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A Ridiculous History of Potatoes, Part One: the Origin Story · Ridiculous History

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  Speaker 1: Ridiculous History is a production of iHeartRadio. Welcome back to
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: the show, fellow Ridiculous Historians. Thank you, as always so
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: much for tuning in. Let's hear it for the man,
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  Speaker 1: the myth, the legend, the guy I almost called super
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: producer Max Taters Williams. Sorry, there's a guy from Daly's
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: eyegeist who goes by Tater's O'Brien.
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  Speaker 2: I don't know guys know this, but potatoes, I can
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  Speaker 2: have them on the with the condition condition one of
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  Speaker 2: the seven.
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  Speaker 3: Foods, one of the seven.
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  Speaker 1: There's a pantheon. We are joined by none other that
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  Speaker 1: not only my favorite co host, but also our research
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  Speaker 1: associate for today's episode, which will be part of a series,
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  Speaker 1: mister Noel Brown.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, it's me and Apollo, the dog who lent a
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  Speaker 3: paw in this potato deep dive which went a lot
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  Speaker 3: deeper than I thought. It was your Ben Ben Bowlin.
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  Speaker 1: We've got mister Jackpots over here, who has quieted down
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  Speaker 1: because Jackpots can't wait to explore nol. What you and
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  Speaker 1: I agreed will be part of a continuing series.
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  Speaker 3: Well, a series of two likely, but you know who knows.
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  Speaker 3: I was kind of surprised at how deep the what
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  Speaker 3: do you got it? The potato hole went all the
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  Speaker 3: way down to the core of the earth. Potatoes run
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  Speaker 3: deep in this one and they're delicious too, and you know,
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  Speaker 3: sometimes humble. They're often referred to as a humble potato,
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  Speaker 3: which I think is selling them a little short. Frankly,
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  Speaker 3: I guess maybe it comes from the fact that they're
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  Speaker 3: not exactly the prettiest things to look at, which entered
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  Speaker 3: into some of the suspicion that surrounded the early days
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  Speaker 3: of potatoes in the Western world. But you know, whether
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  Speaker 3: you've enjoyed a delicious French fry with ketchup or mayonnaise
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  Speaker 3: if you're wild and or from Europe, or maybe a
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  Speaker 3: little bit of mash with your bangers, probably you've had
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  Speaker 3: a potato a cross your table and your palate and
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  Speaker 3: ultimately make its way into your heart.
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  Speaker 1: M Yeah, you know this is this is fascinating Old.
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  Speaker 1: This is a great compliment to our continuing series on
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  Speaker 1: sauces and condiments. There are so many varieties of tubers.
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  Speaker 1: There are so many different you know, different members of
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  Speaker 1: the pantheon of what we call the potato. But as
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  Speaker 1: you point out in your research, the potato is one
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  Speaker 1: of the world's most important crops. It is scientifically known
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  Speaker 1: solidum tubursum, Yes, solanum tuber rossum.
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  Speaker 3: That is right. The potato is, in fact one of
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  Speaker 3: the to your point been world's most important crops, with
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  Speaker 3: a fascinating history that isn't just the history of one
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  Speaker 3: humble it's not a vegetable, one humble tuber, but also
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  Speaker 3: the history of cultivation of agriculture in many ways. The
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  Speaker 3: stretches from the hilltops of the Andes all the way
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  Speaker 3: to the fictional world of J. R. R. Tolkien's The Shire,
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  Speaker 3: where they like to boil and mash them or perhaps
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  Speaker 3: stick them in a stew.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's it's something that can be called ridiculous. You
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  Speaker 1: might be asking us, guys, why are you dedicating so
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  Speaker 1: much time to the potato. Well, first off, it's because
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  Speaker 1: we love it. Secondly, we needed a palate cleanser after
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  Speaker 1: our thoroughly curse word written exploration of one of our
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  Speaker 1: favorite words.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, we had to write our names on the blackboard
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  Speaker 3: a bunch of times because we were bad boys. All
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  Speaker 3: the teachers out there in the audience wrote to us
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  Speaker 3: individually and said that we had to do that to
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  Speaker 3: make amends. For that swear laden episode, but I think
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  Speaker 3: it was worth it, Ben, I think it was worth
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  Speaker 3: it because it was educational.
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  Speaker 1: Hey, And speaking of educational novel, this one I'm very
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  Speaker 1: excited about. And I can't thank you enough because what's
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  Speaker 1: funny about the Potato is that everywhere you go in
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  Speaker 1: this wide world of ours, people will know what a
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  Speaker 1: potato is. It is as famous and as ubiquitous as
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  Speaker 1: perhaps Michael Jackson was in the nineteen eighties.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, and Michael Jackson's back baby in the form of
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  Speaker 3: a biopic from Antoine Fuqua called Michael in a burst
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  Speaker 3: of creativity, Dude, I know this is We're gonna get
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  Speaker 3: to the potatoes and a second. But I always think it's
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  Speaker 3: fascinating when a movie's critics score and audience score are
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  Speaker 3: so wildly out of whack, and that is very much
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  Speaker 3: the case for Michael thirty eight thirty four something like that.
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  Speaker 3: To ninety seven audiences and even some real snarky YouTubers
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  Speaker 3: that I like who do movie reviews, love it and
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  Speaker 3: find it to be a delight and a bit of
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  Speaker 3: a romp.
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  Speaker 1: I don't love a sanitized or authorized biography.
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  Speaker 3: I don't love a biography period especially about musicians. Most
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  Speaker 3: of this stuff not to be like, I'm the nerdy,
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  Speaker 3: nerdiest Michael Jackson aficionado on the planet, but a lot
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  Speaker 3: of this stuff is kind of obvious. And the fact
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  Speaker 3: that they're not digging into the nuance of some of
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  Speaker 3: the accusations and some of the more you know, to
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  Speaker 3: your point, been unsanitary aspects of the story does give
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  Speaker 3: me pause. But I did think I would mention that
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  Speaker 3: out of whack critic to audience score.
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  Speaker 1: Isn't it crazy? Because the previous pick and we promise
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  Speaker 1: We'll move on had the exact reverse. It was. It
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  Speaker 1: was lauded by critics, it was a critic starling, but
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  Speaker 1: the fans did not care for it, did not care
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  Speaker 1: for it. The previous Michael Jackson exploration thing that went
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  Speaker 1: to film. Yeah it I got to send this to.
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  Speaker 3: You off air.
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  Speaker 1: It's it's a study in the division between the public
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  Speaker 1: and the holders of critical power. But the reason I'm
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  Speaker 1: bringing up this popularity here, Noel, is because the potato,
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  Speaker 1: i would argue, is one of the most recognizable food
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  Speaker 1: stuffs across the planet. It's up there with rice, you
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  Speaker 1: know what I mean, It's up there with bread. But
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  Speaker 1: a lot of people are not aware of its strange
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  Speaker 1: origin story. It is so much older. We want to
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  Speaker 1: bust a myth right at the top. Potatoes are not
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  Speaker 1: from Ireland, sorry, every body. They're from way further back
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  Speaker 1: and way farther away.
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  Speaker 3: You're right, Ben, They do come from much farther afield
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  Speaker 3: than one might think, and they are a whole heck
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  Speaker 3: of a lot older than one might think, eight thousand
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  Speaker 3: years old by some estimations, but their place in Western
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  Speaker 3: cuisine is a good bit newer than folks might have thought.
