{"id":662,"date":"2011-03-11T15:53:31","date_gmt":"2011-03-11T20:53:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thequicksliver.wordpress.com\/?p=662"},"modified":"2011-03-11T15:53:31","modified_gmt":"2011-03-11T20:53:31","slug":"3-11-11-ex-pats","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quicksilverhg.com\/thequicksliver\/3-11-11-ex-pats\/","title":{"rendered":"3.11.11 Ex-Pats"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Here’s a little serving of mashed history.<\/p>\n

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The Andes were not made for farming.\u00a0 It’s cold and rainy, and the soil is rocky and thin.\u00a0 But when the first humans arrived here, they found a hardy little plant with edible roots, which they called patatas<\/em>.\u00a0 Thanks to this amazing food source, the Incas were able to establish an empire as early as 1200AD.<\/p>\n

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The Inca lasted until 1533, when they were wiped out by the Spanish.\u00a0 The conquistadors carried off anything of value. They also grabbed some potatoes for the long sail home.\u00a0 Back in Europe, folks were suspicious of the Indian plant.\u00a0 The roots were hard and tasteless.\u00a0 Some tried eating the leafy parts, and since the plant is a member of the poisonous nightshade family, it caused severe stomach aches and even death.\u00a0 Papas<\/em> became culinary taboo; they were considered weird and evil; several governments forbade cultivating them.<\/p>\n

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But then, in 1760, Antoine Augustine Parmentier, a scientist for Louis XV of France, was captured by the Prussians in the Seven Years War.\u00a0 While in a prison camp, he was served a steady diet of spuds.\u00a0 When he returned to Paris, he convinced the King to let him have 100 rocky acres to plant some.\u00a0 The plot produced so much food that everyone was amazed.\u00a0 Parisian chefs soon began inventing novel ways to cook and serve these pommes de terre<\/em>.\u00a0 Almost overnight, potatoes were la mode all over Europe.<\/p>\n

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Especially in Ireland.\u00a0 Farmers there found the mighty murphy<\/em> thrived in the tough soil; a single acre could produce enough food to sustain a family of 10.\u00a0 It was, surely, a miracle.\u00a0 With this incredible bounty, the population of Ireland doubled between 1800 and 1840.<\/p>\n

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And then.\u00a0 In 1845, folks in Ireland noticed the plants were turning black and smelling bad.\u00a0 Half the harvest was lost.\u00a0 In 1846, more acres were planted in a desperate attempt to recover, and all of it died.\u00a0 A million people starved; a million more emigrated to America.\u00a0 By the next year, Black ’47,\u00a0 Ireland had essentially collapsed.\u00a0 Over the next decades, almost 5 million more emigrated.\u00a0 By 1890, 2 out of every 5 Irish-born persons lived off-island.\u00a0 By 1900, there were 20 times more Irish living outside of Ireland than in it.<\/p>\n

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A century on, there are 80 million people of Irish descent dispersed around the globe.\u00a0 Next week they will celebrate St. Patrick’s Day with a pint of Guinness, some corned beef and cabbage, and perhaps a few prata<\/em>, potatoes. It’s their common bond.\u00a0 And their tragic heritage.<\/p>\n

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They are all a testament to the prolific power and epic collapse of the Andean patata<\/em>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Here’s a little serving of mashed history. The Andes were not made for farming.\u00a0 It’s cold and rainy, and the soil is rocky and thin.\u00a0 But when the first humans arrived here, they found a hardy little plant with edible roots, which they called patatas.\u00a0 Thanks to this amazing food…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[285,574,608,626,920,965,975,996,1110,1165],"class_list":["post-662","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-6","tag-conquistadors","tag-history","tag-inca","tag-irish","tag-patata","tag-pommes-de-terre","tag-potatoes","tag-prussian","tag-seven-years-war","tag-st-patricks-day"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quicksilverhg.com\/thequicksliver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/662","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quicksilverhg.com\/thequicksliver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quicksilverhg.com\/thequicksliver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quicksilverhg.com\/thequicksliver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quicksilverhg.com\/thequicksliver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=662"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/quicksilverhg.com\/thequicksliver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/662\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quicksilverhg.com\/thequicksliver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=662"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quicksilverhg.com\/thequicksliver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=662"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quicksilverhg.com\/thequicksliver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=662"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}