From Earth to plate: the journey of a potato on World Potato Day (2024)

01 Jun 2024 | 12:35am IST

A millennia-old food with origins in the South American Andes region that made its way to Europe in the 16th century then spread around the world, the potato is much more than a source of nourishment.

Frazer Andrade

Potatoes are an important means to provide accessible and nutritious food and improved livelihoods in rural and other areas where natural resources, especially arable land and water are limited and inputs are expensive. Its ability to grow in a variety of conditions, made it a crop of choice for many. “As a child I remember rapping potatoes in fresh banana leaves and placing them into heaps of dried leaves, ignited with fire. The cooked potatoes when hot itself were slit into pieces. Butter was than applied to these freshly cut hot roasted potatoes. That taste is still afresh in my mind”, says Blessy Andrade from Margão.

Potatoes are also a climate-friendly crop, as they produce low levels of greenhouse gas emissions in comparison to other crops. In December 2023, the United Nations General Assembly decided to dedicate a day during the year, to the ‘potato” so as to raise awareness of the multiple nutritional, economic, environmental and cultural values of the potato and its contribution as an invaluable food resource and as a generator of income for rural families and producers. This international day dedicated to potatoes was celebrated throughout the globe, yesterday, 30-May- 2024.

The potato was indigenous to Peru till the 16th century and unknown elsewhere. The voyages of Christopher Columbus opened up different parts of the world and its produce creating what was referred to as the Columbian Exchange. This exchange allowed the potato to travel from its place of origin, across the seas to nearly every continent in the world. Easy to grow, resilient to vagaries of weather and abundant in their fruition, potatoes quickly became an answer to food shortages and a staple across Europe. In India, the story of the potato is one that begins with the early Portuguese and Dutch traders.

However, their influence or reach did not extend across the subcontinent and the potato remained restricted to small patches along the Malabar coastline for quite some time. By the 19th Century, potatoes were being grown all across Bengal and the hills of north India. The cultivation of potatoes increased in a big way in the 20th Century with the introduction and implementation of modern agricultural methods. ‘Aloo, Batata, Botat, Uralaikilangu, Kook, Alu, Urulakizhangu’ etc., there is a name for a potato across Indian languages that matches its ubiquitous presence across cuisines. Today, the potato in India makes up a world of breakfasts comprising aloo parathas, puris with a tangy aloo curry, masala dosas with a soft potato stuffing or grilled chutney and potato sandwiches.

Take a look at Goan cosine — from Batat fov (puffed rice with potatoes tempered with green chillies, onions, curry leaves, turmeric, grated coconut etc.) to the Patal bhaji and Wada Pão (a deep-fried potato dumpling placed inside a bread bun (pav) sliced almost in half through the middle. It is generally accompanied with one or more chutneys and a green chili) served mainly in Maharashtra and Goa. How could one imagine monsoons without ‘Botatiachim kapã’ (batter fried potato slices)? “I remember gulping down, freshly fried Kapã, as I watched T.V. during the monsoon”, recalls Shamin Sequeira of Bicholim, with a bright smile.

Many of these foods majorly containing an ingredient or more introduced to the country by the Europeans may not be wholly Indian as may be portrayed but may be these carefully crafted by Indians, beautifully blending ingredients of east and west. In order to hold on to their caste privileges, Brahmins would treat all food coming from outside as suspect and therefore taboo. However, over time, these beliefs broke down and the gradual prevalence of potatoes in one’s daily diet made it an acceptable food even on days of religious feasts. It is only among the Jain community that the potato continues to be forbidden since the plant has to be uprooted (therefore destroyed) for the sake of consumption.

The late Dr. K. T. Achaya documented in his book ‘A Historical Dictionary of Indian Food’ that potatoes in India were first accepted only by Europeans and then by the Muslims. But it was the Dutch that really introduced the culture of potatoes to India, helping us plant some of India’s first ever potato farms for local consumption. And that is why these are today referred to as batata; the Portuguese/Spanish word for the potato tuber. “Many Indians take it for granted that the potato is native to India, which is not the case”, says Dr. Maria de Lourdes Bravo da Costa Rodrigues, who was awarded a PhD by the Goa University for her thesis on ‘Food History of Goa: its multifaceted aspects from 1900-1961’.

Odette Mascarenhas an author and culinary chronicler from Goa says, “It is indeed really interesting to see that Hindus from Goa and other parts of the country accepted the potato in a big way, clearly noticed in their food preparations such as ‘sukhi bhaji’ and ‘Kapã’ etc. becoming an integral part of their diet while Catholics prepared stuff like chops from potato”. Over the centuries there has been a migration of several thoughts and ideas, she says further speaking about the Goan Green Curry containing potato, about which sadly very little has been spoken. The Portuguese have been associated with Bengal; a region also known to have a green curry prepared containing potato. A lot of these thoughts and ideas may have travelled across regions through trade, she says. There is an interesting story of a nawab (Wajid Ali?) exiled to Calcutta who used the potato in his biryani, from where the very idea of adding the potato to biryani, came into being. “Except for some Hindu households like the Gaud Saraswat Brahmins (GSBs)and Saraswat Brahmins, the matriarch generally supervised the kitchens while most of the actual work was being done by helpers, who would have brought in a little change in their culinary tradition”, she says, further stating “The GSBs have remained true to most of their preparations, however preparations like ‘Kapã’ may have infiltrated, since preparations very similar to this have been found to be prepared in places such as Udupi and Mangalore, which may have been incorporated into their menus due to their acceptance to new culinary ideas since early times”. “Today, globally potatoes are the fourth largest food crop following rice, wheat and maize”, says Dr. Fatima Da Silva Gracias, further stating that around 1573, potatoes were taken to Spain, form the mountain ranges of South America while the Portuguese may have carried them to India possibly towards the end of the 16th Century or somewhere in the beginning of the 17th Century.