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  Speaker 3: So it's kind of an interesting mixed bag. Potatoes were
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  Speaker 3: first cultivated, as we were saying, by some estimations, close
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  Speaker 3: to eight thousand years ago by the Inca Indians in
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  Speaker 3: the Andes Mountain region of Peru, southern Peru and northwestern Bolivia. They,
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  Speaker 3: to your point, been developed thousands of different varieties of potato,
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  Speaker 3: suited to the regions, different climates, altitudes, and various soils,
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  Speaker 3: various types of soils. Not only were they an important
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  Speaker 3: food to the antient people, but the crop was incredibly
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  Speaker 3: central to their culture. For example, some of the ancient
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  Speaker 3: civilizations in this region actually measured time by how long
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  Speaker 3: it took potato to cook, or how you know long
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  Speaker 3: it took the potato to grow.
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  Speaker 1: I love that. I love a different clock, man, you
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  Speaker 1: know I do.
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  Speaker 3: So it's actually, isn't a potato clock a thing? Can't
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  Speaker 3: you like power from a potato sticking like electrodes a
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  Speaker 3: different kind of potato cloth.
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  Speaker 1: I love the idea that thousands of years ago someone
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  Speaker 1: would say, hey, you're two potatoes late.
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  Speaker 3: Did jumping here?
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  Speaker 2: I'm thinking of like the old Futurama episode where they
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  Speaker 2: go into the Death Star of old people and there's
• 8:35
  Speaker 2: making sure about the matrix, about how everyone's like all
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  Speaker 2: the people are in the things being batteries and bender goes.
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  Speaker 2: Wouldn't anything be a better battery like a potato or
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  Speaker 2: a battery or a battery?
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, as we mentioned this, this guy not to answer
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  Speaker 1: for warphize too much, but this little guy is what
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  Speaker 1: we call an herbaceous annual, so it grows about the
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  Speaker 1: plant itself grows about forty inches tall in freedom units
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  Speaker 1: or one hundred centimeters tall for the rest of the world.
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  Speaker 1: As it grows, it's leaves the stuff above ground manufacture
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  Speaker 1: starch that gets transferred to the ends of its underground stems.
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  Speaker 1: The fancy were there being Stolens Stolns. Congratulations to everybody
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  Speaker 1: who just won a spelling bee.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, and I learned some new words and some new
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  Speaker 3: cultivation techniques yesterday when I watched the first episode of
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  Speaker 3: Zach Galifanakis's new gardening show.
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  Speaker 1: Oh it's great.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, I've only seen the first episode where he talks
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  Speaker 3: about apples. I really hope they get to potatoes. But
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  Speaker 3: I can't speak to that for certain, because I haven't
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  Speaker 3: really looked at apples.
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  Speaker 1: They're just crazy.
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  Speaker 3: Apples are wild. The thing called grafting, like all of
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  Speaker 3: this stuff where you like slice off, it's not quite
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  Speaker 3: the same as propagating. It's its own thing, and they
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  Speaker 3: acknowledge in the episode that it is something that a
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  Speaker 3: lot of people are painfully unfamiliar with. So the stems
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  Speaker 3: that you were talking about ben thicken underground to form
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  Speaker 3: just a few or as many as twenty tubers close
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  Speaker 3: to the soil surface. And you know, we talk a
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  Speaker 3: lot about route beggas on our sister show Stuff. They
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  Speaker 3: don't want you to know why. You may ask, you'll
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  Speaker 3: have to listen to find out. I'm not even sure
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  Speaker 3: exactly why. But it's become a theme, and I think
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  Speaker 3: we all love it and are here for it. We
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  Speaker 3: had a little off my discussion as to whether a
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  Speaker 3: potato was in fact a root vegetable like a root
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  Speaker 3: of bega, because we've been thrown around this term tuber,
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  Speaker 3: and we had a little bit of a debate and
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  Speaker 3: did a little bit of googling and found out that
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  Speaker 3: both root vegetables and tubers are something known as geophytes,
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  Speaker 3: which is a botanical classification for plants that have that
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  Speaker 3: main the major part that is to be cultivated growing
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  Speaker 3: beneath the soil. And here's the kicker. All tubers fall
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  Speaker 3: under that umbrella term of root vegetables. However, not all
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  Speaker 3: root vegetables are tubers. So the method in which the
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  Speaker 3: rude bega grows and propagates is different than or the
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  Speaker 3: I guess mechanic of it is different than what happens
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  Speaker 3: with a tuber. So I think that hopefully clears it
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  Speaker 3: up for everyone out there who maybe had a question
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  Speaker 3: about rudebegas versus potatoes, because they do seem like they
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  Speaker 3: would be exactly the same, but they are similar enough,
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  Speaker 3: but then have some distinct differences. So to continue on
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  Speaker 3: the number of tubers that actually can reach maturity depends
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  Speaker 3: a lot on conditions, things like the nutrients in the
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  Speaker 3: soil and moisture that is available. Tubers can vary distinctly,
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  Speaker 3: as we all know, in shape and size, and usually
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  Speaker 3: weigh roughly up to three hundred grams. And this comes
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  Speaker 3: from a delightful site, the International Potato Center, which I'm
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  Speaker 3: just glad a thing like that exists.
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  Speaker 1: I'm super happy that there is an international cabal of
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  Speaker 1: people very interested in potatoes.
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  Speaker 3: Another thing that this Potato org had to say about
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  Speaker 3: the science of potatoes is that at the end of
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  Speaker 3: the season, the plants leaves and stems die down to
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  Speaker 3: the soil level, and then it creates new tubers. It's like,
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  Speaker 3: thus the circle of potato continues. The tubers then serve
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  Speaker 3: as a nutrient store that allows the plant to survive
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  Speaker 3: and lay dormant during the cold months and then regrow
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  Speaker 3: later and reproduce. And this isn't It's going to come
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  Speaker 3: into play in part two when we talk about a
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  Speaker 3: horrific potato related event in history known as the Irish
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  Speaker 3: Potato fam Potatoes are all actually clones of themselves. They
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  Speaker 3: do this through a process called vegetative propagation. So when
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  Speaker 3: a potato or a piece of one develops sprouts from
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  Speaker 3: those little things that we kind of look at to
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  Speaker 3: see if a potato is still good the eyes, if
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  Speaker 3: it starts to form a bunch of those, you maybe
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  Speaker 3: know that the potatoes a little long in the tooth.
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  Speaker 3: Once it's planted, it then can grow a new plant
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  Speaker 3: that is genetically identical to the parent. And as we've
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  Speaker 3: discussed in stuff that I want you to know and
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  Speaker 3: surely on this show as well, this can create something
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  Speaker 3: called a monoculture, which is very susceptible to blight and
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  Speaker 3: certain other types of disease.
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  Speaker 1: See also the gross Michelle banata, right, so, which is
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  Speaker 1: a very different type of flauta. So the issue is, folks,
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  Speaker 1: if you are looking at your old bag or rusted
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  Speaker 1: potatoes that you hid in the pantry away from the light,
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  Speaker 1: and you see those eyes, you probably know that you
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  Speaker 1: can cut those sprouts out and still use the non
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  Speaker 1: discolored part of your potato.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, unless it's like got rot, actual grossness or any
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  Speaker 3: kind of mildewy nastiness on it, they're utterly fine. And
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  Speaker 3: it's another reason the potatoes are so incredible as staple
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  Speaker 3: crops because that very reason. Then they are just really
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  Speaker 3: resilient and if you store them in a cool, dry place,
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  Speaker 3: they can last months.
