SC - RE: Potatos Again (Was Is Arrowroot Period)

[Decker, Terry D.]

Akim, 

I have taken the liberty of pulling your previous posts on potatoes and
reading them over carefully.  I believe you are overstating the case for
widespread use of potatoes at the end of the 16th Century.  

The source you are using is Reay Tannahill's "Food In History."  This is a
very good survey work, but like all survey works it is a little shallow on
specifics.  The work is solid, has good notes and a bibliography.  Where she
makes statements based upon specific sources or explains her reasoning in
the notes, I have no quibble.  Statements which can not be backed up should
be considered rhetoric until verified by other sources.  This is also true
of Toussaint-Samat's "History of Food" and Trager's "The Food Chronology"
and "Food".

The most interesting bit of information I found in Tannahill was that in
1573 the Hospital de la Sangre in Seville ordered potatoes at the same time
they did other stocks. 

I accept that potatoes were ordered as part of the stock of an institution
for the poor, but these could have been emergency rations.  We know nothing
about how they were used or where they came from or how common they were.

You comment on what Charles de Lecluse (Flemish, not French and also
referred to as Carolus Clusius) said in 1601.  To quote Clusius, as taken
from; Stuart, William; The 
Potato, Its Culture, Uses, History, and Classifications; J.B.  Lippincott,
New York, 1937.:

"I received the first authentic information about this plant 
from Phillipus de Sivry, Dn. de Walhain and the Prefect of the City of 
Mons in Hannonia, of the Belgians, who sent two tuber of it, with its 
fruit, to me in Vienna, Austria, at the beginning of the year 1587, and 
in the following year, a drawing of the branch with a flower. He wrote 
that he had received it the preceeding year from a certain employee of 
the Pontifical Legation in Belgium. Later Jacobs Garerus, Jr., sent me 
a Frankfort drawing of a whole saltk, with roots. Indeed, I have much 
desired to exhibit the whole plant here, but I have taken pains to 
portray it in two drawings from the living plant--one representing 
flowers and fruit, the other roots and tubers clinging to their own 
fibers. 

The Italians do not know where they were first produced. Certain it is, 
however, that they were obtained either from Spain or from America. It 
is a great wonder to me that, when it was so common and frequent in 
Italian settlements (so they say), that they feast upon these tubers, 
cooked with the flesh of mutton, in the same manner as upon turnip and 
carrots, they give themselves the advantage of such nourishment, and 
allow the news of the plant to reach us in such an off-hand way. Now, 
indeed, in many gardens of Germany it is quite common because it is very 
fruitful."

Note that Lecluse is in Vienna and receives the first tubers he has seen in
1587.  They are obviously not common around Vienna at that time.  Phillipus
de Sivry of Mons only had recieved his in 1586 by this account.  They do not
appear to be common in southwest Belgium.  The potato use in Italy is
hearsay ("so they say").   The comment on the   gardens of Germany (at least
southern Germany, close to Vienna) is supported by a couple of recipes from
southern Germany in this time frame.

Potatoes were probably not ubiquitous in Germany.  Toward the end of the
17th Century, Frederick William, the elector of Brandenburg (1640-1688) and
King of Prussia (1660 on), forcibly introduced potato cultivation to
Brandenburg.  His son, Frederick the Great, encouraged potato cultivation in
Prussia by providing free seed and instruction to his subjects (1744).
(Trager)

The ban on potatoes in Burgundy in 1619 because they were believed to cause
leprosy is interesting, but it proves very little.  Burgundy was under the
control of France by this time and, apocryphally, the French had been
growing potatoes as ornamentals since receiving one as a gift from Pope Paul
III in 1540.  (Trager)  It is possible that the ban may be connected to the
30 Years War (1618-1648) as Burgundy borders on some of the provinces where
the fighting started.  The ban suggests that potatoes may have been eaten in
Burgundy at this time, but it requires closer examination and corroboration.

It is also possible that the gift from the Pontifical Legation to de Sivry
is the original source of Trager's 1540 entry.   

Another few of Trager dates also throw question on the early adoption of the
white potato.  In 1663, the Royal Society of England recommended that
potatoes be planted as a hedge against famine.  The first public marketing
of white potatoes in England was in 1770.  And Antoine Auguste Parmentier
persuaded Louis XVI to plant potatoes in France in 1785.  If true, these
entries certainly suggest that common adoption of the potato was very late
and definitely after period.

BTW, Tannahill references Salaman, Redcliffe, The History and Social
Influence of the Potato; Cambridge University Press, 1949.,  as the source
for much of the potato information.  I haven't found a copy of this yet, but
it might be interesting to see how Salaman interprets the historical record
and what other contemporary quotes and sources he can provide.

Bon Chance

Bear

> Did somehow you miss the comments I posted last month on potatos?
> I have several  sources that indicate that WHITE potatos were widely
> planted and consumed in the EARLY 16th century by peasants and nobles
> alike throughout the Mediterranean areas of Spain, France and 
> especially
> Italy.  I disagree entirely with your statement about the 
> conservatisn of
> the peasantry too.  Both potatos and turkeys seem to have 
> spread rapidly
> when the peasants realized the profitablity of the new foods 
> (profit in
> terms
> of yield labor to harvest more than actual money).  I 
> mentioned the sources
> I quoted in those posts.  I have about 150 folks coming for 
> the weekend
> at my house this weekend (SCA event), so I can't re-research it again
> right now.
> 
> Akim Yaroslavich
> "No glory comes without pain"