[Sca-cooks] Re: Potato question

[Terry Decker]

> Well, for what it is worth ,the words potato and potatoes are each 
> mentioned
> once in the Bard's plays.
>
> Let the sky rain potatoes.  Falstaff, The Merry Wives of Windsor, 5,5
>

There are actually a couple of references to potatoes in Shakespeare, but 
these are references to sweet potatoes, the common potato of the day.

> Reay Tannahill in "Food in History" 2nd ed.  Writes in their regard:
>
> "By 1573 they were common enough for the Hospital de la Sangre to order 
> them
> in at the same time as other stocks."  Salaman, p. 143 "The History and
> Influence of the Potato" 1949.  According to her "it reached England 
> direct
> from the Americas when Sir Francis Drake, on the way to Virginia in 1586,
> put into Cartagena in the Caribbean to revictual and brought some home 
> with
> him."
>
> Magulonne Toussaint-Samat in "History of Food"  asserts that the potato 
> was
> painted in its botanical splendor in water color in approximately 1580 by
> Pierre de l'Ecluse.
>

Really?  I think Toussaint-Samat is in error.  Charles de l'Ecluse (Carolus 
Clusius), by his own statement, received his first specimen of Solanum 
tuberosum in 1587.  I've done quite a bit of research on the subject and 
never encountered Pierre de l'Ecluse in relation to the potato (if vague 
memory serves, he was Charles father, and I wouldn't stand by that until I 
double checked it).

> The OED suggests that there is some confusion in the 16th and 17th 
> centuries
> regards the plant the word refers.  It cites the earliest use of the word 
> as
> batatos to 1555.
>
> Daniel

The quote you reference is from a translation of Peter Martyr and begins, 
"In Hispanola,..."  As Martyr wrote the work in 1511-12, the plant being 
referenced is the sweet potato (Ipomea batata).  The first reference to 
(sweet) potatoes is actually found in Christopher Columbus's journal of his 
first voyage to America.  The potatoes referenced in most of the 16th 
Century English texts can be shown to be sweet potates by time and location. 
One possible exception is Drake's circumnavigation and his replenishing 
stores off the coast of Chile.

The confusion appears to begin with Gerard's identification of "potatoes of 
Virginia."

Bear