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  Speaker 1: Part of why I am here now recording this podcast
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  Speaker 1: with us is to the fact that during the Great Depression,
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  Speaker 1: some of my family members survived entirely because they were
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  Speaker 1: able to dig up old potatoes from the frozen ground.
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  Speaker 1: So thank you, potato, thank you for making it the
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  Speaker 1: world round. You've migrated noble potato instead of humble. You've
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  Speaker 1: migrated and stepped with humanity. You know, we are aware
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  Speaker 1: that human populations arrived at the South American continent. Current
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  Speaker 1: history says around seven thousand years ago.
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  Speaker 3: Yes, seven thousand or eight thousand, depending on this.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, what's between friends. Yeah, so this is where we
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  Speaker 1: begin to see. If you fast forward seven thousand years,
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  Speaker 1: you begin to see wild potato plants sprouting up around
• 15:04
  Speaker 1: Lake Titi Kaka Lake Uh huh just so and no
• 15:10
  Speaker 1: Bevis Beavis, I think, yeah, and it's funny. I recently
• 15:15
  Speaker 1: rewatched that Saturday Night Live sketch, you know, the one
• 15:18
  Speaker 1: on top with Ryan.
• 15:21
  Speaker 3: Yeah, he's actually like the what of beavs but real people?
• 15:24
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it was it was fascinating. And the uh, the
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  Speaker 1: the interesting thing for so many archaeologists here is that
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  Speaker 1: you can find, as you were saying earlier, No, you
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  Speaker 1: can find remains of potato cultivation from around four thousand BCE.
• 15:43
  Speaker 1: You can see examples of potatoes getting praised in local
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  Speaker 1: art of the time in Nasca and Chimu pottery.
• 15:51
  Speaker 3: Yeah, Naska famous for those lines.
• 15:53
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I still wonder whether they built an early version
• 15:57
  Speaker 1: of a hot air balloon. How else do you see
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  Speaker 1: the whole thing?
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  Speaker 3: And that's the deal. If anyone's not familiar, then Nasca
• 16:04
  Speaker 3: lines are a popular pet subject of conspiracy buffs and
• 16:09
  Speaker 3: we've certainly talked about it on the podcast. And it
• 16:11
  Speaker 3: is sort of like what a giant array of lines
• 16:16
  Speaker 3: that can really like create like some sort of pattern
• 16:18
  Speaker 3: that can really only be seen from way high up.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, you'll see a big steak or you'll see
• 16:23
  Speaker 1: a big dude doing something and you have to wonder,
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  Speaker 1: how how do they do? That is the question. So
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  Speaker 1: the cool thing, the very clever thing about these farmers
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  Speaker 1: in the Andes is that they understood you could grow
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  Speaker 1: potatoes not just at higher altitudes, but you could grow
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  Speaker 1: them more successfully at higher altitudes.
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  Speaker 3: That's right. The Cusco Valley was just such a place
• 16:53
  Speaker 3: with you know that existed at pretty high altitudes. It
• 16:57
  Speaker 3: became occupied by the Incas in around fourteen hundred as
• 17:01
  Speaker 3: a result of the collapse of the Huari civilization and
• 17:04
  Speaker 3: the state of Tiajuanaku. I'm doing my best here. I
• 17:08
  Speaker 3: think that was fine in the years one thousand to
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  Speaker 3: twelve thousand. We're talking BCE here.
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  Speaker 1: So this is at this time the largest settlement, the
• 17:18
  Speaker 1: settlement that is expanding at the highest rate in what
• 17:23
  Speaker 1: we call the Americas North and South. These folks are
• 17:27
  Speaker 1: becoming advanced in agricultural approaches that descend to them from
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  Speaker 1: their ancestors, and because they know how to interact with
• 17:38
  Speaker 1: the soil, how to speak with the lands, they see
• 17:40
  Speaker 1: a tremendous boost in the production of not only the
• 17:44
  Speaker 1: noble potato, but also maze.
• 17:47
  Speaker 3: You know corn. Yeah, yeah, exactly. And not only were
• 17:51
  Speaker 3: they hugely successful in cultivating all of these things, they
• 17:55
  Speaker 3: also figured out some pretty awesome science y ways of
• 17:59
  Speaker 3: preserving them that we more or less still use versions
• 18:03
  Speaker 3: of to this day, the idea of freeze drying, which
• 18:06
  Speaker 3: really blew my mind when I read this. They created
• 18:09
  Speaker 3: a potato product. And by the way, this stuff's coming
• 18:12
  Speaker 3: from another incredible organization, the Irish Potato Federation. This is
• 18:16
  Speaker 3: a federation like a star trek. They created this potato
• 18:21
  Speaker 3: product called chuniol, which was one of their main food
• 18:24
  Speaker 3: items because it just traveled so well. It involved a
• 18:27
  Speaker 3: process wherein raw potatoes would be frozen and then thawed
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  Speaker 3: outdoors over and over again before the farmer squeezed the
• 18:35
  Speaker 3: remaining moisture out of them, creating this like astronaut ice cream.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah potato, yeah, yeah, yeah, man, you nailed it. Get
• 18:44
  Speaker 1: out of my head because that's the best example.
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  Speaker 3: This is so tasty and lately, dude, I don't know
• 18:50
  Speaker 3: if you've seen that. They're like freeze dried skittles. You
• 18:52
  Speaker 3: can get freeze dried snacks are back in a big way,
• 18:56
  Speaker 3: especially at places like Trader Joe's Artemis too. Yeah, good time.
• 19:00
  Speaker 3: Oh I love a free stride stack because they're so
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  Speaker 3: crunchy and there's a little something, a little uncanny valley
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  Speaker 3: about them, but in a good way, you know.
• 19:08
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and also Max will keep it in. But I
• 19:12
  Speaker 1: accidentally had a Freudian slip and said shark out instead
• 19:16
  Speaker 1: of shout out to Artemis two. That is a joke
• 19:19
  Speaker 1: about their problems with bathrooms at the spacecraft.
• 19:23
  Speaker 3: They got that sharded.
• 19:25
  Speaker 1: Yeah, sure, perfect dude to shout out to you guys.
• 19:36
  Speaker 1: This is a perfect comparison astronaut food because far before
• 19:40
  Speaker 1: the invention of what we call supermarkets, we have a
• 19:44
  Speaker 1: shelf stable food stuff. This is your insurance for any
• 19:49
  Speaker 1: failed harvest, right, and it doesn't necessarily kind of like tofu.
• 19:54
  Speaker 1: It doesn't necessarily have a big, bold, forward flavor on
• 19:59
  Speaker 1: its own, but it does have a lot of nutritional value,
• 20:03
  Speaker 1: and so you could cook it, perhaps in a very
• 20:06
  Speaker 1: spicy stew. You could make something similar to dumplings in
• 20:13
  Speaker 1: Central Italy. This is before, by the way, Europe finds
• 20:16
  Speaker 1: out about the potato.
• 20:18
  Speaker 3: Well, that's the thing. We're going to get to that
• 20:19
  Speaker 3: real soon. But since you mentioned the nutritious value of
• 20:24
  Speaker 3: the nutrient rich nature of the potato, I just thought
• 20:27
  Speaker 3: we'd rattle off a few of those stats. It contains
• 20:29
  Speaker 3: more pat potassium than a banana, about thirty percent of
• 20:33
  Speaker 3: one's daily allotment of vitamin C and vitamin B six.
