The Early Modern Potato

• In Event: Renaissance Food History II: Food Cultures in a Transatlantic Perspective (1500–1700)

Abstract

Today’s potato is truly a global food and a global commodity. This was not always the case. The potato was introduced to Europe in the sixteenth century, following the Spanish conquest and settlement of the Andean region in which the tuber originated. From there it spread around the world, carried by the twin forces of global trade and colonialism. Drawing on evidence from account books, agricultural treatises, tithe records, cookbooks, private letters, commercial records and other sources from across Europe and its colonial spaces, this paper traces the dissemination of the potato in the early modern world, in order to study the processes through which new culinary and agricultural regimes evolve. It focuses particularly on the role of diet in the construction of colonial power, and the very different meanings that adhere to particular foodstuffs as they travel.

Author

• Rebecca Earle, University of Warwick