1. Thousands of years of hard work digging into the soil have given Chinese farmers their perseverance, and also endowed them with a unique sense of humor. The hard work of facing the loess and turning their backs to the sky is self-deprecating by them as "digging for food."

".

However, if you insist on being literal, there is not much food that is actually dug out of the soil.

Among the “unearthed” foods, radish and carrots are one major category, and another major category is potatoes.

In Chinese, the earliest word for "potato" should refer to yam, the consumption of which has a history of three thousand years in China.

Although potatoes have been introduced to China in the Ming Dynasty, and the name "Potato" has been recorded in the Kangxi period, there are still only two explanations for the word "Potato" in the "Kangxi Dictionary", one is Dioscorea and the other is "Potato".

The vulgar writing of the word.

"Potato" refers to sugar cane, and yam is the ancient name for yam.

In order to avoid the taboo of Tang Dynasty Emperor Li Yu, the Tang Dynasty changed the homophone word "裣" to "medicine", and "Dioscorea" became "Yaoyao".

Unexpectedly, another Song Yingzong, Zhao Shu, came out of the Song Dynasty, and the "potato medicine" was renamed "yam" again.

After potatoes were introduced to China, they were named potatoes because they resembled the bells on horses' necks and were similar to yams. The parts buried underground were eaten.

In fact, these two things can be said to be unrelated.

Yams belong to the Dioscoreaceae family and are eaten as tubers; potatoes are from the Solanaceae family and are eaten as tubers.

Except for yams, several other types of potatoes that look very similar to potatoes have not existed in China since ancient times.

Taro (taro) belongs to the Araceae family, native to South Asia, and was introduced to China relatively early.

Sweet potatoes and yam, like potatoes, are native to South America. Before the discovery of the New World, these foods were unknown to Eurasian countries.

But these types of yams are not as similar as they look. Sweet potatoes belong to the Convolvulaceae family, and cassava belongs to the Euphorbiaceae family.

Just from these types of potatoes, which appear to be similar but yet different in appearance, we can get a glimpse of the plant diversity of the Americas.

2. Potatoes changed history. Chinese people who left their hometown will never forget the delicacies of their hometown no matter where they go.

However, people who love potatoes are aware that the most common potatoes on the North American market are very delicious.

Especially in Canada, the climate is cold, the summer sunshine hours in high latitudes are extremely long, and the land is vast and fertile, making it an excellent source of high-quality potatoes.

Although Canada's potato production is less than 5% of that of China, the leader in the ranking, and only ranks 15th in the world, its export volume of fresh potatoes follows China, ranking 5th in the world.

In addition, Canada also exports large quantities of frozen potatoes and seed potatoes, two of which China barely exports.

Climatic conditions often play an important role in determining crop yields, but this does not apply to potatoes.

The land does not distinguish between east and west, and the weather does not matter whether it is hot or cold, potatoes can be produced in large quantities all over the world.

What determines potato production more than climatic conditions is population—China and India, the most populous countries, occupy the top two potato rankings.

Comparing the most populous countries with the countries with the highest potato production, the two lists are strikingly similar.

Among the top ten most populous countries, only Indonesia, Mexico and Nigeria are not among the potato-producing countries, and two of these three countries import large quantities of potatoes from Canada.

The close relationship between potatoes and human beings is actually nothing new.

Today it is difficult for us to imagine a world without potatoes.

This is not only because potatoes can be made into potato chips that everyone loves and hates but can’t stop eating. The more important reason is that potatoes directly affected the trajectory of world history after the 18th century.

As early as thousands of years ago, Indians living in the Andes Mountains (Cordillera de los Andes in Spanish) in what is today Peru began to cultivate potatoes and developed many different varieties to adapt to the different climatic conditions in each region.

But no one else in the world had seen this plant until Spanish navigators arrived in South America in the 1530s.

But once potatoes arrived from South America to Europe, things got out of hand. This humble food buried in the soil quickly occupied every corner of the world with its wide adaptability.

The direct consequence is that the world's population has increased dramatically at an unprecedented rate since then, and urbanization has accelerated everywhere, and the average height of the adult population has increased significantly.

It can be said that potatoes contributed most to the explosive growth of the world's economic aggregate in the 18th and 19th centuries.

Before the 16th century, the world's population basically maintained a relatively stable level. The population decreased when encountering wars and plagues, and increased in good years. However, the total did not change drastically from 1000 to 1500 AD, until potatoes changed this.

everything.

This happens because the nutritional value of potatoes is unmatched.

Whether it is rice and wheat commonly eaten in Eurasia, or corn and sweet potatoes, which are also from the Americas, the calories provided per unit crop are far lower than potatoes.

Not only that, if people eat rice and noodles alone for a long time, they will not have enough protein and vitamins, and the nutrition will be unbalanced.

But potatoes can provide almost all the nutrients needed by the human body, including a variety of high-quality proteins and vitamins that other food crops cannot provide.

Another very important advantage of potatoes is that they require far less cultivation area than other food crops.