• 20:38
  Speaker 1: Always eat the skin, folks, that's right, that's right, Ben,
• 20:41
  Speaker 1: That's exactly right.
• 20:42
  Speaker 3: Because that is what is contained in the skin. Is
• 20:44
  Speaker 3: those nutrients are very rich in the skin, and they
• 20:47
  Speaker 3: also provide about three grams of protein and two to
• 20:51
  Speaker 3: four grams of fiber, also mostly in the skin, and
• 20:54
  Speaker 3: they can act as an incredible source of energy and
• 20:59
  Speaker 3: nutrients and ones. And I know we're sort of in
• 21:01
  Speaker 3: an era where potatoes are getting slammed a little bit
• 21:03
  Speaker 3: for being like too starchy or carby or whatever. But
• 21:07
  Speaker 3: let's just remember that, like the civilizations have risen and
• 21:11
  Speaker 3: fallen based on the ability to cultivate. This noble tuber and.
• 21:17
  Speaker 2: As jump in here real quick, I was actually watching
• 21:20
  Speaker 2: something recently talking about like how if you're trying to
• 21:22
  Speaker 2: lose weight, potatoes are actually a very good food to
• 21:25
  Speaker 2: eat because they're super stationable. You can mean a lot
• 21:28
  Speaker 2: of them, you can feel very full, but not actually
• 21:30
  Speaker 2: just a lot of calories.
• 21:32
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, they'll fill you up. Another cheat code would
• 21:36
  Speaker 1: be a lot of green vegetables, leafy greens, and of
• 21:40
  Speaker 1: course celery because it's mainly water, right, it's mainly crunchy
• 21:45
  Speaker 1: water with an opinion about itself. Great, let's keep that.
• 21:49
  Speaker 1: Noel riddle us this. We're talking a lot about the
• 21:53
  Speaker 1: fundamental role the potato plate and these ancient meso American empires.
• 21:59
  Speaker 1: But how did potatoes make it to the wider world
• 22:03
  Speaker 1: for sure?
• 22:04
  Speaker 3: Well, it has a lot to do with the fact
• 22:05
  Speaker 3: that once again they traveled well, you know, they really did.
• 22:10
  Speaker 3: Those freeze dried I believe it is what they were called.
• 22:14
  Speaker 3: They were actually used to feed the Incan armies if
• 22:18
  Speaker 3: it already has such shelf stability as we know, like
• 22:22
  Speaker 3: it takes quite a while for a potato to truly
• 22:24
  Speaker 3: go bad, and even if it goes bad, you can
• 22:26
  Speaker 3: kind of just cut the bad part off of it
• 22:28
  Speaker 3: and plenty of it will be still fine. I know
• 22:30
  Speaker 3: that's gross. I wouldn't do that unless they were in
• 22:33
  Speaker 3: a pinch.
• 22:34
  Speaker 1: Look, I know you well, we do the same thing
• 22:36
  Speaker 1: with some types of cheese. I'm just laughing, Nol, because
• 22:40
  Speaker 1: I'm imagining you and I separately looking at some potatoes
• 22:44
  Speaker 1: in the pantry with a lot of eyes and saying,
• 22:47
  Speaker 1: I can fix her.
• 22:48
  Speaker 3: I can fix it. It's fine. But they they literally
• 22:52
  Speaker 3: traveled well, in ships, Spanish ships from you know, imperialist
• 22:58
  Speaker 3: Spaniards who raped and pillaged and did horrible things to
• 23:02
  Speaker 3: the Incas and their culture. We're not here to litigate
• 23:06
  Speaker 3: all that. We've done it plenty. But in fifteen thirty two,
• 23:09
  Speaker 3: the Spanish invaded the Incan Empire and brought an end
• 23:15
  Speaker 3: to all of that incredible culture, and with it they
• 23:19
  Speaker 3: brought back a lot of plunder as well as certain
• 23:23
  Speaker 3: types of crops that they had not seen before, and
• 23:27
  Speaker 3: the potato was one of them. They brought these tubers
• 23:30
  Speaker 3: back across the Atlantic, as well as things like avocados.
• 23:34
  Speaker 3: They're probably we were a little more popular real quick,
• 23:37
  Speaker 3: and corn, as you mentioned, ben and tomatoes. Historians call
• 23:41
  Speaker 3: this the Great Colombian Exchange, which we have certainly talked
• 23:44
  Speaker 3: about as well on ridiculous history and stuff they don't
• 23:48
  Speaker 3: want you to know. And so for the first time
• 23:50
  Speaker 3: the potato made its way outside of what was you know,
• 23:54
  Speaker 3: we would now refer to as the Americas. These Spaniards,
• 23:57
  Speaker 3: by the way, are of course conquistators. They were conkers,
• 24:01
  Speaker 3: and they brought back all of these spoils to present
• 24:04
  Speaker 3: to their overlords and to show that they had done
• 24:07
  Speaker 3: a good job at conquistadori.
• 24:09
  Speaker 1: And we've got to tell you the truth here, folks.
• 24:13
  Speaker 1: At first, Europe overall was pretty skeptical, partially because they
• 24:19
  Speaker 1: were super xenophobic.
• 24:21
  Speaker 3: Right, and uh with tomatoes right, talked about.
• 24:24
  Speaker 1: This, yes, because they're getting these unfamiliar things right, and
• 24:30
  Speaker 1: people are saying no, seriously, we survived for months across
• 24:34
  Speaker 1: the Atlantic Ocean eating this weird stuff, right. And the
• 24:39
  Speaker 1: issue is that night shade is recognizable to Europeans. But
• 24:45
  Speaker 1: get this, folks, not just tomatoes but also eggplant, peppers
• 24:51
  Speaker 1: and potatoes are botanically related to night shade, and nightshade
• 24:57
  Speaker 1: at this time had a bad rep. It was associated
• 25:00
  Speaker 1: with disease, it was associated with witchcraft, it was poisoning,
• 25:05
  Speaker 1: poison and social stigma in general.
• 25:08
  Speaker 3: So Jimis was referred to as deadly night shade.
• 25:11
  Speaker 1: Right. It was a hard cell. And also they had
• 25:15
  Speaker 1: to figure out how to cultivate it, you know, like,
• 25:19
  Speaker 1: how do we take this thing that was most popular
• 25:23
  Speaker 1: in the highlands of the Andes and most successful in
• 25:26
  Speaker 1: those very high altitude regions. How do we convince the
• 25:32
  Speaker 1: noble potato to take root in Europe half a world away.
• 25:37
  Speaker 3: It's a good question, Ben, because, as we mentioned, the
• 25:40
  Speaker 3: potato is pretty resilient, but it also likes certain types
• 25:45
  Speaker 3: of altitudes and climates, right, high ones specifically in terms
• 25:50
  Speaker 3: of altitude, and also it being a shade, a shady plant.
• 25:55
  Speaker 3: It also kind of liked cooler weather. So European long
• 26:00
  Speaker 3: days kind of freaked the potato plant out a little
• 26:03
  Speaker 3: bit and they didn't grow very well during the warmer months. Instead,
• 26:08
  Speaker 3: they would grow a bit better in the autumn, which
• 26:11
  Speaker 3: was of course too close to the early days of
• 26:13
  Speaker 3: winter for them to survive. So they were really on
• 26:16
  Speaker 3: a very good cycle.
