The Story of the Potato

This piece originally appeared in the New Indian Express on 17th July

Did you know that potatoes were responsible for the dawn of Human exploration of our planet? Yes, it wasn’t bigger ships, better maps and navigational aids or the realization that the shortage of Vitamin C caused scurvy. It was potatoes. I didn’t know this till I met a good friend in Pune recently and he gave me the mental equivalent of goosebumps when he told me how the vegetable equivalent of Inzamam-ul-Haq changed the course of history.

You see, it turns out that Europeans, who were, in general, itching to traipse about the globe, colonize every acre in sight, spread the word of Christ by crucifying everyone else who had a different theological opinion and loot, plunder and enslave every part of Terra, had one small problem. When Ferdinand Magellan (Fernão de Magalhães in Portuguese) set out in 1519 with 237 people, his expedition returned with 18 in 1522. They did circumnavigate the globe, but at a huge cost in human lives. His trip wasn’t an exception. It was the rule for one simple reason - food. Before the humble potato was discovered in Peru by the marauding Spaniards who were busy eradicating all manner of things Inca, and introduced to Europe in 1536, brave European explorers had no form of food that could stay unspoiled on long voyages. Every other vegetable and meat product succumbed to fungus and bacteria. Once the Europeans stocked their ships with potatoes, they were able to, as Jared Diamond puts it in his famous book, take their guns, germs and steel all over the world. 

Now, I don’t know if learning this interesting bit of historical trivia gave you mental goosebumps or not, but I have a theory (Scientists, right-wing lunatics and wannabe humourists tend to be full of theories, and that’s one of my theories). There is a point in every Indian kid’s schooling life, when a rather intriguing transition happens. It’s the transition from a “curiosity to understand the world” to “crack exams and move ahead in school”. This happens at different times for different kids and it’s not a sudden transition, it’s more like caterpillars turning into butterflies (well, in reverse, i.e). 

It might start with a parent scolding you about the 13/20 you scored in a Mathematics test or them asking the names of the kids who ranked above you in the final exams, but slowly but surely, our system turns butterflies into caterpillars, highly focussed eating machines that nibble on information, not knowledge, because that’s what helps in cracking tests. 

I was fortunate to have studied in a school where the teachers of that era brought History and Geography to life with enthralling stories that left me a butterfly for life in those subjects. It left me with a curiosity to go buy big fat books on history the moment I got a job and could afford to buy books for myself. So ask your kids about Magellan. If they tell you that he was some Portuguese chap who sailed around the world in 1519, tell them about the historical significance of the potato and remind them that being a butterfly is much more fun. For an entire lifetime.

9 September 2010 · Comments

• Tags
• education,
• teaching
• history