HERE’S WHY YOU SHOULD THANK THE PORTUGUESE FOR THAT ALOO ON YOUR TIKKI
Culture-Magazine | THANK THE PORTUGUESE FOR ALOO | Culture-Magazine.com
Why potatoes? Well, my friend you seem to have underestimated your mother’s favourite root/vegetable. And we’re about to throw some mighty tips concerning the starch root your means. Let’s just say batata vadas and aloo chaats would’ve certainly not made it to our tummies if we weren’t colonised by means of the Europeans and made friends with the Portuguese.
2008 was celebrated because the International Year of the Potato, and with good reason.
We’re now not just pronouncing it; potatoes happen to be the most consumed tuber or root across the world. In fact, just last year, an epic 36 crore tonnes of potatoes were harvested all over the world. In 2012, India was the 2nd largest producer of potatoes following China and there is a good reason why Shimla has the headquarters of the Central Potato Research Institute to keep a keen eye on the potatoes within the nation. All given that, up to 85% of the whole plant is edible, it may be farmed where land is limited, labour abundant and climate no longer so conducive. However enough of this technical mumbo jumbo. Naturally, the world loves potatoes and we’re first in line.
The tuber finds its origins in South America, dating back to what would be 10,000 years.
Despite the fact that, there is not any exact archaeological record of the tubers that have been preserved to pinpoint exactly the history of the food, the earliest proven tuber stays are dated back to 2500 BC in Peru. Nevertheless, it was in the 16th century that European sailors who travelled to the Andes to fetch silver, got here again with ‘gold’. And potatoes went viral across the food network.
The sailors back with maize and potatoes for their trip across seas and ended up planting the tuber within the British Isles.
And the Brits fucking adored it. They went so gaga over the root that quickly it became probably the most consumed food item in their inventory they usually just had to carry it around with them on their missions to take over the rest of the world. By way of early 17th Century, the Europeans had helped potatoes diffuse throughout Asia, panning across China, India and many, many other areas.
But the Indians only really took to the meals when the Portuguese shared it with our colonies.
Such was the trend for potatoes that by the time the British had colonised India, the Portuguese would be their main suppliers of the root and in India, the Europeans had been their main customers, kind of refusing to share it with the common people. I assume the old Portuguese colonialists like potato peddlers of their time, teaching the common Indian folk tips on how to farm the food, dealing under the table and all that jazz.
The first Indian potato farms were planted on the terraced slopes of Dehradun, around 1830.
The late Dr. K T. Achaya documented in his book ‘A Historical Dictionary of Indian Food’ that potatoes in India were first accepted only by Europeans after which by the Muslims. Nevertheless, it used to be the Dutch that quite introduced the culture of potatoes to India, helping us plant a few of our first ever potato farms for local consumption. And that my friends are why you know them as batata in these days; the Portuguese/Spanish word for the tuber.
Four centuries, a colonisation and 8 regional centres of the Central Potato Research Institute later, India now has over 1,200 potato varieties and have produced 40 high yielding ones. Apart from which, we are part of the global group that is sequencing the genome of the potato, which has 12 chromosomes and 840 million alphabets in its DNA sequence. I’m no longer too certain what all this implies, but it surely sounds like our potatoes are bloody delicious, and the best in the world.
East or West, India’s batatas are the best.
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