• 26:18
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and we're getting a lot of this from our
• 26:21
  Speaker 1: friends across the pond, our British cousins at the BBC
• 26:25
  Speaker 1: shout out to Diego Arguadas orties how the humble potato
• 26:30
  Speaker 1: changed the world. So at first, like you were saying, Noel,
• 26:34
  Speaker 1: this thing is a stranger in a strange land, right,
• 26:39
  Speaker 1: But luckily we did find a better place for the potato.
• 26:44
  Speaker 1: That would be Ireland. Ireland has better conditions for the
• 26:49
  Speaker 1: tuber because this is a cool but frost free autumn.
• 26:54
  Speaker 1: This gives our potato crop enough time to mature after
• 26:59
  Speaker 1: its introduction from Spain in the fifteen eighties. And now
• 27:03
  Speaker 1: we see another thing that farmers are brilliant at. They
• 27:08
  Speaker 1: are they're practicing vegetable eugetics, right, They're selecting the tubers
• 27:14
  Speaker 1: the potato crops that work best in this time, and
• 27:18
  Speaker 1: so they start selecting for potatoes that work better earlier
• 27:24
  Speaker 1: in the summer, and now the potato becomes irreplaceable. It's
• 27:29
  Speaker 1: also less work than grain, to be quite honest, right,
• 27:34
  Speaker 1: put it in the ground, set it and forget it.
• 27:36
  Speaker 3: Yeah, and I mean, I don't know that they'd figure
• 27:38
  Speaker 3: this out quite yet. But as we know today, you
• 27:41
  Speaker 3: can do a lot of the same things with potatoes
• 27:43
  Speaker 3: that you can do with grain. You can make potato flour,
• 27:45
  Speaker 3: or you can ferment potatoes to make alcohol. You can
• 27:49
  Speaker 3: you know, make vodka, potato vodka in various other ferments.
• 27:53
  Speaker 1: You're welcome Russia.
• 27:54
  Speaker 3: Yeah, exactly. It's pretty incredible all of the things that
• 27:56
  Speaker 3: you can do with the potato. You can, you know,
• 27:58
  Speaker 3: shoot it out of a cannon. Apparently people like to
• 28:01
  Speaker 3: do that potato guns. Don't try that at home, apparently
• 28:04
  Speaker 3: quite dangerous. Okay, who are we to judge? Now, you know,
• 28:09
  Speaker 3: live your life, but just don't hurt anybody. So by
• 28:11
  Speaker 3: the eighteenth and nineteenth century, the potato had truly become
• 28:14
  Speaker 3: integral to many European diets, particularly in Ireland. As we mentioned,
• 28:18
  Speaker 3: we're gonna jump around in history a little bit because
• 28:20
  Speaker 3: there's something really horrible that's going to happen, as we
• 28:23
  Speaker 3: probably all know in Ireland, the Great Irish Potato Famine.
• 28:27
  Speaker 3: But we're going to devote much more of an episode
• 28:30
  Speaker 3: to that. It is worthy of its own path, if
• 28:34
  Speaker 3: not a giant chunk of an episode, So we're gonna
• 28:36
  Speaker 3: save that for part two. Parts of Russia also were
• 28:39
  Speaker 3: relying on potatoes. European colonial trade networks carried them beyond
• 28:44
  Speaker 3: Europe to Africa and Asia and parts of Oceania, where
• 28:47
  Speaker 3: they would then be integrated into new culinary traditions and
• 28:52
  Speaker 3: agricultural systems. So the potato really started to create a
• 28:56
  Speaker 3: bit of a population boom, which is kind of kind
• 28:59
  Speaker 3: of wild to get. It is because like people were starving,
• 29:03
  Speaker 3: food was scarce, and this really was like a pretty
• 29:06
  Speaker 3: significant boost to people's ability to nourish themselves and they're
• 29:12
  Speaker 3: you know offspring.
• 29:13
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's got a high yield, it's as we said,
• 29:16
  Speaker 1: quite nutritious, especially if if you're not fancy and you
• 29:21
  Speaker 1: eat the skin the way we do today. It's calorie dense.
• 29:25
  Speaker 1: It's also a very tolerating type of plant, so it's
• 29:32
  Speaker 1: similar to anybody growing in herb garden. You may know
• 29:36
  Speaker 1: that mint is a real go getter. It's actually kind
• 29:41
  Speaker 1: of hard to kill mint, and it's actually kind of
• 29:45
  Speaker 1: hard to kill a potato. So it makes sense that
• 29:49
  Speaker 1: this specific type of food stuff could transmit across cultures
• 29:54
  Speaker 1: and across regions across the planet. It also solves for
• 29:59
  Speaker 1: a a very difficult problem that a lot of civilizations
• 30:03
  Speaker 1: and empires face, which is how do we feed everybody cheaply?
• 30:08
  Speaker 3: Right?
• 30:08
  Speaker 1: If food is expensive in terms of time or in
• 30:12
  Speaker 1: terms of labor, then the population of a given civilization
• 30:17
  Speaker 1: or empire will meet a hard glass ceiling. It's very
• 30:21
  Speaker 1: difficult to break. However, the fact that this has utility
• 30:28
  Speaker 1: does not really explain how the potato reached ubiquity. And
• 30:33
  Speaker 1: for that, for the widespread popularity of the potato in
• 30:38
  Speaker 1: European climes and later thanks to colonialism the world. No,
• 30:43
  Speaker 1: I believe we have to thank the French. French mel
• 30:48
  Speaker 1: we love the French.
• 30:49
  Speaker 3: Indeed, Ben I have really lately been enjoying videos by
• 30:55
  Speaker 3: this incredible Englishman who studied in the French tradition of cuisine.
• 31:00
  Speaker 3: His name is Marco Pierre White and he is he
• 31:04
  Speaker 3: had like three Michelin stars, like I think in this
• 31:06
  Speaker 3: in the maybe the eighties, and he kind of gave
• 31:09
  Speaker 3: up the restaurant tour life to just sort of be
• 31:13
  Speaker 3: like Cane from Kung Fu, but like the culinary version.
• 31:16
  Speaker 3: He just sort of like trapeses around the woods of
• 31:19
  Speaker 3: the countryside of England and hunts wild game. And lately
• 31:23
  Speaker 3: he's been doing these Maestro series of videos on BBC.
• 31:27
  Speaker 3: He has the most zen, absolutely philosophical, so he says
• 31:32
  Speaker 3: something like turn three stars in Michelin, you don't have
• 31:35
  Speaker 3: to be a great cook, you just have to know
• 31:37
  Speaker 3: how the system works. It's like that kind of stuff.
• 31:41
  Speaker 3: But he also says like I don't love to cook,
• 31:44
  Speaker 3: I love to feed people. It's just like these incredible
• 31:48
  Speaker 3: little moments and you can just watch, like, you know,
• 31:51
  Speaker 3: compilations of this dude just talking about French cuisine until
• 31:54
  Speaker 3: the cows come home, and there's a ton of it
• 31:56
  Speaker 3: out there and it'll help you fall asleep. So I
• 31:58
  Speaker 3: highly recommend it. But he is the one who's truly
• 32:00
  Speaker 3: gotten me in the zone of how important potatoes are.
• 32:05
  Speaker 3: And we're to French cuisine. We obviously know about French
• 32:08
  Speaker 3: fries of course, which I think there's even some debate
• 32:11
  Speaker 3: as to whether in Belgium. Yes, thank you very much, Pumfleet.
