U.S. The potato represented a food whose ease of preparation lightened the burden for the average American farm wife. In chapters titled Potatoes and Population, A Passion for Thrift, Women's Work, The Good Companions, and Good Breeding (showing the evolution of the tuber from exotic and fearsome to low class, to beneath notice), Zuckerman educates and entertains, and at the same time shows us that having read the history of the lowly spud, we can never regard it in the same way. Perhaps the humble potato did rescue the Western world.

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Good Popular History

This title is an eminently readable social history of the potato's influence in Western Europe and the United States. It's full of fascinating facts, e.g. innante prejudice about food sources that came out of the ground delaying acceptance of the potato in Europe.

The book's greatest strength is the lengthy and sympathetic description of the Irish Great Famine of the 1840's. I am somewhat familiar with the secondary historical literature of the period and can confidently say that Zuckerman has thorough grounding in the sources and has fairly presented them.

There are some problems: the book could have been better organized, it skips too lightly over the origin of the potato in South America and although it cites sources, a more traditional footnoting style would have been helpful.

Mr.Zuckerman, I am now your fan and look forward to reading your next book.

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reviews: page 1, 2, 3

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