• 32:16
  Speaker 3: But we do know that the potato ended up occupying
• 32:19
  Speaker 3: an incredibly important place in French culinary tradition, which is
• 32:25
  Speaker 3: obviously very fancy. It's not, you know, the people's potato anymore,
• 32:30
  Speaker 3: but it comes from a background of being the people's potato.
• 32:33
  Speaker 3: So the potato is brought to France from Peru before
• 32:37
  Speaker 3: the French Revolution, and at first they just weren't accepted
• 32:40
  Speaker 3: at all. And this kind of mirrors what was going
• 32:42
  Speaker 3: on in most of Europe. The people would were so
• 32:46
  Speaker 3: suspicious of them they barely would give them to their pigs,
• 32:49
  Speaker 3: to their livestock to eat. They were that suspicious of them,
• 32:52
  Speaker 3: and that was because they found them to be hideous,
• 32:55
  Speaker 3: misshapen abominations, because of their kind of lumpy, sort of
• 33:02
  Speaker 3: misshapen look they look at. They associated them with leprosy.
• 33:06
  Speaker 3: They associated them with the kind of tumors and cysts
• 33:11
  Speaker 3: bubos that would form on the skin of folks afflicted
• 33:14
  Speaker 3: with that condition, which was a big problem at the
• 33:17
  Speaker 3: time because it was contagious. People would get sent off
• 33:19
  Speaker 3: to these colonies to live out their lives away from
• 33:22
  Speaker 3: you know, the general population. It was a scary time.
• 33:26
  Speaker 1: How do you say the devil's apple in French?
• 33:29
  Speaker 3: It's a good question, Ben, Let's see, let's it would
• 33:32
  Speaker 3: be pm do diablo.
• 33:34
  Speaker 1: Ah makes sense, Yes, pom di diabla. So apple is
• 33:38
  Speaker 1: pum that makes sense. So palmle is like fried apple
• 33:43
  Speaker 1: kind of yeah, because you know, it.
• 33:44
  Speaker 3: Is funny because an apple and a potato are both
• 33:48
  Speaker 3: this white, kind of crunchy thing on the inside. And
• 33:51
  Speaker 3: a big problem too, was when folks in Europe initially
• 33:54
  Speaker 3: got their hands on the potato, they would just take
• 33:57
  Speaker 3: a big old chalk out of it without boiling it,
• 33:59
  Speaker 3: mashing it or sticking it in a stew. And let
• 34:01
  Speaker 3: me tell you, as I'm sure you know, Ben, that's gross.
• 34:05
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 34:05
  Speaker 3: Yeah, it doesn't taste good. It needs seasoning.
• 34:08
  Speaker 1: It needs It's kind of like how we always laughed
• 34:13
  Speaker 1: for years about prisoners in early America complaining about having
• 34:21
  Speaker 1: the lobster all the time. It was all due to
• 34:23
  Speaker 1: the preparation. They didn't take the shell out. They weren't
• 34:26
  Speaker 1: thinking of the shell. The potato needs a little bit
• 34:29
  Speaker 1: of TLC. Right, it's hardy. It's hardy when it grows,
• 34:33
  Speaker 1: so it can grow on its own throughout the wide world.
• 34:36
  Speaker 1: But you got to give it a little bit of
• 34:39
  Speaker 1: love if you want it to be delectable.
• 34:42
  Speaker 3: And that's another thing that Marco Pierre White says. He
• 34:45
  Speaker 3: says that all things when it comes to cooking time,
• 34:48
  Speaker 3: and if it doesn't take time, if it doesn't take
• 34:50
  Speaker 3: effort and love, then you're not doing it right.
• 34:59
  Speaker 1: So will introduce us to this French pharmacist, this champion of.
• 35:05
  Speaker 3: The potato, Antoine Augustine de Parmentierre. He was, as you said,
• 35:12
  Speaker 3: ben a pharmacist in Paris who was so fond of
• 35:15
  Speaker 3: the potato and saw so much promise in it and
• 35:18
  Speaker 3: usefulness in it to utility, much like George Washington Carver
• 35:22
  Speaker 3: and the peanut, that he was on a mission because
• 35:25
  Speaker 3: at this point, besides just the general suspicions surrounding the
• 35:29
  Speaker 3: potato and people thinking it was gross and misshapen, you
• 35:32
  Speaker 3: point it out and calling it the devil's apple, because
• 35:36
  Speaker 3: of belief that it maybe was used by witches and
• 35:39
  Speaker 3: some sort of black magic rituals. It was actually forbidden
• 35:43
  Speaker 3: to cultivate the potato in France because there was a
• 35:45
  Speaker 3: belief that it would poison the soil.
• 35:48
  Speaker 1: Yeah, poison the soil, poison the livestock, the cattle or
• 35:52
  Speaker 1: the sheep or the pigs that might eat it. So
• 35:55
  Speaker 1: our buddy Antoine manages to convince the Paris Facult of Medicine,
• 36:00
  Speaker 1: as we were saying, to devilify the potato and say,
• 36:06
  Speaker 1: in seventeen seventy two, grow it if you want, eat
• 36:10
  Speaker 1: it if you can. However, this high faluting policy change
• 36:15
  Speaker 1: does not convince the public. People are still saying, I
• 36:20
  Speaker 1: might be starving. Because there was a lot of famine
• 36:22
  Speaker 1: in France at this point, leading to some great unrest.
• 36:26
  Speaker 1: There were a lot of people who would desperately be hungry,
• 36:30
  Speaker 1: they had not eaten for days. They would be offered
• 36:33
  Speaker 1: a potato and they would say, forget you. I still
• 36:37
  Speaker 1: have standards. So, just like our story about the guy
• 36:41
  Speaker 1: in the United States with the tomato, our champion of
• 36:44
  Speaker 1: the potato, Antoine has to start doing some Breneese level
• 36:49
  Speaker 1: pr and he tries to popularize the potato through marketing stunts.
• 36:56
  Speaker 3: Yeah, he's growing the potato in his own personal fields
• 36:59
  Speaker 3: and does this sort of psyop I guess you could
• 37:02
  Speaker 3: call it where he hires guards to stand watch over
• 37:08
  Speaker 3: his potato feel in the hopes that people would notice
• 37:12
  Speaker 3: and be like, what are they like? You always like
• 37:14
  Speaker 3: to say, Ben that Tom Waite's song, what's the building
• 37:18
  Speaker 3: in there? Yeah, that's nothing more, nothing better than a
• 37:21
  Speaker 3: guard or a fence to make people curious about what's
• 37:25
  Speaker 3: going on on the other side. And hey, if the potatoes,
• 37:28
  Speaker 3: oh the potatoes, you say, well, if they're so horrible
• 37:31
  Speaker 3: as we've thought as is, you know, popularly believes, why
• 37:34
  Speaker 3: has he got to hire these guards? What's so special
• 37:37
  Speaker 3: about these potatoes?
• 37:38
  Speaker 1: It's so brilliant, especially because a twade tells his guards
• 37:43
  Speaker 1: in secret, okay, let's the word get out, that they
• 37:47
  Speaker 1: are guarding this high value garden of potatoes, And in
• 37:52
  Speaker 1: private he tells his hired mercenaries his guards. He says, look,
• 37:57
  Speaker 1: if literally anybody comes up to you and they offer
• 38:01
  Speaker 1: you literally anything, I need you to act like a
• 38:05
  Speaker 1: crooked cop and tell them you're going to let them
• 38:09
  Speaker 1: steal some potatoes. And you tell them not to tell anybody,
• 38:14
  Speaker 1: and they're like, but obviously, sir, they're gonna blab on us.
• 38:18
  Speaker 1: And he goes, I know, perfect for d chess, this guy, Oh.
• 38:22
  Speaker 3: Gosh, five D. Maybe that's what our president's plan apparently.
• 38:26
  Speaker 3: Or is it Checkers or is it Dominos?
• 38:29
  Speaker 1: It always comes back around. This guy's play works right,
• 38:33
  Speaker 1: as we know, thanks to cookingwoclass dot com. He gets
• 38:37
  Speaker 1: an award in seventeen seventy two, the same year he
• 38:42
  Speaker 1: writes the reputation of the potato. He gets this award
• 38:48
  Speaker 1: for making them palatable to the rest of France in
• 38:54
  Speaker 1: case of a bad harvest. But Noel, as you point out,
• 38:57
  Speaker 1: it's not until seventeen eighty five that Louis the fifteenth,
• 39:02
  Speaker 1: at a dinner hosted by Antoine, declares, one day France
• 39:08
  Speaker 1: will thank you for discovering get this the bread of
• 39:12
  Speaker 1: the poor people.
• 39:13
  Speaker 3: Oh dear, oh dear, how that age?
• 39:16
  Speaker 1: I don't know. He was trumpet all over the place.
• 39:19
  Speaker 3: Yeah, we're not gonna dig dig deep into the French
• 39:22
  Speaker 3: revolution right now. But needless to say, full toned, deaf,
• 39:27
  Speaker 3: bull tone deaf didn't go well. Marie Answin, I didn't
• 39:30
  Speaker 3: say let the meat cake. But the vibes were there.
• 39:33
  Speaker 3: The vibes were there. And the funny thing about it
• 39:37
  Speaker 3: is this was also the king. Louis the fourteenth and
• 39:41
  Speaker 3: Mary Antoinette are the ones who really popularized the potato
• 39:46
  Speaker 3: to the bougie class. You know, they would wear these
• 39:49
  Speaker 3: purple potato flowers are actually quite beautiful. They grow out
• 39:52
  Speaker 3: of the top parts, the above ground parts of potato.
• 39:55
  Speaker 3: He would wear them as the pels, and she would
• 39:58
  Speaker 3: like have them woven into her fanc he hats. And
• 40:01
  Speaker 3: in eighteen eighty six they financed a plot of land
• 40:03
  Speaker 3: to grow potatoes in Seblan, which was on the western
• 40:06
  Speaker 3: edge of Paris. But to the French Revolution side of things,
• 40:10
  Speaker 3: it did ultimately become the official food stuff of the
• 40:15
  Speaker 3: French Revolution while also becoming this hot, hot cuisine thing.
• 40:21
  Speaker 3: It's such an intest it just really speaks to its versatility.
• 40:23
  Speaker 3: It went from the devil's apple to the apples of
• 40:27
  Speaker 3: the earth or palm detail, which is what potatoes are
• 40:31
  Speaker 3: referred to as a cornerstone of French cuisine. They were
• 40:36
  Speaker 3: transformed from this famine food and very suspect even before that,
• 40:42
  Speaker 3: to a comfort food staple. That is largely due to
• 40:47
  Speaker 3: the efforts of Antoine Augustin Parmentier. And he finally even
• 40:51
  Speaker 3: got his potato flowers in the form of several potato
• 40:55
  Speaker 3: dishes that bear his name, forever solidifying his place in
• 40:58
  Speaker 3: the history of humble and what did you say, ben Noble?
• 41:02
  Speaker 3: Noble and also fancy potato.
• 41:06
  Speaker 1: And we have to mention a weird circuitous path toward
• 41:11
  Speaker 1: potato popularity in what is called the United States today,
• 41:16
  Speaker 1: because this guy is such a champion of the potato
• 41:19
  Speaker 1: and such a great pr dude that he is appealing
• 41:25
  Speaker 1: to the American cousins as well. We know Jefferson, right, Franklin,
• 41:32
  Speaker 1: We know that Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson went to like.
• 41:36
  Speaker 1: This guy didn't just do one potato fun time dinner.
• 41:41
  Speaker 1: He did multiple potato centric dinners. He invited folks like
• 41:44
  Speaker 1: the famous libertine Benjamin Franklin, who has never been convicted
• 41:48
  Speaker 1: of being a serial killer, and Thomas Jefferson, who will
• 41:51
  Speaker 1: never answer for his slavery crimes. He had these guys
• 41:56
  Speaker 1: over at dinners centering the potato and chopped it up
• 42:00
  Speaker 1: in all these different ways. I don't want to sound
• 42:03
  Speaker 1: too Bubba Gump, but you could do so much with
• 42:05
  Speaker 1: the potato. As we're about to get to, he had
• 42:07
  Speaker 1: a twenty course meal for these guys, a feast with potatoes.
• 42:13
  Speaker 1: His fancy work on potato Parmentier's found its way to
• 42:18
  Speaker 1: Jefferson's famous Library of Monticello, and this is probably where
• 42:23
  Speaker 1: Thomas Jefferson becomes inspired to bring what we call the
• 42:27
  Speaker 1: French fry to the United States and serve it at
• 42:31
  Speaker 1: the White House.
• 42:32
  Speaker 3: This guy's killing it, and I always forget what a
• 42:36
  Speaker 3: Franco file. Both Jefferson and especially Franklin were so Yes,
• 42:41
  Speaker 3: Parmensier is also the reason that we love potatoes so
• 42:45
  Speaker 3: well over here in the US. So we didn't want
• 42:49
  Speaker 3: to close out without mentioning a handful of some delicious
• 42:53
  Speaker 3: and varied, fancy French potato dishes, the first two of
• 42:58
  Speaker 3: which bear the name of our hero, mister Parmentier. This
• 43:02
  Speaker 3: one is called potage Parmentier. I thought we could round
• 43:06
  Speaker 3: robin this one, Ben. This is a classic rustic French
• 43:09
  Speaker 3: potato and leak soup. Oh boy, do I love a
• 43:11
  Speaker 3: potato and leak soup with a little cream, traditionally made
• 43:15
  Speaker 3: by simmering the potatoes, leaks and onions and stock before
• 43:18
  Speaker 3: pureing into a smooth and comforting soup, often enriched with
• 43:21
  Speaker 3: a bit of butter or cream.
• 43:24
  Speaker 1: And then our second champion here is Palm Palmonier. These
• 43:29
  Speaker 1: are picture your classic dice potatoes your roast them. You
• 43:33
  Speaker 1: pan fry them home style with garlic and herbs, typically
• 43:37
  Speaker 1: going to be rosemary or thyme to fry, yeah, until
• 43:40
  Speaker 1: they're crispy on the outside, they're soft inside and you'll
• 43:45
  Speaker 1: usually look, these might not be great for you every
• 43:49
  Speaker 1: day all the time, but it's not Christmas. If it's
• 43:52
  Speaker 1: every day, you want to put these in a high
• 43:54
  Speaker 1: heat with oil and butter. But weight, folks, it gets fancier. Yep.
• 43:59
  Speaker 3: We got one more before, I think, the one that
• 44:02
  Speaker 3: is both of our favorites. This one is called Palm
• 44:04
  Speaker 3: Detail foul Sea, which already sounds about as fancy as
• 44:08
  Speaker 3: potatoes get.
• 44:10
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 44:11
  Speaker 3: It's a traditional potato based dish from France, of course,
• 44:14
  Speaker 3: and there are a lot of different regional versions, but
• 44:16
  Speaker 3: it's typically made from a combination of potatoes, bacon, onions, garlic, parsley, eggs, milk, oil, butter, salt,
• 44:22
  Speaker 3: and pepper. The tops are cut off of the potatoes
• 44:25
  Speaker 3: and the flesh is then dug out with a spoon,
• 44:27
  Speaker 3: creating like a potato skin thing, which is then stuffed
• 44:31
  Speaker 3: with a mixture of onions, garlic, parsley, salt, pepper, bacon,
• 44:34
  Speaker 3: flour and milk. Once stuffed, the lids are put back
• 44:37
  Speaker 3: on the potato. This is like a like a potato,
• 44:40
  Speaker 3: like a stuffed potato, but a very fancier version of it.
• 44:43
  Speaker 3: They're then browned in a mixture of olive oil butter
• 44:45
  Speaker 3: over high heat Palm deterre far seas are then sprinkled
• 44:49
  Speaker 3: with salt and baked in the oven at low heat
• 44:51
  Speaker 3: until everything is fully cooked and tender. It's kind of
• 44:54
  Speaker 3: like a twice baked potato. It's a little cup. It's
• 44:56
  Speaker 3: a little cup, kind of like a twice baked potato.
• 44:59
  Speaker 3: But Ben, I leave this one to you. I think
• 45:01
  Speaker 3: we're both big fans of this dish.
• 45:03
  Speaker 1: Oh this one might not be my number one noll,
• 45:08
  Speaker 1: but it is very close. This one is potato duffin. Well,
• 45:12
  Speaker 1: this is where you thinly slice your potatoes. Yeah, yeah,
• 45:17
  Speaker 1: very thin like Mandolin style or you know o CD style.
• 45:21
  Speaker 3: Has those on the man.
• 45:24
  Speaker 1: Get your chain mailed Michael Jackson glove for that one.
• 45:27
  Speaker 3: As Marco says, just use your palm. Don't use your fingers,
• 45:31
  Speaker 3: Just use the palm.
• 45:32
  Speaker 1: Yeah yeah yeah, make a make a blood pact with
• 45:35
  Speaker 1: that knife. So you infuse this cream with garlic. You
• 45:39
  Speaker 1: often want a nice grew yeah, cheese or a multiple cheese,
• 45:43
  Speaker 1: and then you layer them, you bake them until tender
• 45:46
  Speaker 1: and you see snip with thyme, nutmeg, garlic, cream gonuts,
• 45:51
  Speaker 1: speak your truth. This is pretty cool. I've actually thrown
• 45:54
  Speaker 1: some sage in those with great results.
• 45:57
  Speaker 3: Wonderful, wonderful. The nutmeg really is the kick gin makes
• 46:00
  Speaker 3: it special. But yeah, the thinner the better. And there's
• 46:03
  Speaker 3: lots of different ways to do it, layering it in
• 46:05
  Speaker 3: different ways. Some people don't use cheese, some people just
• 46:08
  Speaker 3: add the cheese at the end. But the kicker is
• 46:10
  Speaker 3: that after you've baked it and you got it all
• 46:11
  Speaker 3: infused with the cream and the garlet, you then broiler
• 46:14
  Speaker 3: oil uncovered and you get that Chris, it's like a casserole,
• 46:19
  Speaker 3: a hash brown casserole, but with this creamy. My mom
• 46:21
  Speaker 3: used to make it and it's really truly one of
• 46:24
  Speaker 3: my favorites. And it's a pain in the butt because
• 46:26
  Speaker 3: you do it takes love, it takes care, and it
• 46:29
  Speaker 3: takes time.
• 46:30
  Speaker 1: Yeah, now here's something I'm going to cook for you
• 46:33
  Speaker 1: guys when when we all get together for a pot luck,
• 46:38
  Speaker 1: Palm full vaults or fon potatoes. You've seen these at steakhouses.
• 46:43
  Speaker 3: It's similar to this, but they're individual la.
• 46:46
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, right, yeah, They're similar to our potato cup.
• 46:49
  Speaker 1: They're similar to the kind of scalloping thing we're talking about.
• 46:53
  Speaker 1: But what I like to do is you cut them.
• 46:56
  Speaker 1: You cut the top and bottom off, right, you brown them.
• 47:00
  Speaker 1: Got to simmer them in a nice you know, you
• 47:03
  Speaker 1: go chicken stock and go beefstock, and you brown the
• 47:06
  Speaker 1: ends with the butter. I'm so excited to cook for
• 47:10
  Speaker 1: you guys, and Noel, thank you so much for cooking
• 47:13
  Speaker 1: for us with what we are calling ridiculous history of
• 47:18
  Speaker 1: the potato. One potato, two potato.
• 47:20
  Speaker 3: Yeah this one was one potato and two potato. We
• 47:23
  Speaker 3: will have for you on our next episode where we're
• 47:26
  Speaker 3: going to dig into some of the more I don't know,
• 47:30
  Speaker 3: sociological sociological aspects of the potato, like the potato famine
• 47:34
  Speaker 3: and the French Revolution, and then kind of bring into
• 47:37
  Speaker 3: the modern day. And one thing I was thinking about, Ben,
• 47:40
  Speaker 3: when you were talking about how it's been a constant
• 47:43
  Speaker 3: struggle of civilization to figure out how to feed everybody.
• 47:46
  Speaker 3: It's not one we fully figured out yet, despite all
• 47:48
  Speaker 3: of our best intentions and advancements. So We're going to
• 47:52
  Speaker 3: get into that as well. But man, what a fun talk.
• 47:56
  Speaker 3: This is great and we.
• 47:57
  Speaker 1: Hope you enjoyed it as well. Fellow Ridiculous Historians, big
• 48:01
  Speaker 1: big thanks to our super producer, mister Max the Condition Williams.
• 48:05
  Speaker 1: Big thanks to my faithful co host and research associate
• 48:10
  Speaker 1: for this series mister Noel Brown Nol. Who else do
• 48:13
  Speaker 1: we need to thank you?
• 48:14
  Speaker 3: Well, he's Jeff Gotz and Chris frasciotis here in spirit
• 48:16
  Speaker 3: of course, Jonathan Strickland, the Quister, A j Bahamas Jacobs
• 48:20
  Speaker 3: the Puzzler.
• 48:21
  Speaker 1: Big big thanks to doctor Rachel Big Spinach Lance, as
• 48:24
  Speaker 1: well as the rude dudes at Pridiculous Crime. If you
• 48:28
  Speaker 1: dig us, you will.
• 48:29
  Speaker 3: If you dig us like.
• 48:30
  Speaker 1: A potato, keep it in next then you will love
• 48:33
  Speaker 1: them at one more time, folks. For Noel, thank you
• 48:37
  Speaker 1: so much.
• 48:37
  Speaker 3: Man.
• 48:38
  Speaker 1: I'm looking forward to the next chapter in our exploration
• 48:42
  Speaker 1: Off the Potato.
• 48:43
  Speaker 3: And with you as well, my friend. We'll see you
• 48:46
  Speaker 3: next time, Folks. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the
• 48:55
  Speaker 3: iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your
• 48:58
  Speaker 3: favorite shows.